Davey is an iconic name in Australian business, and the Firefighter pump is one of its most iconic products. The brand has been synonymous with Australian innovation, ingenuity and quality since day one, but it’s also grown to be a global business.
For a time, and for a lot of reasons, that meant their Firefighter pump was manufactured offshore.
Still to Davey’s exacting standards, and still Australian at its heart, but production moved to Thailand where a key component supplier had also moved production.
And then the horror bushfire season of 2019 happened, followed quickly by the global pandemic, and it became clear that the supply chain could not respond quickly enough to customer demand.
When Firefighters are needed, they are needed urgently – so Davey made the decision to bring the Firefighter line back into Davey’s production facility in Melbourne.
We worked with Davey to ensure this story was told properly. The move happened at a time when there was a bright spotlight on Australian manufacture, and it would have been easy to jump on board with this trend, but that would not have done justice to the Davey brand.
The decisions were not about location, they were about customer need, and the switch back to local production showed the company could rapidly respond to those needs.
We’re proud to work with a client that puts customers first and is not afraid to try new approaches. And we’re excited to see Firefighter back on the production line in Scoresby!
To get a sense of how much of the role the Firefighter pump plays in the lives of regional Australians, take a look at this story about Davey’s Heartland Heroes program, which saw Firefighters provided to businesses and organisations after the bushfire crisis.
Kendi Burness-Cowan