Warialda Engineering & Welding has added to their track record of accolades with the recent runner’s up status in the Beefex IAP Innovators Awards on October 13 for the company’s latest invention, the Cable Coil.
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The design is a one of a suite catering for the agricultural sector by the Indigenous-owned business, and more specifically the feedlot industry to address issues of efficiency and workplace safety.
“(It’s) fixing a problem of posts getting cut by cable in the feedlot cattle industry,” company owner and director Mick Davis said.
“What happens is you might put a post in, and the replacement value of replacing that post against putting this simple little uni on there, it’s worked out very time and cost efficient.”
It’s a rare bridesmaid moment for the 18-staff strong, family-owned company which has enjoyed a string of state and national industry awards for inventions stretching back 19 years, including the Davis Starlifter, the Davis Bagmate, and the Ropey
They were finalists in the 2014 Ethnic Business Awards, and are currently one of 12 finalists out of 500 nominations for the same award this year.
Mr Davis said all products the company produces come from a recognised need from years working nationally with the beef feedlot industry. “I started back in ‘97 with the Davis Starlifter; that was my first invention, and these are all inventions that we either took through to a patent or a design right,” Mr Davis said.
The simple mechanism won the Ag Quip Farm Inventor of the Year in 1997, and came runner-up in the nationals at Orange and the BHP Steel Awards, where the modest-sized company came second to Stadium Australia.
The Starlifter, which pulls star pickets and lifts logs was born from a need for identified better workplace safety, and a challenge. Invention comes naturally to Mr Davis, who accepted a query from an Inverell businessman years ago, to design a device to lift logs. In-between jobs, training as a shearer, and looking for opportunity, he created the Starlifter.
“So that sort of made the penny drop, and I sort of went on from there,” he said. “But I think it stems right back to my father.” His father gave him a gearbox and selection of spanners at and the youth was hooked.
“I think this is where my inventive talents come from is this,” he said. From steelworks, the company is now creating cast concrete pads and items specifically for the feedlot industry.