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Welcome to Engineering Success! This NTP podcast features some of the brightest engineering and manufacturing minds in the Hunter region and beyond. Join us for insightful conversations with the folks behind the region's most exciting projects.
We'll dive into their career stories, the challenges they've faced, and the awesome tech they're working on. Whether you're in the industry or just curious, Engineering Success will give you a peek into the vibrant world of local engineering and manufacturing. Tune in and get inspired!
Thanks for joining me today on the NewyTechPeople Engineering podcast. My name is Mel Sietsma, and I am the senior engineering consultant within the Nui tech people team. Today I have the pleasure of being joined by Luke Dawson, who's the managing director from Safeguage, who is joining me all the way from Arizona.
Welcome, Luke. Hi, Mel. Yeah, thanks for the invite and look forward to a good conversation.
Awesome. So, Luke, I'd like to share your career journey with everyone. Could you give me an overview of your current role, where you come from, and I guess a bit of a career to date kind of journey? Yeah, sure.
Originally. So actually, currently, as you are. So my current role, as you mentioned, is managing director of safeguage.
Started the company about five years ago now. So it's the start of 2019. It was my second business, and kind of where I started in the mining industry was as a plant mechanic with Westrack when I was 17.
Lucky enough to get an apprenticeship first starting. Didn't really know anything about mining or mechanical or anything. I just found it really helpful, I guess, in many ways in my life, and really threw myself into it.
And where that led me was after six years with Westrack, I decided to start another company to contract and then from then started safegage in 2019. It's led me into where we are today, and we're in a great position in the industry with the team we have and the products that we've developed. I guess the most important thing about that is the problems that they solve.
And I guess they're not just products or tools that are used, but they solve a real problem and help people work safely. And rarely, the safety products make it more efficient, but we're lucky enough to provide solutions that make us safer and more efficient, which ends up saving the company that we. That use them money as well.
So it's been a bit of a journey over the last five years, but it's been an exciting one and, yeah, learning a lot as we go as well. That's exciting, though, especially when you're now in doing some work in the States as well. So obviously growing outside of Newcastle, too.
Yeah, yeah. So when we first started the first production run, Washington was meant to be early January 2020, and some of those components were coming from China. It's all manufactured, and we're getting it manufactured in Sydney by our provider, Wavetronics.
And because of COVID you know, start of 2020, it threw a bit of a spinner in the works and we had one units that we did demonstrations and we went out on sites and we end up selling. By the time those 50 kits, the first production one was made in mid 2020, we're lucky enough to sell all those 50 kits and kind of get us off the ground. And from there, lucky enough organically, fairly organically.
We grew not just through Australia, but got the attention from some of the big oems. I might not mention any names, but you could probably guess if I say some of the biggest in the world we're now working closely with. So it's put me here into Phoenix, Arizona, not far from Tucson, where we're working with them.
So it's exciting. Cool. And I know you mentioned before, kind of, I guess, wasn't really sure of your initial career direction, but was there something in particular that kind of went, yeah, I want to get a trade or get into engineering and manufacturing? Yeah, originally with a trade.
My brother in law, he was a really good influence as a mechanic. The only, apart from my father actually is a boilermaker. He was the only real trades person in the family.
And at the time, I looked up to him quite a lot and he influenced me to get on the tools and to have a go into the mechanical field. And I'm glad that he did because it led me where I am today. And with safeguage, I really got pulled into it with working on these machines.
I was actually working on a bulldozer and doing quite a common test that involves a bit of risk, and I thought of a better way to do it. And to actually be able to solve that problem, you need engineering and you need the skilled people to turn that concept into a real working solution. So that kind of pulled me into engineering, and I was really lucky to find a.
An engineer and meet Steve chick. He was based in Sydney at the time. He's been specializing in.
He's a very talented and experienced design engineer, and he's responsible for designing the first pt product that we. That really got the company off the ground. So, yeah, yeah, he's taught me a lot, and now we've got, I think it's a team of nine or ten engineers in different fields.
Yeah, it's quite exciting and fulfilling to see them learn and grow as well and I guess a good amount of growth in a recently short period of time as well. It's been quite a lot. Yeah.
Thinking back then, I really wanted to get to where I am quicker, and I thought I would today, and like, I thought I would have been in the states and, you know, growing internationally a lot quicker. But if you look back over the last five years working with Steve and, you know, the next employee was a salesperson and that was just in 2020. And to see us, you know, signing big multi million dollar deals with these international oems and raising capital and attracting the experience and the board that we have, I think it's.
