Good medium-term prospects based on expanded product offering

“The residential market started the year strongly but then softened, while the commercial market started fairly flat but ended strongly,” reports Geoff Norcott, Group Vice President responsible for the South Pacific Region. “Overall, the electromechanical, construction, commercial and residential sectors all performed well, and we foresee strong development over the next two to three years.

Steve Burton, Commercial Sales Representative for Lockwood Security Products, and Peter Hunt, Manager of Building Services at the Melbourne Museum.

 
“We are beginning to see the fruits of the three-year strategy we initiated in 2001. Our aim was to build our product range rapidly through cooperation with other Group companies, concentrating in particular on highervalue products. We have successfully exploited Group strengths in these higher-security technologies. Two good examples are the 9000 series panic exit devices based on products from JPM in France and the Twin keying range of locks based on designs from Assa in Sweden. Both are selling well. As another facet of the strategy we are pushing for higher security Standards in the Region and taking a very active part in their formulation.

“For lower-end products such as window stays, we are exploiting the low manufacturing costs of Guli in China to keep us competitive on price.”

Improving residential security
The Group’s acquisitions of Lockwood and Interlock in recent years have raised the importance of the residential market.

“Security in the South Pacific Region has traditionally been at a low level, more concerned with casual protection than serious deterrence,” Geoff Norcott says. “We are now making moves to change that.” In Australia, for example, Lockwood is working with the Housing Industry Association to increase security in newly built homes. The company has developed a dual-purpose highsecurity locking system for houses in course of construction. This will successfully reduce the problem of thefts from sites and result in lower insurance premiums for builders. On completion of building a single registered key is handed on to the purchaser of the property.

In New Zealand, Interlock has initiated a Window Service Initiative aimed directly at householders. A fleet of service vehicles covers the country, crewed by expert technicians who can advise on security needs in different environments and install additional or better window fittings as appropriate. Demand has exceeded expectation and sales are growing rapidly.

The ASSA ABLOY companies also work closely with police forces and Neighbourhood Watch associations in initiatives to educate the public and the retailers who sell to them.

Complete solutions
“In the commercial sector, Abloy Security and Lockwood – with quite different solutions – together hold a major share of the high-security keying market,” Geoff Norcott says. “They can bring their influence to bear in raising security levels. With its augmented expertise in proximity and cardoperated locks from HID, Indala and Timelox, and now (with Besam) in door automatics, the ASSA ABLOY Group is in a strong position to offer public building specifiers complete solutions to their security and accesscontrol problems.”

Both Lockwood and Interlock have significant oem contracts in Australia and New Zealand, through which they influence the first-fit market, while Interlock has a series of large, longterm oem contracts with window manufacturers in the USA. Interlock’s us sales remained strong in 2002, although sales to Japan softened. Specification activity in South East Asia is expected to improve next year, which will benefit several companies.

The Melbourne Museum in Australia needed a patented high-security keying system to secure the historical assets of the State of Victoria. “We chose Lockwood Twin because it meets our stringent requirements,” explains Peter Hunt, the Museum’s Manager of Building Services. “We have found the Twin Key robust and easy to use, and the colored-button identification very useful. Dealing with a large, reliable, professional company based locally in Victoria was a bonus.”

“We are trying to import the philosophy of Emtek in the USA into the South Pacific Region,” Geoff Norcott says. “They have been highly successful in marketing top-end residential door hardware to specifiers by offering their customers individual designs and a very personal level of service.”

Cooperation across the world
Because Geoff Norcott heads both the UK and South Pacific regional organizations there has been particularly close collaboration between them. Lockwood’s padlock rating system, which formed the basis of the new Australian Standard and resulted in substantially increased sales, is now being used by Yale in the UK and is being extended to residential door locks in the UK DIY market.

Lockwood and Trimec in Australia, and Lockwood Arrow in New Zealand with its door-closers to the us ansi and ce European Standards, are all contributing to the re-launched Union range of Security Products UK, which is targeted at commercial markets in the UK, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Education and pride
In all the South Pacific manufacturing companies, there is ongoing work to reduce costs and improve response to customer orders. Significant inventory reductions are expected to continue with the application of the ASSA ABLOY ‘Replenishment Model’ software. At Lockwood, a Facility Optimization Audit being carried out by Honeywell has resulted in the building of a treatment plant which purifies and recycles waste water from the electroplating process, thus eliminating problems of disposal, meeting new environmental requirements and reducing the usage of expensive materials.

“We already felt part of the Group before the Volvo Ocean Race,” Geoff Norcott maintains. “In our case we used it more as a vehicle to educate the workforce than for integration as such. But the impact it created globally and on our customers here was so large that it generated great feelings of pride among all of us. During the vor we sponsored the Australian Paralympic Team. To perpetuate the profile developed during the vor, ASSA ABLOY South Pacific now sponsors the annual dry-river-bed regatta (the Henley On Todd) in Alice Springs, central Australia, supporting Rotary International and the Australian Breast Cancer Institute.”