FROM THE MINISTER FOR MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY

DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 2000


MORE GOOD NEWS IN MANUFACTURING


Manufacturing Industry Minister, Rob Hulls, has welcomed a $10 million contract between Bendigo-based Company, Ortech, and a North American enterprise.

The deal involves a unique Australian developed manufacturing technology, for the processing of wheat straw into versatile and durable construction boards (known as Easiboard in Australia).

Easiboard will be used in housing, commercial partitions, door cores, highway sound barriers and various building systems throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Ortech Industries export endeavours have benefited significantly from the support provided by the Bracks Government’s Office of Manufacturing, Austrade and the City of Bendigo’s Regional Economic Development Unit.

Mr Hulls said he’d been impressed by Ortech’s operations during a recent visit to Bendigo.

“For a regional company such as Ortech to secure a $10 million contract with the North American market is great news for the Victorian economy,” Mr Hulls said.

Bob Cameron, Member for Bendigo West and Minister for Local Government, said the contract was a major win for Bendigo.

“It could open all sorts of doors and provide investment opportunities in the future, as well as providing jobs in Bendigo in the present,” Mr Cameron said.

The unique Easiboard extrusion manufacturing process is 100 per cent environmentally friendly and uses no chemical binders, therefore producing no toxic waste.

One tonne of straw fibre waste product (usually left in the field and burnt after harvest) produces 50 square metres of Easiboard.

The contract signing means a minimum of three Easiboard manufacturing plants will be built in Australia, and then dismantled and shipped to North America where they will be reassembled. This will result in 15 new jobs in Bendigo in the short term, and up to 60 long term.

Ortech’s Managing Director, Derek Layfield, said the contract provided an encouraging opportunity for machine fabricating suppliers in Bendigo.

“As the world’s population grows larger and natural resources grows smaller, the global race is on to develop environmentally sustainable products that can be manufactured from currently wasted resources,” Mr Layfield said.

“There is a very strong support movement in North America in relation to environmentally sound manufacturing technologies.”

Ortech’s American partners have viewed Ortech Easiboard products and building systems technology as “the right product at the right time”.

Mr Layfield said the current shortages in America’s booming economy of both housing and other building materials was at crisis level.

“Easiboard will be used as a substitute for traditional wall construction, comprising timber frame and plasterboard sheeting in domestic housing,” he said.

U.S. experts have calculated that it takes 18 acres of wheat straw (that is replaceable each year) to build one 18 square house.

It takes the equivalent of one acre of clear-cut forest (that is replaceable every thirty years) to do the same job.

Ortech Industries has developed a wide range of building systems for use in commercial, industrial and residential applications, that combine the Easiboard Panels with galvanised steel and aluminium support systems for use throughout the construction industry.

Easiboard Building Systems have recently been used in the following major projects:

· Main Media Olympic Press Centre Homebush – more than nine kilometres of partition walls.

· Melbourne’s new Multi Purpose Venue Project – Acoustic Ceilings.

· New Multi User Domestic Airline Terminal at Tullamarine airport – Acoustic ceiling and wall lining.

· Prototype Housing Reconstruction Project, Dili, East Timor

· Philippines; Mass Housing Program; Field Hospitals and School Buildings


The first Ortech North American plant will be commissioned at Whitewright, Texas, in February 2001.