REDARC Group’s state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing and testing facility includes leading technology to ensure its products are built tough, reliable and efficient for even the harshest conditions in the industry.
With a focus on innovation, REDARC Group designs and manufactures advanced, integrated vehicular power solutions for a range of industries that serve mining and industrial applications.
REDARC is a technology-based group of companies and brands comprising REDARC Electronics, Hummingbird Electronics and REDARC Defence Systems.
REDARC group mining and industrial sales manager Scott Montgomery says its business model is based upon innovation, with an unrelenting focus on quality, performance and customer-centric aftersales service.
“Our team-based philosophy encourages our staff to be the best they can, ensuring we maintain our leading edge in the research, design, development, manufacture and customer support of market-leading products across multiple sectors,” Montgomery says.
REDARC is fully integrated and shares in-house resources, including its advanced manufacturing and testing facilities in Lonsdale, South Australia, with supporting locations in New South Wales and a new office located within the Auto Innovation Centre in Victoria.
Considering the impacts of COVID-19 on the economy, REDARC has experienced significant growth.
The company employs more than 250 people, 50 of which are dedicated to engineering design and innovation, and more than 80 staff have been appointed in the past 12 months. Its staff are based across Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe.
REDARC takes its proven, patented products into international markets across the globe.
Montgomery says the company manufactures a range of products, from inclinometers and audio alert systems, to monitoring devices and battery master isolation switches, as well as hand brake alarms and brake controllers.
The company also manufacturers electronics that power sensitive equipment, as well as devices that deliver safety alerts to the operator.
“If any of those fail, you’d have catastrophic consequences. That’s why we manufacture everything to the highest quality,” Montgomery says.
“Our philosophy is, if they can survive in a defence vehicle, then it can survive in a caravan or dump truck.”
REDARC’s advanced electronics manufacturing and testing facility includes leading technology to ensure the REDARC and Hummingbird branded products are built tough, reliable and efficient.
Its electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) chamber tests products based on their noise radiation and performance against international standards.
This ensures that its products do not interfere with other electronics and vice versa.
Montgomery describes the chamber as a world-class facility that also helps decrease the company’s time to release a product to the market.
“By having our own testing facility, we can speed up our product development process, and that’s the biggest benefit from having our own facility,” he says.
In this way, REDARC has set itself apart as one of the few companies to own an EMC facility and be certified to undertake testing on behalf of other companies.
Products also go through accelerated lifetime and environment testing to determine their lifecycle and point of failure.
The highly accelerated life testing and highly accelerated stress screening (HALT/HASS) accelerates 10 years of product life over two days.
It cools products to -100 degrees Celsius and heats to 200 degrees Celsius. The vibration and climatic chamber combination or AGREE (advisory group on reliability of electronic equipment) machine simulates driving conditions and temperature and humidity extremes.
“We put them on a vibration table at a certain temperature because we won’t be satisfied until our products are suitable for use in the harshest conditions in the world,” Montgomery says.
REDARC is also committed to reinvesting up to 15 per cent of every dollar of sales generated into research and development.
“REDARC has a long-term vision. If you talk to anyone, you’ll find that most companies will set aside 5 per cent,” Montgomery says.
The Surface Mount Technology (SMT) line has extremely high specifications, making it only one of the few SMTs in the world.
Montgomery says this makes REDARC’s circuit boards remarkably tougher and longer lasting.
The SMT line is one of two at REDARC’s facility and has given the company the ability to increase its production capacity by 250 per cent.
It’s hard at work being fuelled by unprecedented demand for REDARC’s products. Their production floor is now running multiple shifts, taking advantage of its capacity.
“In the space that we’re in, we’ve been kept very busy, recently we commenced three shifts running and 24/7 most days a week – the first time in the history of the business,” Montgomery says.
“We have gained the trust of the mining, defence and emergency services industries. We have a good reputation in the market due to our product integrity and our commitment to safety.”
This story also appears in the June issue of Australian Mining.