I think, you know, as a team, we've done a really good job. It's pretty cool to look back at and more, so look forward to where else we can take it. Yeah, I think it's important to look back and celebrate the journey as you go and kind of see that growth.
And this may not be a question you're allowed to answer yet, I'm not sure. But is the states like a permanent relocation for you or more of a short term thing? Yeah, originally. So we tried a couple of different things.
So through, through distributors is our model. We're selling through distributors in the states and we've also had a contractor on much earlier on, so we've tried to sort of grow the safeguage North America from Australia, and it just didn't, it wasn't as easy as I guess it might seem and to really make it work and get it off the ground and support the distributors, to actually sell the products and just do everything that we need to, just like we did in Australia, I felt that I really needed to be here, so I'm here indefinitely. I've actually just recently married my wife here.
We were down in Texas, so just last month, and I've got a baby girl on the way as well, so. Oh, wow. With business and family, you know, it's all, it's all happening and that's exciting, though.
Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. And kind of set our roots here in the states.
So, yeah, no time soon, I think I'll go back to Australia, obviously, back and forth with business and things, but, yeah, I think I'll probably be living here for at least. At least a few more years. Yeah.
Cool. I think you've kind of. The next question I had, I feel like we've probably already answered a little bit, but in case you'd like to add any more, I guess, about the clear why behind your venture and the driving purpose behind your work.
I guess where it came from and our real purpose is, if you put it in, it's a common phrase used now, especially in the industry, and it's becoming more and more of a common term, is eliminating live work. And what that means is helping technicians stay safe when they're working on live machinery. Back when I was talking about a bulldozer.
If you're working on a machine that's live, you often have to climb underneath the machine or on top of the machine, connect hydraulic gauges. You need to operate back and forth, measure wear on components, and there's no real way to get away from running the machine. And the real reason for the products and the differences, they're wireless, is to get those technicians out of that line of fire, out of that dangerous situation overall, that's to eliminate live work and to keep technicians safe.
And me being a tech on the ground myself and maintaining the machines just a few years ago, that's the reason why. Yeah, perfect. And I guess a curiosity piece.
Is it just a live reading on the machine or is it feeding through to some other software that you have? So we've got. So we often sell it in kits. So there usually, like, a technician has a kit of different pressure gauges and things and hoses that they plug on different parts of the machine to measure different pump pressures or valves and things.
And what we do is, I guess, replace that hydraulic gauge and hose kit with a pt kit, with pressure transducer kit. And in that kit comes a screen where these sensors you can plug on the different parts of the machine, do the same testing, but it remotely connects to the screen, so you can sit in the safety of the cab or 100 meters away on the ground and do that same testing. So it's a really easy product to use.
And not only does it make it a lot safer by getting that technician out of the line of fire, it makes a lot quicker as well because they can plug them all on at the same time. Don't have the cords and the hoses getting tangled up too much. Stop starting of the machine.
Cool. Did you grow up in Newcastle or was there a reason that you started, decided to start safeguage in Newcastle? Yeah, I grew up in Maitland area, so born into a house in Lochinvar? Yeah, grew up through school, mostly in East Maitland, and then I started my apprenticeship at Mount Thorley with West track. So I've always been in the Hunter region.
Yeah. So, yeah, there's a lot of. Lot of good things about the hunter.
You know, there's a lot of skills and people are quite good to work with and open and collaborative. And I found just working for companies earlier on, I found it good. And also in the business world, in the hunter, everyone's very supportive and collaborative as well.
So, yeah, it's a good area to work in and do business. Any other main advantages of having your industry initially based out of the hunter. Yeah.
So again, just the people in the supportive environment, you know, the HMA, for example, they do a great job on highlighting certain businesses that do a great job in manufacturing. And the programs we originally started back with a melt accelerator program, pre seed, really helped us commercialize that first product as well. Between the awards and the companies that are supportive and the programs that exist as well, it was a good place to do business.
Yeah, I think there's lots of great support as you touched on from the Milton other businesses for startups. Quick pause in this episode. James McDonald here from newly tech people.
Quick update to just say these podcasts are brought to you in collaboration with the Hunter Manufacturing Awards. Hunter Manufacturing awards coming up later this year. And today we have chair Jackie Daly for a quick update with more information.
