After a short xmas break we’ve returned to a mountain of machines to be shipped all around the world.

If you’re in Melbourne on the weekend of October 15 and 16 then you could be in for a treat. Experience raw V12 power in the flesh as Gerard cranks up his world famous 1/5 scale Tiger Tank 141 at the Melbourne Model Engineering Exhibition at Rowville Secondary College.

Long gone are the days when the fields of engineering and manufacturing were considered a man’s domain in Australia.

With gauges in 42 countries around the world we are lucky enough to make a lot of friends. Events like Cannex Fillex in Denver is an excellent opportunity to catch up with them all in one place.

Don MacGavin of Anheuser-Busch InBev in St Louis Missouri, recently visited Versatile Technology HQ in Melbourne to review production of automated equipment that is destined for installation in several of their U.S. plants.

Recently,we were honoured at Versatile Technology’s HQ in Melbourne with a visit by Mr and Mrs Manfred Kuhnke from Berlin.

Versatile Technology has been featured in an article in the January edition of Silicon Chip magazine. 

Silicon Chip is the premier monthly magazine in Australia for all things electronic and technological.  Ross Tester, their technical journalist, visited VT headquarters in Melbourne for a full ‘bells and whistles’ tour of our factory.

A momentous celebration was held at Versatile Technology HQ on Saturday to mark yet another milestone as our illustrious leader turned 60.

Well the news is out that production is about to commence at the new Helvetia Packaging AG beverage can plant at Saarlouis in Germany.

All over the world economic gains and environmental sustainability goals continue to be hot topics in the packaging industry. Down-gauging to use less material while still maintaining the performance of beverage cans is one solution to meeting these challenges. Today’s beverage can weighs as much as 40% less than it did forty years ago*.

Yes. Believe it or not, we are now even more versatile than we were before.

At Versatile Technology we often find that we’re continually restricted by a finite amount of space as production demands increase.

So we doubled that space.

Over the Queen’s Birthday weekend, The Victorian Rovers hold their annual Mudbash at Mafeking Rover Park near Yea in central Victoria. A gruelling event, where thirty five crews from all over the state come together to get down and dirty by pitting their toughest machines against one another.

Recently, it was our privilege to have His Excellency, The Governor of Victoria, The Hon. Alex Chernov AC QC visit us at Versatile Technology’s headquarters in Melbourne.

If you make beverage ends don’t leave Cannex until you see the new Versatile Tab Tracer in action.

Versatile Technology have been recognised at home for outstanding achievements abroad.

Our own Gerard Dean was summoned to Government House recently to collect the 2014 Governor of Victoria’s Export Award for Small Business.

The triennial event Metpack, has stamped the World’s Metal Packaging Industry once again. Metpack in 2014 was anticipated to be a bigger show than ever before and naturally it came through. 

After winning the gold medal at London’s prestigious ‘Model Engineer Exhibition’ and landing on the front cover of their magazine, it is no surprise that the Wimmera Tiger was invited to stay at the Deutsches Panzermuseum in Munster. 

It’s been a great week  for all the Versatile Technology crew at Metpack 2014 but we’re on the home straight now with only a few hours remaining. As you can see, the stand came up a treat and was greatly received by all those who visited.

Gerard, Jean, Chloe and Tim travelled to Essen in Germany this week for Metpack 2014 and have learned that they’re less than 16430 kilometres from their home in Melbourne. (Practically around the corner.)

Gerard Dean recently caught up with Walter, our local Festo representative. Both avid model builders, Gerard was lucky enough to catch a glance of Walter’s custom diorama, featuring a Games Workshop Eldar Grav Tank, which had been converted by Walter. Walter’s other work in scratch built models includes a detailed diorama of The Crow with functional lighting.

Versatile has recently been flooded… with orders for our Automatic Gauges. The factory is now filled with gauges to be assembled for customers, both new and long standing, opting for Versatile’s superior Automatic Gauges. Luckily, the experienced crew at Versatile have recently been augmented with some skilled additions to ensure the team is more than capable of handling the increased workload.

Versatile are extremely proud to be leading the way with these new machines, and welcome their new customers.  Despite their destinations being in multiple locations – it’s clear that the choice for these new orders was Automatic.

Australia Day of 2014 saw a large group of motorcyclists from Versatile tackle the roads together. Starting in Eltham, we proceeded toward King Lake and Healesville before stopping for food. A tough section of gravel road served a few challenges, but the group was led by a number of experienced riders and stuck together quite well. A short stop at Mt Donna Buang provided the scene for a foot race between three party members, as they attempted to prove fastest to the top of the watch tower present.

Australia is famous for its fantastic beaches, the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and of course cutting edge can gauges. But there is also a dark side to the continent – deadly animals.

Our Western Taipan is the world’s most deadly snake, the Funnel Web spider is in the top 2, the White Pointer shark regularly feasts on surfers on Western Australian beaches and the cute little Blue Ringed octopus will finish you off in less than a minute.

If you’re attending Euro CanTech, do drop by our table top and have a chat with our European agent – Tim Bulman

Having recently added the final piece to our fleet of automatic gauges, Cannex presented itself as the perfect launch pad for the all-important American market. Following a very successful Cannex show in China in 2012, we expected big crowds and designed a stand to match our expectations.

Unfortunately for us and many other exhibitors; we threw a great party but nobody came. Feelings of anxiety were palpable when mid-way through the second day, the walkways remained barren. The only lone rangers were bored exhibitors.

Gerard, Brad and Clodagh are all at Cannex 2013.

Versatile Technology is at Stand 551 in Building A of the Georgia World Congress Center, so please come along and say hello to all of us. You’ll find us just across the way from the Gold Lounge (well, these conferences are thirsty work!).