Family-owned Geelong Bates Pipes and Products is approaching a three-decade milestone of providing a one-stop shop service to large infrastructure clients, including Vic Roads and John Holland.
Corio-based GMC-member Bates specialises in reinforced concrete pipes, box culverts and crown units.
Its products have been used in Armstrong Creek as well as in areas such as Gippsland, and during flood recovery efforts in New South Wales and Queensland.
Five years ago, the team of around 50 built a 2100 square metre factory for a new ePak 150 packerhead machine, which was commissioned in March 2019.
Purchased from the US, it increased capacity as much as ten-fold, and that capacity is fully utilised.
“We lashed out and bought a brand new, state of the art machine from America and it’s been flat out ever since. That pretty much increased our capacity by about 10 times, so a massive increase, and that’s been taken up,” Operations Manager Ben Bates tells GMC.
“Since we did the big upgrade we’ve been flat out. It pretty much hasn’t stopped.”
The ePak, from Afinitas, casts the pipe vertically rather than the original horizontal “wet spin” method used since Mr Bates founded the business in 1995 with his father Bob – now 83 and still on site at every chance — after finishing a Structural civil engineering degree.
“We saw a need in the market in Geelong in the Western District for concrete pipes. So we set up, went out on a limb and started a small concrete pipe factory, and it’s just grown. It’s been a great opportunity for us to capitalise on that growth corridor,” Mr Bates said.
Wet spin requires a mould for every pipe set on horizontal rollers to use centrifugal force to push the concrete to the outside.
The new ePak uses a drycast method, producing pipe that can be demolded and moved. The all-electric machine is also energy efficient. Camera systems enable the operator to remotely control the process, and software algorithms automatically perform micro-adjustments. The new machine has also lifted the maximum diameter on offer from 900 mm to1500 mm.
Pipe production makes up around 40% of Bates’ business, with box culverts, wingwalls, precast drainage pits and covers, custom products, and other infrastructure products representing the balance.
Stormwater drainage for infrastructure and subdivision is the mainstay of the business, with precast concrete products for the civil infrastructure market the focus.
“They are constantly adding new ones, or they’re upgrading,” says Mr Bates.
The concrete pipes and culverts have a 100-year design life, and a point of difference is the ability to supply a whole package.
“We can do the precast pits, the pipes, the culverts, the covers — the whole lot. So we try and do projects as a complete package, a one-stop shop setup,” Mr Bates says. “And we’re not corporate, we’re more of a family business where you can actually get to someone and talk to them. We find that very important in our industry, whereas the bigger mobs go to call centres with no personalised touch.”
The team supplies all over Victoria, as well as NSW and into South Australia, making up to around 50,000 tonne of products a year.
Efforts to increase capacity even further are planned.
“We’re doing some upgrades shortly which will increase that again. I can’t see it slowing down,” Mr Bates says. “Every subdivision has a stormwater drainage network, and there are always upgrades.”