Thank you, James and the whole team at Newey Tech people. It's wonderful to have you on board as our tech partner for 2024. The awards are coming up over the next couple of months.
The night is the 18 October. Applications are open until the 21 August and we really, really encourage manufacturers in the region to consider applying. It's a really great way to understand more about your business, to see the progress that you've made to build team culture and really celebrate the great things that are happening here in the region.
So often we meet with manufacturers who say that we are the best kept secret in what we actually make. So applying for these awards gives you a really great platform to be able to share with the world what it is that you actually do. And we sure do some great things here in the hunter.
So apply by the 21 August. Those dates are coming around quickly, so get your applications in and we also hope to see you on the night. Thanks Jackie.
Back to your normal listening. Are there any key projects that you're working on at the moment that you'd like to share with us that people may not already know about? We've got a few things. We've got about ten engineers now that we've always got to keep busy.
And there's always new ideas and new features of existing products as well as employing new concepts, which is really cool. We're building a range and a bigger portfolio of different products and it's all around that. Safely maintaining machinery, eliminating live work.
And there's a lot of different areas of that, not just the pressure. We've now got the dial indicator that measures wear. We've got the tachometer that measures fan speed and different speeds on components.
We've recently just launched a linear displacement tool that you can put on all studs when you're doing steering checks on off highway trucks. A slew deflection tool that you can put on the slew ring of an excavator, that all whilst it connects to the multi tool with the screen to do all the reporting and the diagnosis remotely. And, you know, the next thing that I'm quite excited about is the imaging side of things and really removing the technicians out, or the need for them to get under a machine and putting sensors and cameras and different things where humans usually would be, where they can do that remotely.
So an inspection camera is quite a new, exciting one that we're exploring. Yeah, it's much needed and not only helping them do it safely, but you can reduce the amount of people that you need and do it more efficiently as well. That sounds like lots of positive implications in the WHS world.
Yeah, that's good. Is it predominantly open cut mining equipment that you're providing to or other industries as well? To date, it's mostly been open cut, so I'd say maybe 80% thereabouts has all been open cut and maybe 10% underground and the other ten other industries. And the reason for that, it's not intrinsically safe.
So these products are not certified to go underground coal, but underground hard rock they are. So, you know, a lot of the hard rock mines underground can use it, but in the hunter, predominantly thermal coalition, it can't be used underground there, but so mostly open cut. But we're getting more and more traction in the hard rock underground as well.
And the other exciting one as well is new industries. So you've got anything with machinery which involves a lot of different areas. So you got like agriculture, even marine forestry, construction, even defense as well.
So there's a lot of new opportunities and it was quite exciting if once we're at a certain stage with mining, you know, we can really help other industries as well, bring them up to the standard that the safety of the mining industry is working in. Yeah, that's awesome. And there's so much obviously going on in Newcastle at the moment with massive road projects and things like that as well, so, yeah, potential attraction to take that up as well.
Yep. Cool. I guess the next is around your team and kind of, I guess technology is having a pretty big impact with a lot of engineering and manufacturing clients at the moment.
So in today's fast paced tech culture, innovation is crucial for staying ahead. How do you foster a culture of innovation within your team and company? There's a lot of different things you need to, I guess, consider. And the first one that I think is really important is giving people a safe space to say their ideas or what they think without feeling silly or without any judgment or anything like that.
I think we've done that quite well with our R and D team, with our engineers, and we have a stand up every morning if anyone's got any questions or any issues. It's always raised when we're talking about a new product or a new concept. Nothing's unachievable, I guess, until it's proven.
And it's all about bouncing ideas, brainstorming, and really forming something together as a team, you know, that solves a real problem. So, I guess without getting too off track to what the purpose of the product is, you know, we're always open to new ideas and, you know, working as a team to solve it. Awesome.
I think it's really cool to embrace that innovation culture within a design and engineering team. Yeah. Because people are, you know, I guess get bored and nothing, you know, just following a company line and not having their own input.
So, yeah, there's a fine line between. Originally we didn't have any, really, systems or processes or anything. It was a very, I wouldn't say backyard, but it was, you know, we just kind of built things and designed things and at times we, we winged it and made things work.
Right. But it only works for so long, especially when the team grows. And, you know, we, we started become.
