News

Sharing best practice and growing the Chess network

On May 6, 2014, Chess Engineering hosted a breakfast at their workshop site as part of their recent membership of the Southern Strength Agile Manufacturing Network. The Southern Strength Network is a group of manufacturers which has been formed to enhance the economic development of the manufacturing industry in the Southern Sydney region and collectively develop new trading and business streams for the region from local, state, national and international opportunities.

“Chess Engineering is a significant, local manufacturer bringing additional capability and capacity to the Southern Strength cluster group. We were delighted to have Chess Engineering join earlier this year and as the cluster group grows, the increase in people and knowledge within the group creates greater effectiveness,” says Sharon Austin, Board Member, Southern Strength Network.

Steve Facer, CEO at Chess Industries, points out, “the breakfast and visit to the Chess site was an excellent opportunity for the Chess team to demonstrate their commitment to the industry and share best practice. Improving relationships with other manufacturers in the region is paramount and thereby creating the potential to collaborate and offer our customers a larger range of products and services. The focus of the presentation at the breakfast was to share our struggles and successes with LEAN (our CHIP programme), customer domains and type of works we have executed. We also see the membership with Southern Strength as a way to demonstrate our commitment to good corporate citizenship and welcome their support of the F1 in Schools international engineering program which Chess has previously supported.”

“the breakfast and vist to the Chess site was an excellent opportunity for the Chess team to demostrate their commitment to the industry and share best practice.”

Anthony Gustafson, Engineering Manager at Australis Engineering, “a group of our people attended the Chess Engineering site visit which was very interesting. It provided an insight into the Heavy Engineering Industry which is quite different to what we do ourselves as machine builders. It was also interesting to see how Chess undertake such a wide variety of work from repair and maintenance on trains to flame proofing forklifts. Whilst we are all manufacturers, we are all quite different. It was beneficial to see how they do certain things and come away with ideas for our own business.”