Top 100 CEO Interviews
Issue No. 25 - October/November 2005
Top 100 Trains and automobiles – what next?
Intercast & Forge is Australia’s largest independent iron foundry group with two plants, one in Adelaide, South Australia and the other in Sydney, New South Wales.
The group operates three Disamatic vertical moulding machines and produces nearly 40,000 tonnes of castings per annum.
Intercast & Forge is also Australia’s premier cold and warm Forge producing 4,000 tonnes per annum from presses up to 1,270 tonnes.
The stated company objective is to grow profitably by becoming the preferred supplier of highly engineered, cast, forged and sintered products to the international automotive, rail and industrial markets.
The company was established in January 2000 following a move by Australian investors to acquire the bulk of the casting and forging assets previously owned and operated by the British based BTR Group within Australia. The major shareholder is Australian Mezzanine Investments Pty Limited, Australia's leading venture capital company.
The company now operates from two sites: a newly developed foundry at Wingfield in South Australia, and a combined foundry, forge, sintering and machining operation at Seven Hills in New South Wales.
Dr Geoff Blomfield reports a significant increase in sales at Intercast, by 11% in volume to $142 million. Traditionally the bulk of Intercast’s production has been exported, notably in the automotive and rail transport sectors. Customers are in the USA, UK, France and lately, Syria.
Winning the contract to supply parts for Mitsubishi’s new champion, the 380, was a coup, but Geoff draws equal satisfaction from the fact that Intercast is contracted to all three major Australian car makers — on a new Holden model from July 2006 and a new Toyota thereafter.
“New components absorb a lot of development time,” Geoff says. “We work with customers from the design stage, ‘tweaking’ the project so the product is easier and quicker to manufacture.
