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3 4 PLUMBING CONNECTION WINTER 2015
with strong ethical, quality and consumer orientations. That
cultural similarity bodes so well for our future integration
and expansion.”
“Also fortunate is the considerable technical skill and
capability injected into Brivis during the Carrier years. These
inherent skill-sets were an important determinant in our
decision to pursue this acquisition.”
Greg admits to often fielding questions regarding why
Rinnai would pursue a business such as Brivis, given a heater
market perceived to be fundamentally limited to Victoria and
the ACT, and whose longer term future may appear to some
as bleak in respect of adversely changing weather patterns
in the south of Australia and rapidly escalating gas prices to
consumers. To those with such questions, he responds with
gusto.
“Sometimes I feel that we are in the business of resolving
misery and discomfort, and that is exactly where Rinnai
and Brivis excel. We do this by providing quality experiences
and solutions with comfortable lifestyle enhancers that
harmonise with the environment. That philosophy is not
limited to product categories or to yesterday’s technologies.
While we cannot control the weather, we can control how
we adapt, evolve and innovate our products and solution
offerings to market.
“We know what we can do with an integration of Rinnai
and Brivis’ technology, and what we can achieve with Japan
Board support. We also run an $80 million manufacturing
business in Adelaide, which will benefit enormously from
Brivis’ manufacturing capabilities in terms of in-house
manufacture of many currently imported components.
We have also been very successful in developing export of
products from our Adelaide factory which will increase with
the lowering of the foreign exchange rate. Hence there is a
real buzz of optimism and expectancy within our business
for the near and long term future of the company.”
Expansion and capital investment is on the table in the
coming year. And without doubt, it’s an exciting time for
Rinnai and Brivis.
In Japan, Rinnai has an R&D Group of over 600 engineers
which is quite an impressive number on its own. Couple
that with the fact that Rinnai injects US$95 million a year
into R&D, with operations in 17 countries and over 34
manufacturing facilities globally, and you start to realise just
how successful the Rinnai international entity has become.
“Now that we have an efficient manufacturing business of
scale here in Australia – and the board is very supportive of
what we intend to do – future prospects are quite exciting.
We will be able to call on plenty of intellectual property from
our domestic operations as well as our Japanese parent
too.”
It’s not only a good news story for Rinnai and Brivis, and
the careers and employment opportunities for their valued
staff, but it’s also a shot in the arm for manufacturing in
Rinnai Australia
Brivis
INDUSTRY MOVEMENTS
1
2
Australia and Victoria, and one that governments will be
keen to support.
“We’ve always looked at this type of opportunity with
hunger at Rinnai Australia but we’ve never had a baseline
protocol to really drive activity from within. On top of that,
our markets here have often lacked the scale that attracts
specific investment in Japan.
“Now that we have serious scale and manufacturing
capability here, many opportunities will open up, and our
destiny is now very clearly, not only in our quality and
technology, but in our ability to innovate and make it happen
in Australia.”
IMAGE 1: An aerial view of Rinnai’s Seto factory in Japan.
IMAGE 2: Brivis Melbourne’s manufacturing facility.