Battery maker CenturyYuasa powers ahead as leading local manufacturer

BRISBANE’S southern industrial heartland may have been hit by outsourcing and cheap imports over the years but things are looking up for Australia’s only manufacturer of batteries for the auto market.

Joel Greaves working at the Carole Park-based CenturyYuasa factory. Picutre: Jono Searle.

JENNY Franks is a factory worker and proud of it.

For the best part of 40 years, Ms Franks has been employed by the CenturyYuasa battery factory in Brisbane’s southern industrial heartland where manufacturing for the past few decades has been hit by outsourcing and cheap imports.

“I just love to be involved in manufacturing and love the people here,” Ms Franks, who started at Century in 1976 as a stock controller, said.

Ms Franks is now the production co-ordinator at the factory, which each year produces 1.1 million batteries for everything from cars and trucks to boats and forklifts.

After a few lean years, things are looking up for Century, which employs 120 people at its Carole Park facility and is the country’s only manufacturer of batteries for the auto market.

According to the Queensland Productivity Commission, manufacturing contributes about $20 billion to the Queensland economy each year and employs up to 168,800 people. But the commission, which is currently conducting an inquiry into Queensland manufacturing, warns the sector has faced many challenges including the transition from cheap labour manufacturing to skill-based technological manufacturing.

Jenny Franks at the CenturyYuasa factory. Picture: Jono Searle

Century, which is an affiliate of Japan’s giant GS Yuasa Corp, has recently invested $4 million in new equipment as it launched new sealed, maintenance-free batteries and looked at expanding into overseas markets such as New Zealand. CenturyYuasa general manager of operations, Matthieu Anquetil, said cheap imports were a threat, but the company’s focus on building batteries for Australian conditions was paying off.

“If you are looking at manufacturing as a commodity, we do not have the scale of a foreign competitor that is making 15 million batteries,” Mr Anquetil said.

“There is no way we can compete with that. We need to be competitive on quality.”

CenturyYuasa is also Australia’s oldest battery manufacturer beginning from a factory in Alexandria, Sydney, back in 1928.

Nationwide it employs more than 650 people involved in research and development, manufacturing, sales and distribution. For Neil Bichel, the factory’s leading hand and training co-ordinator, Century has provided 17 years of regular work for his family.

Each day Mr Bichel oversees the arrival at the factory of 55 million tonnes of lead pellets that are melted down to be made into the plates that form the basic components of a lead acid battery. Every week the plates placed end-to-end would cover the distance from Brisbane to Perth and back.

“I used to have my own bread run business but I like the hours here,” Mr Bichel, whose son Tim also works at the factory, said.

Earlier this year, the company kicked-off a national television campaign featuring sporting stars Matthew Hayden and Andrew Ettingshausen extolling the company’s 89-year history of manufacturing in Australia.

CenturyYuasa general manager of corporate services Malcolm Gray said medium-sized manufacturers like CenturyYuasa did not receive as much government support as small ones.

The company supplies batteries to car makers such as Toyota and Ford as well as retailers Super Cheap Auto, Repco and Battery World.

“You must keep investing,” Mr Gray said.

“ We are proud that we employ 120 factory workers in a low socio-economic area who would not otherwise have a job.” While some processes have been automated at Century Yuasa, including the recent installation of a battery stacking robotic arm that workers call ‘Robbie’, Mr Anquetil said that had not been at the expense of jobs for its mainly local workforce.

Father and son Tim and Neil Bichel. Picture: Jono Searle.

He said that while labour costs were high in Australia, other countries that had substantial manufacturing sectors faced the same pressure.

“In manufacturing, you need to think outside the box and have a sense of urgency,” he said.

For Century, that has meant investment in the development of new maintenance-free battery techno-logies for the rapidly changing auto market.

“Car manufacturers are now putting batteries in the boot rather than under the bonnet so it is a matter of out-of-sight, out-of-mind,” he said. “There also is an increasing number of stop-start cars that require special batteries.”

Mr Anquetil said CenturyYuasa’s Japanese partner had been crucial in supporting the factory, especially in the area of research and development.