One of the biggest employers in the Inverell region has not suffered during the pandemic and is doing better in 2020 than it has during the past few years.
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BOSS Engineering was formed in 2007 by Peter Mansur, Dan Ryan, Andrew English and Michael Grills to produce truck bodies but market demands resulted in the company servicing the growing agriculture and transport sectors.
The site now includes nine sheds, with 29,000 square metres of shed space, four industrial laser cutters and ten robot welders.
"Over the years BOSS Engineering has adopted the latest engineering and manufacturing techniques," Mr Grills said.
"We now employ 107 people including 12 apprentices - which is the biggest intake of apprentices we have had to date.
"Certainly COVID hasn't affected us too much - if anything it has made us change some procedures, and implement better sanitising, and some of that is probably a good thing."
During the drought, the company had a downturn for about two years when it shrank down to 86 employees.
"A lot of farmers didn't grow a crop during that period," Mr Grills said.
"We got a lot quieter but we didn't have to put anyone off during that time.
"We had a couple of people leave and we didn't replace them because we shared resources across all areas, but we didn't have to make anyone redundant - which was great.
"Now it's rained and the farmers have been able to plant a winter crop which is just being harvested now - so hopefully we get some dry weather to continue with the harvest, which is a change of scenery after wanting rain.
"There is a better outlook with orders now and we have been able to employ more people - including our trainees."
About 80 per cent of the company's business comes from the agriculture sector and one of those orders was fulfilled on Wednesday in Moree.
"We delivered the first of our newest product today ( a 36-metre fold-forward planter ) and the next one is being delivered in Mungandi next week," Mr Grills said.
"The special part of the new machine for us is that traditional fold-forward planters transfer a lot of weight onto the tractor when they are folded, which makes them really hard to road travel, whereas this one has a mechanism where the wheels slide forward on the planter so that only a portion of the weight is on the tractor and the rest is carried on the planter wheels.
"It also has lots of configurable row spacings so it can plant both summer and winter crops with multiple row unit options."
More than a decade since it opened, the range of agriculture products BOSS Engineering now offers is vast, and with about five locally manufacturing major competitors and numerous internationally based ones, this gives the company its competitive edge.
"We are very customised and we build what the farmer wants, so we do a lot of different configurations but basically we have 14 row-units and 10 frame styles that can be reconfigured," Mr Grills said.
"The 36-metre fold-forward planter came out of a farmer's need about four years ago, so it has been on our wish list for when we had time to develop it, and this year was the year. My business partner Andrew English designed it."
Mr Grills said generally the team at BOSS try to develop something every year.
"Much of this comes from the different farming needs as we spread into other markets in different areas of Australia," he said.
"Last year was the first time we sold into South Australia, and this year we have two or three more orders going there off the back of those sales.
"We started selling into Western Australia four years ago and we have four machines going there this year.
"That probably drives our new product development because different areas of Australia require different machines depending on soil type, rainfall and the type of crops grown."
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Most of these new markets have opened up to the company after BOSS was approached by farmers from there Mr Grill said.
"People come to BOSS because of existing customers word of mouth," he said.
"Farmers are very clever and very progressive in Australia.
"They can't afford not to have the best planting and seeding equipment because of our dry climate - you only get one chance."