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SEPHCO's first customers were
from the burgeoning Plastics Industry. SEPHCO supplied this industry
with many and varied types of heating elements, such as metal
sheathed band heaters for plastic molding machines and cartridge
heaters for plastic and rubber molding dies. The business grew,
steadily increasing the range of elements it manufactured. Tubular
elements were hand made and conditions were difficult, as the
premises in Sussex Street, Sydney (once a shop and residence)
were multilevel and unsuitable for the purpose. However, with
quality and expertise unequaled in the local market the business
boomed growing every year for 40 years outgrowing four premises
along the way. Electrical Engineering and process heating divisions
were born and SEPHCO moved into large scale contracting and process
heating systems particularly within the Petrochemical industry.
Our fields of expertise grew to incorporate all heating requirements
for industrial and domestic applications. Within the local market
our name stands alone in Industrial heating, a glowing tribute
to the founder Lionel Riethmuller whose perseverance and business
acumen took a deserted retail store to a flourishing national
manufacturer employing 60 people in little over 30 years. Following
his retirement in 1980, Lionel Riethmuller's son Llynden, after
a 12 year apprenticeship, took over as Managing Director. Lou
Vella, having joined SEPHCO in 1964, became Manager of the Process
Heating Division and more recently the Power Proving Division.
Llynden Riethmuller continued SEPHCO's expansion diversifying
our interests and building factories in Melbourne and Perth.
Similarly SEPHCO moved to expand our overseas operations developing
markets in Asia and South Africa. So, after 40 years of sustained
growth and product diversification, SEPHCO reached a crossroads.
With interests in heating equipment for domestic and industrial
applications, engineering, commercial catering equipment, Industrial
Waste Management and Power Proving (Load Banks) our core business
was becoming unclear. Therefore, in 1989 the company divested
non-core operations concentrating on Heating Equipment, Industrial
Engineering and Load Banks. Over the last 20 years increased
opportunities for export has seen further specialization with
the Power Proving division taking priority. Our production capacity
for Load banks has doubled from 300 units to 600 units annually.
Investment in 'state of the art' machinery, research and development,
and the fostering of quality tradesmen has seen SEPHCO move to
the forefront of Load Bank technology offering competitive pricing
and quality equal to none.
In our experience the global customer expects more today than ever
before. To accommodate this evolution we have spent 10 years tailoring
our products so as to compete on price, quality and customer service.
While this task is never complete we are confident that we have achieved
some success, with our export market growing at double digit rates
for the last 5 years. |
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