Patience and Fortitude Down Under

Long-standing Primafila Australia correspondent Garry Barker reflects on some cardinal virtues that apply to both journalism and manufacturing.

Text: Garry Barker
Photos: Robert Shakespeare

When I began in journalism quite some time ago – when newspapers were immensely wealthy and well before the Internet, television, and hurricanes of change rendered so many of them destitute – I was assigned to the mentor care of a tiny Scotsman who, aside from an encyclopedic knowledge of single malt Scotch whisky, was an exceptionally good crime reporter. He would seize a story, dig into it and sometimes spend months on such excavation of facts. His first lesson to me was on how to gather information: “Keep your eyes and ears open and learn to recognise the truth. Talk to everyone but trust nobody.”

I suppose in dealings with criminals, and possibly also lawyers, care in sifting through what they tell you is justified. In my current life I deal with scientists, engineers, and technologists, most of whom are more than happy to explain what they do. Of course there are also business issues and it’s here that finding the facts is a little more difficult.

So I work on the principles of patience, fortitude, and prudence, two of which were among the four cardinal virtues that have been followed in Europe for centuries. So, armed once again with those badges on my shield I ankled off through the dust clouds of industry to discover what, in these testing times, was going on.

It’s All in the Niche

Australian manufacturing has been badly hit by the rise of China and to a lesser, but increasing, extent, by Vietnam and Thailand. We lost our automotive industry – Ford, Toyota, and General Motors-Holden’s – to Europe and Asia. We could not compete on scale or price and 50,000 jobs were lost. We are now working on how to turn 50-year-old spray painters into baristas and nurses. Not easy.

At the same time, however, it was clear that some Australian manufacturers were continuing to do well by finding niches in the world markets where their particular skills were rare and where those, added to meticulous attention to quality, efficiency, and service put them ahead of their competition.

Buying the Best

Digga, a Queensland company, about which I wrote for Primafila’s client, Bystronic, a Swiss engineering company so good that nobody in their right mind would consider competing with it, was a case in point. It was because Digga, which has always bought the best, (central to their business model) buys Bystronic equipment.

Digga’s story starts in 1981 when Stewart Wright, still the owner with his partner Suzie Wright, now the CEO, began business while living in a caravan in Brisbane and contacting clients via the telephone box across the street. Today they have factories across Australia and in the US and Britain. They dominate the world in production of planetary gearboxes used on heavy earthmoving and construction and they make, and sell worldwide, a wide range of other earthmoving machinery.

Prudence and Fortitude (Again)

All that takes me back to prudence and fortitude. A couple of years ago Digga’s main factory in Yatala, 40 km south of Brisbane, suffered a disastrous fire. It was completely destroyed. Lesser management would have taken the insurance money and retired to a sweet life on the Gold Coast. The Stewarts would have nothing of that and almost before the ashes had cooled were renting factory space and engaging other engineering firms. Not a single order on the books was delayed, even in the first week after the fire.

The ability to do that was fuelled by prudence – the long-term planning for almost any eventuality and the insistence on hiring top line people, such as production manager Peter Moody who led a team of workers prepared to toil 60 hours a week to get the company working again. And that was fortitude.

Australia needs both, in big measure, right now.