There's a few holes and things that formed and we started, had to become more and more structured, you know, in late in that 2020, you know, going through the manufacturing and, you know, onboarding new engineers and things. So there's a fine line between having a strict system and process and they still allowing that innovation and that new idea sort of culture to exist. So I think it's very important.
Absolutely. Yeah. Couldn't agree more.
And what about industry trends and challenges? Is there anything that you've noticed in your sector recently that you could share with us? I've noticed, well, large companies in general, it could be mining companies or machine manufacturing companies that we've worked with. They seem to be more and more open to work with small companies and open to new ideas, which I think is really cool. Not just safeguards, but looking at another hunter based business, Saffie, they're doing some awesome things as well in the tech space and doing really well with some big clients as well.
I think just looking at the industry as a whole, it's cool to see how open it's becoming to new ideas and improving, and not just keeping it in their own organization, but allowing external ideas and companies to help them as well. So I think it creates a lot of opportunity as well. So it's exciting.
That's awesome. And I think sometimes the bigger companies that come into town will sometimes have clauses in their contract to use local suppliers. But it's nice if businesses are just doing that naturally to help the startups small manufacturers get off the ground because there's a lot of talent in the local area.
So it's like if they're not using those people, they're kind of missing out on what the hunter really has to offer. That's right, yeah. And it's good I think, too.
And you know, other startups that are, you know, of talented guys, and then you can kind of almost do like joint ventures on projects and things like that as well. Yep. Yeah.
I don't want to speak too soon, but we might be doing something with Southeast very soon as well, which is quite exciting. That's great. Two hunter businesses, you know, going global and you know, it could be quite a good story in, in a year or two.
It's really good. I won't ask too much more. The next question I have is a bit more, I guess, around advice that you could maybe offer other people.
So I guess many leaders, you know, struggle to find that work life balance, especially, you know, as a business owner, it can be quite a demanding role. So, yeah, if you have any advice, you know, maybe how you prioritize self care or anything like that that you'd like to share with us. I'm still learning as well myself, to be honest.
There's a lot going on. Like I was just talking earlier, it's between business and really starting a new business here in the States as well as, you know, recently married and a baby daughter, you know, two months away, there's a lot happening and it's very hard work life balances, especially, you know, early stages of companies. There's a lot of expectations and there's a lot of things to do.
So I've nowhere near perfected it, to be honest. I work a lot and I'll continue to work a lot, but not so much since I've been in the states, but in Australia, a lot of sport and I've been doing a bit of running here and things as well. So for myself, my sort of escape and my break from business is really exercise.
I like to run martial arts as well. Yeah. Just keeping fit and healthy and work hard at the same time and be there for my family.
Yeah, I think that's great advice to share with people because I think it's amazing how much just exercise and fresh air certainly, you know, impacts mental health, so. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
I was actually. I used to live just the honeysuckle drive there in Newcastle and that was my run down the. The foreshore pretty well every evening, or try to at least, or early morning.
And, yeah, I'm currently in Arizona, which is the middle of the desert, so it's 40, 44 degrees there, about celsius average every day. Wow. So it's a bit hard to go for a run here, but, yeah, I definitely do miss the beautiful sea breeze in Newcastle and, yeah, going for a run along the foreshore, but, yeah, I'm sure I'll be back one day.
That's quite the contrast you found yourself there. Yeah, yeah, but I've got a pool, so that helps a little bit, balance it out a bit. Yeah.
Is your partner from Australia or the States? Yes. So she's from the states, but she grew up in Columbia, so she's colombian and. Yeah, about ten years or so ago she moved to Texas and now.
Yeah, we're in Arizona together. Cool. Yeah, she's shown me the ropes of the US and all the different lingo and things.
He is over here. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it'd be nice to have someone on the ground that kind of knows the local space when you relocate to an entire new country.
Yeah, it's definitely helpful. And I can teach you how to make good coffee as well over here. It's mostly rubbish.
The coffee they're doing from Colombia. I'd expect that making coffee, and I hate to pigeonhole would be something you'd be really good at. Yeah, well, the beans are definitely good, the coffee beans.
I'll get them sent over now from her family in Columbia. It's quite convenient. Cool.
I think that's all the questions on my end. Unless there's anything else you'd like to chat about or anything else you'd like to plug for your business that we haven't kind of already covered. No, I don't think so.
I think that's about it. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for catching up.
Thank you. You too.