Product Specials! – January/February 2010

The following specials are available throughout January and February 2010!

Bosch GSB 19-2 RE 850W Impact Drill – $269.00 (inc GST)!!

Bosch GWS 8-100 C Professional Angle Grinder – $89.95 (inc GST)!!

Bosch Redback Cordless Drill & Impact Driver Kit – $499.00 (inc GST)!!

Floor Fan 450mm – $139.95 (inc GST)!!

Pedestal Fan 650mm 3 Blade – $189.00 (inc GST)!!

Pedestal Fan 750mm 3 Blade – $219.00 (inc GST)!!

Wall Mounted Fan 650mm 3 Blade – $189.00 (inc GST)!!

Wall Mounted Fan 750mm 3 Blade – $219.00 (inc GST)!!

End of an Era

December saw the end of an era at IBS with the retirement of Administration stalwart, John Henderson.  John joined us in 1991 and has been an integral part of the IBS staff.  Originally from the Netherlands, John moved out to Australia in 1973 and was instrumental in opening Contiki Travel Australia where he stayed for 13 years before needing a break from the big city when he jumped in his car and found his way to Innisfail.

His association with IBS began when he came in one day to install the first computer system, unfortunately it proved far too perplexing and he was asked to stay on permanently to manage the computer system and the finances.  We asked John for his thoughts on his time at IBS and his plans for retirement.

“I’ve been here for 20 years over which period I’ve met and worked with some wonderful people and have made some lasting friendships.  But now I’m looking forward to retirement and hitting the road again after a 23 year    stop-over in Innisfail.”

Managing Director Bill Seawright said, “I would just like to thank John for his years of service and his contribution to IBS and helping it grow to what it is today and I wish him well with this next stage of his life.”

All of the staff here at IBS wish John the best in his retirement!

Klingspor Abrasives

KLINGSPOR is a worldwide, leading manufacturer of high quality coated abrasives, metal cutting and grinding discs and have set  worldwide standards in abrasive technology for more than 100 years.

It’s with great pride that IBS Engineering announce that we are now the exclusive stockists of KLINGSPOR’S 50,000+ range of products.

DID YOU KNOW?

• KLINGSPOR is one of the five leading manufacturers of high-quality abrasives
• Offer over 50,000 different products—No other manufacturer offers such a wide range of high-quality abrasives
• Developed the Abrasive Flap Disc
• Deliver 200 tonnes of abrasives to 80 countries worldwide … DAILY!
• Have 36 manufacturing sites and sales offices all over the world providing customized solutions for the needs of regional markets.

If your are interested in trying KLINGSPOR, contact us or drop in and see the boys in Retail.

Well Done Hugh!

Hugh is one of our 4th year apprentices, soon to be tradesman. He started with us as a first year boilermaker apprentice and his duties throughout that time have ranged from the (recently) assembly of our Ozzy Bulldog Banana Bagging       Machines, manufacturing all manner of stairs, hand rails, tanks and frames; to cleaning toilets and weeding the garden (as most apprentices do…).

Recently Hugh was nominated in the Skilling Innisfail business and employee awards (an initiative of the Queensland   Government, Enterprise Connect, and Queensland Apprenticeship Services) and won the Dedication Award. Here is an example from Hugh’s nomination “Hugh is extremely reliable and committed to his work. So much so that his co-workers will often times find themselves skating on thin ice if they are in any way hindering the quality or productivity of Hugh and his work. “ And its true!

Congratulations Hugh, from everyone at IBS. We are proud of your achievement and hope that you have many more to come!

PS—If you have a challenge for Hugh (or just want to say congratulations) drop in and see us in the IBS Workshop!

Hi-Rail Spray Truck

Recently the Centre of Engineering Innovation completed a project to design and manufacture a mobile spray unit for our local Bundaberg Sugar Mills. Taking an existing truck, the team developed a Hi-Rail unit that assembled to the main truck chassis without major modification allowing the truck to pick up and drop down onto existing loco lines. The unit is to replace the use of the existing towable unit that you may have seen travelling around locally.

By using the new Hi-Rail Spray Truck, Bundaberg Sugar will be able to cut down on the time and manpower required for overgrowth maintenance as some of the lines will only require a single trip rather than the two trips that was required by the old towed unit.

Fruit Mit

The Fruit Mit was originally developed back in 1989 and won IBS the bronze “Geneva International Invention of the Year” award.

Since then, the Fruit Mit has been successfully used in various commercial orchards throughout the world for years, but is also designed for use in the domestic market, making it one of the most popular and versatile fruit picking implements on the    market today for both the home gardener and commercial fruit grower.

