Case Studies
Issue No. 9 - February/March 2003
Green Bros
Tooling Up for New Markets
Adelaide-based patternmakers, Green Bros, know a thing or two about turning. After all, they’ve been at it for close on 20 years, under their company maxim ‘turning ideas into reality’.
The firm was founded by current directors Bill and Jeff Green as a family business in 1984. Now, Green Bros has just completed its greatest assignment—turning a traditional pattern making business into a technologically advanced ‘one-stop-shop’ for the modelling, design and project management needs of the automotive, aerospace and resource industries. Doors have opened to new markets across Australia and beyond.
As company CEO Roger Dedrick explains, the new-look business is on the joint venture trail in China, plans are afoot to capitalise on potential wind farm developments in SA, and a bundle of interstate business has been attracted to Green Bros’ Regency Park facility.
At the heart of the turnaround, Roger says, is the company’s investment in people and technology, which has accounted for “a doubling of turnover, an employee increase from nine to more than 30, a substantial boost to after-tax profit to 30 June 2002, and an outlook for continuing compound growth advantages to all company stakeholders, including employees.”
These developments precede Green Bros’ move into China’s burgeoning automotive market, planned for the first quarter of 2003. Green Bros’ participation in a mid-2002 Austrade mission to China prompted a subsequent visit to Adelaide in December 2002 by Chinese joint venture partner, Unigenius, which produced a Memorandum of Understanding. The joint venture was sealed during Roger’s January 2003 trip to China.
Software developer, Unigenius’ products include the Cimatron range of CAD/CAM software for designing moulds and dies—it holds the sole distributorship for eastern China—and Data Service, a package that offers modelling, mould design, insert and electrod...
