Sydney Composites attacks the challenge of outgrowing its niche
A Western Sydney-based auto racing supplier is preparing to celebrate a decade anniversary in December, as well as a move beyond its boutique beginnings. Below is an interview with Sydney Composites founder Greg Kerba.
As with the rest of manufacturing in this nation, the composites industry is both skewed heavily towards smaller enterprises and highly fragmented, though possesses pockets of excellence.
Sydney Composites illustrates some of this rough sketch, as well as the conundrums faced by small but high-performing manufacturers wanting to scale up.
The company of eight exports its aerodynamic auto parts, is about to reach the limits of its 650 square metre Wetherill Park, Western Sydney factory, and is going through some of the pains familiar to growing SME manufacturers.
There’s a finite number of hours in the day. Everything that isn’t getting products made and out the door can seem a distraction at best and a waste of precious resources at worst.
Owner and Managing Director Greg Kerba is juggling these and other challenges as he looks to move from boutique to volume production.
“Okay… let's look at what production work is out there,” is a step. Then things quickly get complicated.
In tandem, a larger factory has to be located, leased, and set up properly “with the production sequence in order to increase our capacity,” he said.
Then there are the constraints attached to running a capable though small team
“I'd rather say no to big contracts than say yes and not be able to do it or run inefficiently,” added Kerba.
“I don't like to let people down.”
Kerba’s business has recently hired a junior engineer (engineering is a role it has outsourced until lately) and a new apprentice. It is searching for senior composite technicians, machinists, painters and other roles.
HSC project leads to composites career
Technicians skilled in composites production “kind of get sucked up by the boating industry or they just haven't been here” is one explanation for challenges in finding qualified staff.
Sydney Composites’ focus is carbon fibre, though it manufactures in a variety of resins and reinforcements. It works with processes including vacuum infusion, prepreg and wet lay, and its largest oven is sized 6 x 5 x 2.5 metres.
Kerba began the company two years before leaving a tradesman role at McConaghy. He got an apprenticeship offer from the yacht business – which was building the main structure for James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger at the time – in 2010.
Kerba’s year 12 project, a Hiawatha-style canoe, made the front page of a boating magazine, and McConaghy came calling.
He started Sydney Composites as a side hustle in his parents’ garage, repairing and refinishing Formula 3, Formula 4 and other vehicles.
“It seemed like there was a big gap in the market,” he recalled.
“So I basically took the plunge and started to open up a factory by myself, and I had someone straight away to help me, and started building.”
He kept busy with boatbuilding and mould/patternmaking work at the new factory, before another niche stuck out: World Time Attack Challenge (WTAC) racing.
The Japan-born genre sees various classes of car race solo for one lap, each aiming for the fastest time. Kerba saw a high number of carbon fibre parts, but low levels of quality in their manufacture.
WTAC “a substantial part” of output
“What I looked into was who was making parts, how they were made, who was getting involved, and then I ended up speaking to an ex-Formula 1 aerodynamicist at the track. From that conversation we started manufacturing some pre-preg wings for him,” Kerba explained.
“And then I got him to design front under-tray components, rear diffusers, and started doing our own in-house production parts for these race cars.”
Sydney Composites’ products made it onto vehicles, whose drivers made it onto podiums, and things snowballed.
WTAC racing now represents a “substantial part” of their work, with the company also offering services like prototyping and patternmaking. Among recent investments were a four-axis CNC machine (3,000 x 1,600 x 600 millimetres) and a downdraft spray-painting booth.
The last two explain Kerba’s pause from racing himself in WTAC. His last event in 2023 saw him cover a 3.9 kilometre lap at Eastern Creek in 1:40.4 in his work Ute, a VF Commodore, which he souped up via his handiwork.
“Going to the races as a competitor is good fun, gives insights into benefits to performance from aero parts, and is good for marketing.
“It also costs time and money which could be deployed into core business. Lately, machinery investments have come ahead of personally competing.”
They’re big days
Kerba is currently building a custom carbon fibre Nissan Skyline R34 from scratch for Sports Sedan racing, preparing for the two-day Yokohama WTAC Sydney event at Eastern Creek in September, and getting ready for his company’s decade anniversary in December.
Exploiting growth potential is a work in progress, and he is considering taking on investors for this next phase.
As you might see at other niche, founder-run manufacturers, though, there may be a tension between sacrificing a little control in exchange for the possibility to expand.
“It does heavily rely on myself for the business running because I'll be running downstairs on the floor doing a lot of the senior work or the foreman work, teaching, showing and doing, and then working with the interns on projects in, say, design or moulds or processing. So, that is the challenge. And then dealing with the clients on the side as well,” Kerba said.
“Then finding the time to run the CNC and go and machine something out. It is pretty chaotic in my day in the office… I work six days a week and start anywhere from 4 am to 7am, usually I won't leave here until 6, 6.30 every night.
“So, they're big days, big weeks, but that's just normal.”
Pictures: credit Sydney Composites
ACM CRC welcomes engagement from industry and research partners interested in collaborating on advanced composites manufacturing initiatives. Contact us
here.
