Accurate Group – the new umbrella company for well-known tooling supplier Accurate Australia and emerging machinery brand Stirling Machinery – are major sponsors of the 2018 WoodTECH event in both Australia and New Zealand. Both entities are making waves across the industry with Stirling in particular, leaping from the starting blocks to become one of Australia’s fastest growing woodworking machinery brands, thanks to orders from some of the country’s largest players.
Indeed, the group’s positioning as the ‘Solid Timber Experts’ is bearing fruit, with major customers including Cedar Sales (Modinex), Ironwood, Ryan & McNulty, Thor’s Hammer and DTM Timber all purchasing multiple new machines in the past year. The foray into machines has vastly exceeded expectation, with Accurate Australia’s customers keen to purchase new equipment through their long-trusted tooling supplier.
Managing Director of Accurate Group, Craig Honeyman says it was time for Australia to step up and be a force in woodworking machinery. “We’ve always had great respect for our competitors, who happen to be overseas organisations” he says. “But no one knows the Australian market like Australians who’ve worked in the industry for decades. Through our dealings with the players at the frontline, getting hands-on on the shop floor with Accurate Australia customers, we get to see the challenges and hear what people want and need from their machines. Stirling Machinery was established to funnel those wants and needs into custom-fit, purpose-specific machines for Aussie businesses.”
Stirling’s first kindling saw was installed at Ryan & McNulty in August and there have been plenty of other installations over the previous twelve months including multiple finger jointers and docking saws, double ended tenoners and wood chippers. In the coming months Stirling will install the first CNC auto profile grinding machine with auto wheel change from roughing to finishing. Following that in October, the first 5-axis servo-driven auto tool and cutter grinder will be commissioned and installed. This purpose-built grinder will sharpen straight knife cutters but more importantly finger joint heads and shear angle TCT cutters. Currently, dozens of machines are booked in the pipeline through to March 2019.
Accurate Group on the move
Accurate Group’s Australian HQ in Brisbane is poised to double in size by the end of 2018 with the securing of the adjacent tenancy. Production and distribution capacity will double, and a new machinery showroom will be installed. New in-house machines have been acquired to provide improved tooling services such as grind to profile, knife balancing, profile templates and cut-to-length knife steel.
In addition, a purpose-built training facility will be established, potentially offsite, in 2019.
With so much happening on the ground here in Australia, the group has already begun taking steps to expand into the New Zealand market in 2019.
Accurate sees New Zealand as a natural progression for its business. Craig says there are a lot of similarities in the way wood is handled there as it is here, and both countries process a lot of the same timbers. “We’ve delighted Australian customers for nearly two decades so our expansion into New Zealand is well overdue. Our sponsorship of WoodTECH this year is an important way for us to signal this expansion and we look forward to adding value to the industry there.”
The Accurate team are known for their industry passion and knowledge and they are driven by a need to educate those who work in it. There is currently a skills shortage and the Accurate Group is keen to be a part of an education resurgence for the future of the Australasian timber industry.
In July this year Accurate Group also launched an online tooling retailer specifically for the flat panel industry with the establishment of paneltoolsonline.com.au.
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