The Fruit Mit features:

• Light weight
• Replaceable blades
• Two part aluminium handle spanning 3.6 metres
• 3.6 metre net chute to catch fruit and bring it safely to the ground

With the Mango season now in full swing, the Fruit Mit is perfect for picking mangoes and minimizing the bruising of the fruit while also reducing risk of strain and injury and time and money for commercial growers.

Everyone knows a bruised mango doesn’t taste nice, so to ensure bruise free mangoes call in to IBS and check out the Fruit Mit today!

Name the Newsletter Competition

If you missed our newsletter last month, then you also missed out on the chance to enter the competition to name the newsletter! We wanted something that reflected IBS and after sorting through all our entries, one really caught our eye. “Torqin’ Tools”. Congratulations to Jenny Burns for her suggestion! Jenny picks up a SP Tools 41 piece socket set valued at $199!

Shape Up & Ship Out

The Centre of Engineering Innovation team is capable of handling almost anything, and we do too! It has been an interesting year so far for the crew, even with the good old GFC… In June we manufactured and exported 14 freezer racks to Papua New Guinea, these racks were  designed to be manufactured quickly and easily and had to be hot dip galvanized once they were finished. The completed racks were high quality, simple, practical, and the customer was extremely pleased. We were even able to load the completed racks into a shipping container in our own back yard!

Freezer Racks

But that’s not all we have done, amongst the various products we manufacture consistently; such as our Ozzy Bulldog Bagging Machines, our wide range of banana products (deleafers, bell injecting poles, length and girth gauges, etc), our freezer products (rollers, guides, stoppers), not to mention various other pins and shafts, we have also been working on a Hy-Rail truck to control weed growth near cane bin lines, a freezer conveyor system for snap freezing spring rolls, and just recently an electric motor mount, shaft and pulley for a crusher setup to be used in a mine in South Africa.

Is there something we can manufacture for you?

IBS Turns 30

IBS Turns 30

Established in 1979, father and son team Ted and Bill Seawright opened Innisfail Bearing Supplies in Charles Street to sell automotive bearings and seals.

A few years later the business relocated to Cassowary Street and added a engineering workshop and expanded the retail area offering a wider range of engineering products.

By 1998 we relocated once again, this time to Edith Street and continued to expand, it was during this time that Innisfail Bearing Supplies became IBS Engineering Supplies.

2008 saw us take our biggest step yet as we moved into our new premises which allowed us to double our floor size and increase our retail product range.  It also lead to the development of the IBS Centre of Engineering and Innovation and the opening of our own Metaland outlet.

Now it’s 2009, thirty years have passed since the doors first opened and we’re inviting you to join us in celebrating this occasion.

Beginning on the 14th of September our birthday sale will commence with a store wide stock mark down.  Each day that stock will be marked down even further culminating on the 26th September where will we celebrate with 25% off storewide, floor stock only, a sausage sizzle, give-aways and of course, birthday cake!  Some of our friends from Bosch, Makita, Kincrome, SP Tools and One-Eleven will be joining us to help celebrate and to demonstrate and answer any questions you may have regarding their products.

So join us in September to help celebrate our milestone and share in some great bargains!

Jam the brakes on!

Recently, Queensland Sugar had been having trouble with one of their feed conveyor belts running off in reverse once power to the motor had been cut and the brakes engaged on the drive assembly. The IBS Centre of Engineering Innovation was approached to solve the problem by either modification of the   existing setup or the design of a completely new system. The catch, it had to be completed in 1 week with a 3 hour window for the swap-out!

Adam and Eric (IBS’s resident engineers) together with Alex (our Workshop Supervisor) began by gathering as much information about the current system as possible by

Old Design Setup

first travelling to the site to measure the original system and look at other similar ones that are also being used. They then used this information to calculate back to the desired braking force for the drum and worked on the specifications of the new system whilst simultaneously organizing; braking material, the air ram which was quickly sourced through SMC Pneumatics and the manufacture of a failsafe custom compression spring.

Once the design specifications were sorted out, our 3D CAD modeling tools were used to create the new design and workshop drawings almost overnight. These were given to Mark, Hugh, Fabian, Rik, Nathan and Gurmail to produce the brake assembly whilst Innisfail Brakes was responsible for the installation of the pads. I’m sure Garry (our Workshop Coordinator) would have been on the phone as frantically as Alex was during the whole ordeal!

New Design Setup

When the day came to install the new system on the conveyor (in the scheduled 3 hour shutdown) the old brake was removed and the new one setup in its place without any problems, and in just 1.5 hours! With a little bit of tweaking of the pressure Queensland Sugar can now actively control the stopping of their conveyor without it going into reverse and making a big mess at the bottom!

Oh yeah, and all this happened while Bill was away on a cruise ship, probably sipping piña coladas …

Great work Centre of Engineering Innovation!

Click Here for more photos.