LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN
05-08-2020
Author: Rob Siganto
Welcome to the 4th edition of The Edge.
The last few months have been unpredictable with the fires in Australia causing major loss and just as we started to see a reprieve, we now have the Coronavirus in China threatening continuous disruption to the global economy. Even though 2020 has been a shaky start we are looking forward to a big year ahead.
Our engineering capabilities in both our people and software will be a big focus for us in 2020. Dr Thanuja Ranawaka will be leading our engineering team and will be joined by Dr Hari Magarabooshanam who also recently completed his PhD in Structural Fire Engineering at Queensland University of Technology. Both Thanuja and Hari have studied under Professor Mahen Mahendran who is highly regarding in the light gauge steel industry in Australia. Read the report from Thanuja in this newsletter where she documents her results from testing and analysis of “Strap bracing vs K bracing”.
Software training for existing customers is also a big focus in 2020 with a commitment to provide a larger schedule of training around the world to our global customer base. We have run refresher training sessions in Brisbane in November 2019 and February 2020 and have now released dates for seven other training weeks for existing customers around the globe through out the rest of the year.
The manufacturing team have completed the development of the new “End Bearing” feature on our roll forming machines. This allows the stud to sit flush with the bottom and top track when manufacturing wall frames increasing significantly the current connection capacity.
We now have staff in both South Africa and Argentina, South America that are able to work on support and services. This complemented by our teams in Australia and New Zealand enable us to provide 24 hour around the clock support to our customers. We are finalising the terms of a similar model in the USA and will announce the details in the next quarter.
In January we announced our new partnership with Luca Industries who provide a lightweight Infill concrete product. Read ahead for more details on how we plan to work together and complement each other’s product.
I am really looking forward to meeting those who can make it to our inaugural Scottsdale User Forum in Brisbane in March. So far, we have 27 people from 16 companies in 10 countries plus our speakers and our Scottsdale crew. The purpose is to get our Scottsdale network of fabricators together for an information sharing session where we can hear from each other’s stories, wins, issues, challenges, industry trends, what is working etc. The theme is “Collaborate and Knowledge Share”.
As always, we welcome the opportunity to get in contact so we can better understand your company’s plans and challenges so we can develop strategic recommendations specific to your business. Let’s change the conversation and start discussing how Scottsdale can grow your business and increase your profitability.
rob.siganto@scottsdalesteelframes.com
