True to form, Seeley founder and chairman Frank Seeley didn’t pull any punches in his address to participants at CCN Live 2013.
As the founder of a company that is a market leader in climate control solutions, Seeley is well placed to talk about “life through the eyes of a manufacturer” and to share his uniquely Australian experiences competing on the global stage.
Last year Seeley International celebrated its 40th anniversary and today the manufacturing success story exports to more than 120 countries.
His views about the future of Australian manufacturing are very different to the people he refers to as the doomsayers.
“Contrary to conventional thinking there is a huge future for Australian manufacturing, but only if we innovate and automate – we must do both as if there is no tomorrow because that’s where our future lies,” Seeley says.
“We can and we will prevail. Look at the United States, where the tide is turning. Manufacturers that went offshore to China years ago are returning to the US and embracing automation; it will work for us too.
“I invite all manufacturers to seize the day, embrace the future and put a lie to the notion that manufacturing is dead and buried.”
Seeley is critical of misguided government support and ill-conceived policies like the carbon tax.
“Australia has every right to be frustrated by handouts to the automotive industry, especially to those with multi-billion dollar parent companies offshore,” he says.
“The local car industry is struggling with high taxes and cheaper imports but the underlying problem is that the industry is not producing cars consumers want to buy.
“Brands that are succeeding know what their customers want and that’s what they deliver.”
It’s frustrating, he says, to see handouts given to the motor industry with little accountability.
“Where does this money go? Does it go straight out of the country to head office? There should be a caveat on what they give, it should be dollar for dollar,” he says.
“If the technology goes overseas and there is no benefit locally you pay the money back.”
However, these problems aren’t just restricted to the automotive industry, he says.
“Too many Australian inventors have been forced to go offshore due to lack of support. That is a national disgrace.
“If we want a prosperous economy we must encourage research and development (R&D) as a national priority and invest far more than we do now.
“We need a proactive national centre of excellence where business leaders, not bureaucrats, administer an innovation fund to support intellectual property and keep it in Australia.”
Seeley stressed the need for experts to assess innovative ideas, not the government.
“The experts are business leaders that have done it and got the t-shirt,” he says.
To support innovation at Seeley, the company has an “imagineering” group that includes many of the 50 engineers he employs. They meet regularly to discuss good ideas.
“It’s important to spend time chewing the fat,” he says. “99 out of every 100 ideas might go out the door, but if one sticks that’s okay.”
