Celebrating Forty Years Of Manufacturing Innovation

Helping clients stay at the leading edge of their respective industries has always been a driving force behind everything Mulcahy does.

When Murray Mulcahy started business in 1980, his vision was to offer clients a total manufacturing solution.

It’s a vision that continues to be alive and well today.

“We don’t see ourselves as simply being a supplier of engineering services, but more as a manufacturing partner,” says Managing Director Kayne Mulcahy, who took over the running of the business from his father in 2012. “It’s all about enabling innovation for our clients.”

This partnership approach has taken Mulcahy from being a small facility with five employees in Gleneden, to having a 6000 square metre plant in Avondale and a team of 140.

Ongoing investment in technology is a key part of the company’s strategy. “It gives us complete control of our service deliverables, not only in terms of the quality of work produced, but also the timeframe within which the end result is delivered,” says Kayne.

When Mulcahy Engineering started operating in June 1980, the workshop only did manual processing.

It was a different world back then.

Plans and drawings were made on the coffee table. Pattern development was done manually on the floor of the workshop before being cut out with cutoff discs.

As the demands of the engineering and manufacturing world have increased over the years, Mulcahy has been at the forefront in providing the technology to meet those requirements.

Although always an early adopter of manufacturing technology, it wasn’t until 2000 that the company actually brought it inhouse. That was the year they purchased their first Trumpf L3030 laser cutting machine.

With a growth mindset and a focus on customer collaboration, this technology opened the doors to new industries which in turn paved the way for continued investment in additional plant.

Examples of this include a Trumpf TruLaser Tube 5000, which was purchased in 2018. This machine can bevel cut to +-45 degrees and process tubes of up to 8 metres in length.

Last year the business added two new Trumpf TruBend 5170s to their bending operation. The technology associated with the new machines allows the team to take a customer’s model and carry it across to the finished, folded part with complete accuracy, using innovation such as TechZone bend offline programming software.

Today Mulcahy’s capabilities include laser cutting, punching, pressing and the full scope of fabrication services such as polishing, machining and welding.

The customer base encompasses the food and dairy industries, materials handling, original equipment manufacturing, agriculture, horticulture, and architectural.

A highly skilled team of designers and engineers ensures that even the most complex or large-scale projects can be turned around quickly, from the initial concept right through to the delivery of the finished item.

Kayne is confident about what the future holds. “We’re really focused on a strategic five year plan that’s going to put us in a great position to thrive for the next 40 years and beyond.”

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