A year ago Reach Robotics was a proud recipient of the Defence Global Competitiveness Grant (DGCG) from the Australian Government, seeking to support small business. The prestigious grant – officiated by The Minister for Defence Industry, the Hon Melissa Price MP, aims to improve Australia’s global competitiveness and export capability.
In our grant application we outlined our project plan to use the financial assistance to meet company accreditation for ISO9001 and product certification requirements through more rigorous testing. Meeting these requirements would improve our ability to sell robotic manipulators to global defence and civil markets. A year on, we’re proud to report we’ve done just that.
We installed in-house testing facilities including a pressurised test chamber and indoor test tank. The facilities allow us to replicate the harsh, subsea environments our robotic grabbers and arms are designed and built for. This enabled us to conduct regular testing and identify design improvements of our products while also creating a more efficient production routine. Overall, this has lead to a huge improvement in the quality assurance of our subsea robotic arm systems.
In parallel we have steadily improved and formalised many of our internal processes in sales, R&D, production, and other business functions. This effort has seen Reach Robotics transition from a start-up to a fully-fledged hardware robotics company. Since receiving the DGCG, our products have been exported for use by defence stakeholders, marine science institutes, oil and gas companies and nuclear plant operators.
With our exports reaching over 11 countries, our business has grown in both product range, production capability and employment opportunity. In the past year we have added to our growing team by employing more than 8 talented individuals across engineering, administration and marketing departments, improving our external output, cross-company skill set and internal culture. Thank you to the Australian Government for investing in us and helping us achieve some big goals in the past 12 months!
