They don’t make automotive businesses like they used to and peeking around the chilly, corrugated expanse of one bloody big shed in Melbourne’s south-east industrial Mecca, few would disagree.
HM Gem Engines is an engine remanufacturing operation headed out of Dandenong, with satellite branches in Adelaide, Shepparton, Wagga Wagga, Sydney, Coffs Harbour, Tamworth, Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns.
Their specialty is turning tired, hardworked heavy duty diesel engines into pristine powerhouses with torque figures the automotive industry can barely fathom, let alone truly appreciate.
Anything is possible, from tiny twolitre four-banger van or ute engines to vast slabs of capacity one could measure with basketballs rather than bottles of milk.
Put crudely, engines are stripped to their core and bored out by thousandths of a millimetre before being rebuilt and sent back to the customer to live another life movingmountains, powering towns and hospitals, hauling sugar, coal and ore, or to simply stick back in the humble workhorse ute fleet.
The shavings which pile up under a 30-litre Cummins diesel block may look artistic and even beautiful to the scrap-sculptors out there, but anybody who’s had a deep paper cut will attest to the razored edge of this carved metal form.
It looks like it belongs atop a Masterchef’s prize-winning cake, not on the cold concrete floor under an old, browned steel engine stand.
This is an artform many would agree has been lost to our world of disposable everything.
Engineers working with decimal points, peering over the rim of their glasses, chewing on their bottom lip as levers are pulled and buttons are pushed having measured twice to cut once.
The rough cost of one of these bigger engines, destined for another reincarnation inside a regional passenger locomotive, or perhaps to burrow out the side of a small mountain, is anywhere around a quarter of a million dollars.
The raw skill of getting this right is not only important, but profitable.
In late June, HM Gem, its managing director BruceParker and general manager Dean Taylor, collectively won the VACC’s Industry Award for investing back into the business on a large renewable energy initiative by installing 300kW of rooftop solar to run during the day what you could understand is a very energy-intensive operation.
The addition of one of the largest boring machines in Victoria and Tasmania is also a massive investment tipped back into the business which Taylor says puts them firmly on the front foot.
He says such an enormous machine is already installed in Adelaide, Brisbane and Cairns to meet mining and heavy transport customers’ needs.
Just don’t ask what it costs.
It’ll bore anything from a 50-litre to 70-litre engine.
But Taylor says his team is currently frying an even bigger, trickier fish.
“At the moment we’re trying to figure out getting the crankshaft in here from a 91-litre Cummins engine,” he says whimsically.
“That’s a V20 engine bigger than the boardroom table we’re currently sitting at,” he describes, depicting a powerplant capable of running a small town, hospital or high-rise building.
The re-manufacturing process by its nature is considered economical and environmentally conscious because of the drastically extended life it gives an extremely resource-intensive engine.
Efficiency in re-manufacturing is crucial which is why every minute spent on a job is benchmarked, but the nature of the business can also be fraught with trouble spots.
“Manufacturing is different from remanufacturing because in the former, you’re producing a raw component to an original design drawing with no stresses induced into it,” Taylor explains.
“Re-manufacturing means you’re working with parts that have been beaten around, you have to be able to interpret the part in order to correct it, with each part considered an individual component, despite often wearing similarly,” he says.
Not only do his engineers need the skill, they also need to be trained to programme the CNC equipment, another “difficult barrier” Taylor explains is part of getting into this line of work.
Parker says the various computer systems the business runs are “constantly evolving” and despite having been rebuilding and assembling engines for more than half a century,there’s a new schematic or set of intricate information coming through for an upcoming job.
“Particularly for bus companies we’re working with now, there is a new generation for engine assembly,” Taylor explains.
HM is trusted with the intimate proprietary technical data of so many OEMs, they protect it with increasing vigilance.
Some approach them for help at an extremely intimate level.
“We’re talking about engines of over 5000 horsepower at the large end of the scale, we have to work with all their dealer networks, have a strong relationship with every OEM,” Parker says.
