Knowledge makers opening for business

‘Cleaner air for everyone’ is the mission of Geelong-based company Green Diesel Corp, set up about 10 years ago to refine and commercialise a revolutionary diesel fuel-injection system developed by local combustion engineer Ron Kukler in his garage.

The Green Diesel system injects fuel at much higher pressures than traditional systems, resulting in a cleaner combustion process. “Injecting at ultra-high pressure allows for finer droplets of fuel,” Mr Kukler says. “The more efficient burning of fuel dramatically reduces harmful exhaust emissions into our atmosphere.”

His interest and success in developing a more environmentally friendly technology reflects a shift in the type of manufacturing that had been dominant in Geelong. Although large employers such as Ford, Shell and Alcoa remain, clean technology and biotechnology are among new knowledge-intensive industries that are emerging in the region.

Mr Kukler says a desire for clean technology was his initial motivation for developing the injection system. “Our whole company is based on total clean technology.”

His invention allows diesel engines to meet the US and Europe’s Environment Protection Authority regulations years ahead of schedule. The regulations require a 90 percent cut in nitrogen oxides and particulate matter emissions by 2010.

Mr Kukler says the system’s high pressure fuel injection reduces the production of particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, while delivering more torque, more power and using less fuel.

Green Diesel Corp is currently doing research and test manufacturing of the fuel injection system for the US defence forces to use in Hummer vehicles. “We have a research centre in Geelong and also a pilot manufacturing plant in Geelong and a larger manufacturing plant in Melbourne.”

Mr Kukler says once the Melbourne plant has been tested he plans to move production back to Geelong. “If I took this overseas I would have a lot more industry and government help but I’m just determined to do it locally,” he says. “We employ about 15 people in Geelong and 60–70 in Melbourne, but we’ll be bringing a lot of the capacity back to Geelong.

“We will need to employ a couple of hundred people once we’ve proven the system. It’s just a question of getting a big shed somewhere and getting the machinery. Geelong is a town full of highly skilled tradesmen and very few places for them to go,” he says. “Manufacturing is all about people and you go where the people are.”

The senior manager of national training programs at the Gordon Institute of TAFE, Colin Frisch, has seen plenty of people and employment peaks and troughs in his 25 years at the Gordon. He has also noticed a significant shift in the industries that are hiring apprentices and trainees.

“Where there used to be large numbers of apprentices and trainees employed particularly in the manufacturing industries, that has been replaced by opportunities in the building and construction sector,” Mr Frisch says. “What has also remained strong in this town are the service industries. What we’re really seeing, in essence, is a shift from a manufacturing base to a service base.”

He says there are still opportunities at employers such as Ford but that they are more likely to be in design and engineering. “There’s huge demand for the design of components [which are then] manufactured elsewhere,” he says. Earlier this year Ford completed its new $27 million research and development facility in Geelong. The centre will house about 350 product development engineers.

Mr Frisch says many work opportunities would be derived through Geelong’s location on the fringe of the southern hemisphere’s largest transport and logistics hub. He says that Skills Victoria estimates that by 2012 there will be a shortage of 14,000 workers in transport and logistics.

“When people think about warehousing they think about forklifts. But we’re talking about people who are barcode-tracking container loads, controlling dispatch, receipting goods … there’s also demand for heavy vehicle and articulated vehicle drivers, or drivers of heavy rigid vehicles.”

Business groups in and around Geelong acknowledge that the region’s economy is in transition and have encouraged moves towards developing biotechnology and clean technology industries.

Mr Frisch says private companies associated with the Port of Geelong want to see 15 percent biodiesel produced from palm oil introduced into the mainstream diesel product. Ron Kukler’s Green Diesel Corp is another example of the move towards clean technologies.

In 2005 BioGeelong, an informal network of local organisations with a strong interest in biotechnology, including Deakin University, the Gordon, CSIRO and Barwon Health, was established to help develop the industry. BioGeelong is complemented by the Geelong Technology Precinct (GTP), located on Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus. The GTP is evolving into Australia’s version of Silicon Valley.

Kay Rundle, chief executive of the City of Greater Geelong, says knowledge-intensive industries are already moving to Geelong, encouraged by the development of the GTP. In April global consulting and IT services company Satyam announced it would set up a software development and learning centre at the GTP. It is expected to create 2000 new jobs for the region and, by co-locating with Deakin, Satyam will have ready access to the university’s research expertise.

Professor Peter Hodgson, director of research at the Institute for Technology Research and Innovation at Deakin University, expects knowledge-intensive industries will grow in Geelong.

The centre collaborates with about 40 companies, from Ford and Holden down to twoperson businesses. However, collaborative industry research is now more likely to be with small and medium enterprises with Australian-based headquarters, Professor Hodgson says.

“The big manufacturing companies are really struggling and the suggestion is that some of the large-volume manufacturing will go offshore but the knowledge-intensive work will stay in Australia. Small companies tend to live and die by their intellectual property so they have to innovate all the time.”

There are already signs that knowledge-intensive manufacturing is taking off. Professor Hodgson says the centre’s staff numbers have risen from zero to 150 in the past decade. “A lot of people doing PhDs want to stay on and do research jobs in Geelong because of the lifestyle,” he says. “Of the 150 people, about 110 are working in materials research and the other 40 in intelligent systems research.

“The biotechnology group will grow in the next few years. We have about 70 people in biotechnology at Deakin already.”

The biotechnology research includes trying to turn plant crops into fuel and the manufacture of drugs for clinical trials. “There are a number of projects in the wind and they will produce quite a lot of value and great opportunities if they come off.”