AstralPool commits $45m to Aussie manufacturing

In an endorsement of the future of Australian manufacturing, AstralPool Australia has commenced construction of a new $35 million factory, and committed to a further $10 million in new plant and relocation costs.

AstralPool Australia managing director Peter Wallace describes the new factory as a generational move, designed to support their local manufacturing for the next 25 years.

While the existing factory in Melbourne’s Noble Park is currently the largest swimming pool equipment manufacturing facility in the country, the new factory will be nearly twice as big and designed for leaner, more streamlined processing.

Hurlcon moved into the 12,000m2 Noble Park factory in 2000, six years prior to its acquisition by Fluidra and its renaming to AstralPool Australia. The move was forced on Hurlcon by a factory fire which had devastated their previous facility, and they needed a large space that could quickly become operational. As a consequence, the factory they chose was very old with a lot of internal walls that prevented them from getting good flows in the manufacturing process.

Fluidra has now allowed them to commit to a brand new 21,000m2 factory which is currently being built in Keysborough in Melbourne, not far from the existing premises.

“One of our key objectives in choosing a new factory was to keep our existing staff,” says Wallace. “There’s a pool of knowledge there that takes years to recover if you lose your staff. We’re right off the eastern ring road, so it’s far easier to get to for most of our staff and probably closer to where most of them live.”

As part of the move, AstralPool will upgrade some of their plant and equipment, including building a new $5m injection-moulded high-density plastic filter line.

“We’re looking at this as a generational move,” says Wallace. “In other words, we’ve got a very very large investment in manufacturing and a lot of equipment to move, and the move itself will cost nearly $5m, so it’s not something we can do every ten years. So the goal is to set ourselves up for 25 years. The whole purpose of it is to get very lean, and commit to Australian manufacturing for that period of time.”

The move has been planned so there will be no impact on supply to AstralPool customers.

Wallace says the construction and move will take approximately 12 months, and he expects to be operating from the facility by July next year.

There is more on this story in the upcoming printed issue of SPLASH! - Edition 101.