Taylor says the relationship not only requires the highest confidentiality, but co-operation.
For example, Pacific National has 570 active locomotives, each with an enormous engine that requires servicing.
“With those biggest engine manufacturers, we think of it as a partnership, because we can extend the life cycle of one engine by doing one small thing differently, with massive savings and benefits to both them, their customer and us,” he says.
The business also works hard to keep new blood coming in, with 14 apprentices in its Melbourne base and two per office, many of whom Taylor brings in from automotive to up-skill for heavy diesel.
“Bruce’s commitment to investing in people is massive, I’ve never known a time without apprentices coming through it’s essential,” he says.
Taylor spends a lot of time teaching young people the needed skills, which is easier in transitioning from automotive in the city, but the regional offices find long-term recruitment harder.
Parker and Taylor say a 20-year staff retention is reasonably common within the business, but rare in the modern workforce.
Perhaps it’s the nature of the work.
“The most human intervention is assembling components,” Taylor says.
“Where it was manual machines using operator skill once upon a time, a lot of it is computer programmed, but particularly with crankshaft grinding, it’s still very artful and requires teaching,” he explains.
“With so many different engine types, it’s a very custom process, so keeping new people coming in is still difficult when most people are only staying in jobs about five years,” Taylor concedes.
“That’s our biggest challenge, and there’s a very personal aspect to interacting with our branches to keep them onboard continually training them with the very best equipment keeps them keen,” he adds.
“You can pick the eager kids early on down here in Melbourne, but in the regions it’s much harder,” he addsDespite the majority of the company’s attention being drawn to the heavier industries, Parker says the automotive roots haven’t gone anywhere even though he was warned things would change.
Parker says the trucking industry, which operates on numbers first and sentiment second, unlike the more materialistic automotive consumer, is a precious supporter of his company.
“The on-going value of a truck engine is built into the lifecycle of the vehicle, unlike the 1.6-litre fourcylinder engine in a Hyundai,” he says respectfully.
“More than 60% of our business is machining services for the heavy vehicle industry, which about 20 years ago was more like 20%,” he says.
“Effectively the price of cars has come down so low that it’s not an economic argument to fit, exchange or remanufacture an engine anymore,” he says.
Taylor explains: “Cars today are so cheap the scale isn’t there anymore, but where we can see inherent value in a vehicle, such as a tradie vehicle or four-wheel-drive with a special set-up, we do still do it.”
“It depends on the models, their price, their inception into the market and whether they will hold intrinsic value for the owner and us,” he adds.
HM Gem Engines was, once upon a time, the go-to business partner for General Motors Holden and Ford Australia for engine warranty repairs.
As one of the earliest disrupted businesses, Parker was warned of a potential collapse in Australian vehicle manufacturing.
“We knew that Holden and Ford were going to exit the country 20 years ago they spoke to us, both of them, it came up very clearly around the Gen III programme,” he reveals.
“They made us aware they were going to be exiting at some stage; Mitsubishi wasn’t going well, Nissan had already gone, it was just a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’,” he explains.
Taylor says the petrol and diesel passenger car engine remanufacturing market “took a nose dive over 20 years ago”, which he and Parker attribute to the introduction of GST and the evolution of engines themselves.
“Everybody wants a shiny new car and a mechanic’s workshop is not based on the very technical and skillful task of correctly fitting a new engine, which also means a hoist is in-use for a long time,” he attests.
“Cars aren’t designed to have engines replaced anymore, whereas in the trucking industry, those engines are absolutely designed to be re-manufactured,” Taylor explains.
The next time you absent-mindedly read “Without trucks Australia stops” on the back of a B-double, take a second.
Think about who keeps the stevedores and cargo cranes, the excavators, portable generators, the 100-car freight trains, dump trucks, the heavyrigids and of course even the iconic Toyota diesel V8 from stopping.
HM Gem is now one of the most called-upon operations to carry out engine work of this kind.
You know thisbecause it’s going on 70 platinum-plated years of service keeping Australia moving.
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