Adapting, innovating, evolving – Sutton Tools’ investment in a global market
Sutton Tools has been a family business for over 100 years and in that time they have not only survived but thrived when faced with challenges in the domestic and international market. Jim Sutton lets us in on the secret to his family’s success – reinvestment.
As we walk through the Thomastown plant, Jim explains “The most important contribution towards our success has been huge reinvestment into research and development and manufacturing processes.”
A strong family value started by Jim’s father, continuously investing in technology and productivity was always a number one priority for Sutton. Jim continued that he was aware that being a family business meant they all agreed to spend money on machines, instead of paying the family shareholders dividends – a luxury not every business can make each year.
Jim has seen the manufacturing industry go through a range of challenges, from the automotive industry collapse in both the UK and Australia, the GFC and now the global pandemic. While other companies have chosen to go the route of moving their operations to cheaper countries, Jim is firm in his belief that investing in local productivity will win out, saying,
“Originally, tool manufacturing had a direct labor costs of say, 30 to 33%. With sophisticated machines, new automation, you could bring that down to 10%, so the advantage of going offshore to lower cost countries didn’t appeal to us. We’d rather have the investment back into technology and equipment in one place, that was Australia, to not dilute what you had.”
However, Jim tells us that investing in machinery year to year is not always the most sustainable option, instead choosing to invest in quality materials and innovation research. Australia’s industrial growth saw little to no growth in the past decade with DIY and export leading the way. With limited options, Sutton Tool’s chose to export their quality Australian products overseas.
“We had the dilemma of having a very, very modern plant capable of making these high accuracy precision tools, but no market. The decision was to go to export,” Jim explained.
Competing with top manufacturing countries like Germany and Japan helped Sutton Tools push the envelope with their innovations, saying,
“Whenever that happens, the flow-on benefits the industry as a whole. This technical know-how in turn trickles down to the do-it-yourself market and it is also used to gain new business under licensing arrangements.”
From machine tech to a focus in exporting, what have Sutton Tool’s been investing in lately? Global partnerships.
Jim said Sutton Tools make it a point to go to Europe trade shows most years to catch up on recent tech and to find networking opportunities to enter virgin markets saying,
“Being a small company in comparison to its competitors, Sutton Tools can offer fresh tool ranges quickly and on demand.”
The growth of international connections has been instrumental in increasing the automotive and aerospace manufacturing sectors in Australia by supplying high quality cutting tools to those industries. Sutton also founded Surface Technologies to apply coatings that extend the life and quality of cutting tools, increasing the quality of cutting tools in Australia.
Another strong partnership has been with ANCA – another Australian success story that is a global tier 1 supplier of CNC tool and cutter grinders. Jim broke the partnership down saying, “They build a new machine, and we test it for them as a prototype, and then feed the information back to them.”
Sutton Tools design and build computer controlled machine tools in NZ, these machines utilize ANCA controls and are sold and serviced by ANCA to the overseas markets, with installations in USA, South America & India.
Survival, adaption and innovation for Sutton Tools has meant going beyond making tools and extending Sutton’s expertise in making the machines that make the tools, extending into foreign markets, developing new partnerships and more. Jim is hopeful that this approach will continue to drive Sutton forward into its next 100 years.
If you’d like to know more about our new tool manufacturing capacities, speak to your Sutton Tools Account Manager, or contact us.