Having recently celebrated 10 years in the Australian market, DAMON Australia’s General Manager Rick Woestyne explains how the logistics company continues to help Australian businesses better sort their items, and what it had to do to overcome the obstacles brought on by COVID-19.
DAMON Australia is an extension of DAMON Group, a Chinese intelligent logistics systems and core equipment provider founded in 1997. The Australian branch celebrated its 10th anniversary last December.
Based at its Melbourne headquarters, Rick Woestyne is DAMON Australia’s General Manager. He says the company offers end-to-end solutions for materials handling and sortation systems for a variety of industries including e-commerce, logistics, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, apparel, and more.
“The equipment we provide to complement our conveying and sortation systems are carton storage and retrieval systems, pallet storage, goods-to-person-picking stations, robot mini-load tote storage systems, carton and pallet elevators, and telescopic belt conveyors,” Rick says.
“We also have agency agreements with specialist suppliers who offer unique solutions to problems encountered in conveying and sorting products,” he adds.
When DAMON Australia started trading just over a decade ago, it was manufacturing conveyor rollers.
“We set up the factory to produce rollers to meet local needs at a competitive price,” Rick explains.
During that time, Rick says the company’s product range has substantially grown.
“We now have the ability to manufacture not only conveyor rollers, but the complete conveyor system,” he says.
DAMON provides companies its equipment and solutions so they can handle more items and reduce error rates and labour.
It has a wide range of products for logistics systems: roller and belt conveyors, roller and chain conveyors, transfers, turntables, stackers, and dispensers for handling pallets.
“Automated sortation and ‘goods-to-person’ technology is becoming more widely adapted to meet the increasing volumes to be handled,” Rick says.
Some of the intelligent sortation equipment DAMON has developed are horizontal and vertical cross belt sorters, sliding shoe sorters, high-speed steerable wheel sorters and transfers. Rick says they are meant to suit any application.
“Our range of rollers are available from 18 mm diameter up to 89 mm in diameter and are used in all types of carton and pallet-handling conveyors,” he says.
“We offer a variety of materials such as galvanised steel, zinc-plated steel, stainless steel, aluminium, and PVC,” he adds. “We are also an authorised distributor for Kyowa 24V DC powered PulseRoller and control cards.
“Recently, we have been busy with one of our largest projects. Our core product, the i-G5 conveying platform was utilised, which is based on smart technology to ensure reliable and efficient operation of the logistics system.”
DAMON has engineers and a sales team that help customers. It conducts surveys to gauge what the customers goals are and determine what goods need to be handled, the hourly throughput, the pain points, and the available space so they can implement the system.
“Our engineers will analyse this information and provide the most efficient and cost-effective solution considering future growth and changing technology,” Rick says.
Besides the basic products, DAMON also designs and manufactures bespoke equipment to handle unique and difficult items. Rick says it does this to meet the customers’ special needs.
“The DAMON Group is dedicated to the ongoing research and development of intelligent equipment for conveying and sorting goods,” Rick explains.
“Once tested and ready for the market – as part of the DAMON Group – all DAMON divisions worldwide have full access to all the products manufactured or procured by our parent company,” he adds.
“To reduce delivery times on small to medium-sized projects, DAMON Australia holds stock of component parts to allow local assembly of conveyors and equipment.”
Rick says the pandemic presented lots of difficulties for DAMON. The team couldn’t discuss projects face-to-face with customers due to travel restrictions.
“Many projects were put on hold, and this was reflected in our 2020 sales,” Rick says. “However, we never stopped,” he adds. “We adapted to provide our services via video conferences and remained in contact with our customers regularly.
“At the same time, with assistance and support from headquarters, we improved our online exposure. A lot of changes were made during that time to ensure our employees were safe.”
He explains that with the public being forced to change its working and buying habits due to government-imposed lockdowns, this gave DAMON an opportunity to help retail companies that were changing their business models to cater for the large increase in online sales.
“Although the lockdowns are now behind us, the challenges that we still face are the shortage of raw materials and computer chips, and substantial increases in the cost of freight as well as extended and uncertain delivery times,” Rick says.
“Fortunately, with the changes to our business model and changes in the market, our business has recovered very quickly,” he adds. “In 2021, our sales volume achieved a new record in our history.”
When DAMON Australia celebrated its 10th anniversary, Rick says the chairman of the board flew to Melbourne to celebrate it with the Australian employees.
“In that celebration, we reviewed our history and achievements. After 10 years of growth, DAMON Australia has been accepted and recognised by local customers and obtained trust from partners to work together.
For more information on DAMON Australia, click here.