By Casey Neill
A golf buggy builder is bailing on China and Sydney and swinging into Dandenong, bringing almost 200 jobs with it.
Concourse Golf is relocating its manufacturing from China and its head office from Sydney.
Founder and managing director David MacKay said the dollars savings from manufacturing overseas were “a bit of a myth”.
“I’ve got to physically go over there regularly to make sure things are done the way that I want to do it,” he said.
“You’ve got to employ a separate firm outside of the factory to make sure the quality is there.
“To get real value you’ve got to have really big numbers and starting out, we don’t want to make 5000 units in our first run.”
Mr MacKay also said manufacturing in Australia made a lot of sense.
He wanted to have his research and development team as close as possible to the manufacturing process.
“You’ve got to have those teams working really closely together,” he said.
“Another reason is protection of our intellectual property.
“We’ve really spent a lot of time and money putting this together.
“Having that off-shore out of our hands, that’s a concern for us.”
Mr MacKay said “quality is king”.
“We’ve made enough product overseas to realise that when you have small assembly and manufacturing errors, they cost you dearly,” he said.
“If we’ve got them here, we’re a lot better chance of having them done properly and any errors, we can fix them straight away.”
He wanted to create Australian jobs and use ex-auto industry workers.
“That tag of having it Australian made rather than made in China has got some benefit as well,” he said.
Mr Noonan said Concourse’s move would create 198 new jobs by 2020 in manufacturing, design and product development.
“It will allow us and allow the business to tap into ex-auto workers who will be looking for new opportunities come the end of car manufacturing in Victoria later this year,” he said.
Mr MacKay announced that SRX would make its newest product, Smart Wheels, during a visit by Industry and Employment Minister Wade Noonan and Dandenong MP Gabrielle Williams to the Concourse Golf team at SRX Global Australia’s Kitchen Road factory in Dandenong on Tuesday 16 May.
“Within the hubs of each wheel we have motors, lithium batteries, sensors, processors, gyroscopes…” he said.
“These wheels are now able to talk to each other, and they’re able to talk to an app, to your phone or to a dedicated control.
“For golfers it makes for much better on-course performance and a lot more compact and better-performing buggy all-round.
“But the application for these wheels go well beyond golf.
“They talk to each other via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and this enables mobility opportunities within the disability sector.
“We’re looking forward to the launch of the first wheels coming out of this very factory in December this year.”
Concourse and SRX are also working with DNI and Procept on the Smart Wheels.
Golfer Montana Strauss demonstrates the Concourse golf buggy.
