Bus body manufacturer Volgren has ramped up production at its Brisbane factory, adding 45 new staff to handle a major order from Transport Canberra

BUS body manufacturer Volgren has ramped up production and employed more staff at its Brisbane factory after winning a new contract.

BUS body manufacturer Volgren has ramped up production at its Brisbane factory, adding 45 new staff to handle a major order from Transport Canberra.

Volgren won the contract late last year to produce an additional 30 buses this year.

It already has a long-term contract with Brisbane City Council to manufacture 60 or so bus bodies annually.

Volgren CEO Peter Dale said the company, which now employs 88 workers at its Eagle Farm factory in Brisbane, was on track to deliver 20 low-floor rigid and 10 articulated “banana” buses to Canberra by the end of September.

“Queensland is an important part of our manufacturing capability and we’re proud that the facility is now producing buses not just for Brisbane, but for a critical market in the ACT,” he said.

“It’s exciting to see two full production lines running in Eagle Farm.”

He said the Brisbane City Council had also ordered 20 of the articulated buses this year.

Melbourne-based Volgren, which is owned by Brazilian bus manufacturing giant Marcopolo, employs 500 workers nationally at three factories.

The skilled workforce, which includes welders, boilermakers, body builders and electricians, turns out about 550 buses a year.

The chassis come from Swedish manufacturer Scania.

“Across our three manufacturing sites in Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane we have the flexibility and expertise to comfortably satisfy high delivery demands from operators all around the country,” Mr Dale said.

“In the last five years we’ve completely transformed the business by adopting smarter and more efficient manufacturing techniques, which have helped halve the time it takes to build a bus.

“We set the target of building a bus body in 500 hours, which at the time was hard for employees to conceive. But training people at all levels of the business to question process efficiency and to look for opportunities to save time or costs meant we were able to achieve the goal in just four years.”

Mr Dale is hopeful the Brisbane factory will pick up more orders from Transport Canberra providing longer-term employment opportunities for staff. “We know they need more and we are in the hunt for that ongoing work,” he said.