Specialist telecommunications business AVI has developed its products to meet a rapidly changing tech environment.
WESTERN Australia’s physical isolation from the rest of the world played a key part in the development of Tony Routledge’s entrepreneurial spirit.
The founder of communications hardware and software business AVI told Business News his childhood experiences around the machines at a wool manufacturing plant run by his father proved formative in terms of his business approach.
“We couldn’t get things, so we had to fix and make things, so that’s made us quite independent,” Mr Routledge said.
“Our isolation has bred innovation.”
That was several decades ago, but the lessons stuck, and Tony and his younger brother, Stewart, went into business together, founding AVI, which they jointly own, in 1989.
The business builds the hardware for its sturdy communications systems, as well as its own patented software for encrypting and delivering data over secure networks.
Winning most of its early work through government defence contracts, Tony Routledge said work started to flow during the transition from analogue to digital.
“That was the timing part of it was just when digital was coming in,” he said.
“It was easy to absorb then, and it was just as WiFi was coming in and those type of technologies, so we were lucky to be there and build trust with different customers.”
A shift to autonomous operations in the mining industry also created bountiful opportunities for the business.
Tony estimates that AVI’s work now is 70 per cent mining and 30 per cent defence, the opposite of when the business first started.
In a major expansion investment, AVI has spent $12 million converting an old pathology lab around the corner from its main offices into a new testing facility.
On track to open in March next year, it’s designed to test communication devices to replicate the harsh mining and military environments they are exposed to.
Previously, Tony said, the products would need to be sent overseas for testing or were subject to less complex methods, including being “chucked out the back” and left to survive in summer.
Among the new testing facilities is an electromagnetic compatibility chamber to undertake compliance tests for radio emissions, a salt event chamber to replicate exposure to corrosive environments, and a IP69K water chamber.
Notably, the space also includes an Arizona dust chamber designed to mimic the Pilbara’s signature red dirt.
The facility is believed to be unique in Australia, and it’s hoped to trim months off product development cycles, as efficiency becomes more of a focus for the business.
The ethos of self-reliance runs strongly through AVI and the Routledges take great pride in manufacturing an end-to-end product in WA.
Nearly all of the components of their hardware are manufactured and assembled onsite, with the exception of silicon chips and some resistors and capacitors.
A decision to buy silicon chips several years ago, when the pair identified unusual changes in the global market, proved prescient.
“We saw that there was stress and there normally wasn’t, so we turned that into buying as many parts as we could and turned all our cash into parts,” Tony said.
Stewart Routledge added that, without the pressure of knowing where parts were coming from, the business could focus on the product.
The durability of AVI’s systems and its marketing as Australian made has been a competitive selling point.
“We always try to be competitive, but the most important thing is delivering the best quality, and there is a price tag attached with that,” Tony said.
“For many years people said, ‘We can buy cheaper in China’ and it was like ‘yes you can’, and we couldn’t compete with that.”
AVI's products are made in WA. Photo: David Henry
He said prospective customers had attempted to come back to AVI during COVID as supply shortages began to pinch, but the company’s continued focus has been servicing its biggest clients, which include BHP and Rio Tinto.
Given the variety of applications for its product range, AVI has been circumspect and selective in terms of the opportunities it takes.
“There’s lots of opportunities and lots we’ve ignored,” Tony said.
“Every day there seems to be good idea but it’s like ‘no this is what we do’.
“We are the incumbent in mining globally in all the top-10 mining companies and they’re great customers and we’re embedded and trusted.
“Once we get our bigger factories online then we can look at bigger markets, but most of what we do now is export.”
Now at more than 100 employees, the next medium-term goal for AVI will be stepping up its monthly production capacity from between 500 and 600 devices per month to 5,000.
In keeping with their disciplined approach to progress, the brothers are loath to change the formula that has served them well so far.
Stewart Routledge said getting the right people was still crucial.
“It’s having that family ethic throughout … getting those right people and working as a team, because as Tony’s explaining, it’s bigger than two brothers,” he said.
AVI has accumulated a suite of awards in recent years, most recently a WA Exporter of the Year 2022 and Advanced Technologies Award, its second victory in the category.
Tony Routledge was recognised as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018.