Bendigo Ordnance Factory pictures

[jmebgo]

Gentlemen,

For your perusal. Here are some pictures of the Bendigo Ordnance Factory, featured on the Bendigo Advertiser website.

Walk again amongst the machines at the Bendigo Ordnance Factory | Bendigo Advertiser (http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/2479379/walk-again-amongst-the-machines-at-the-bendigo-ordnance-factory/)

Perhaps someone from Bendigo can comment on what the site is like now? Did it become ADI?

Regards,
Joe

[jhovel]

You are right, it became ADI and then Thales (Spanish-owned I believe). They only make the Bushmaster vehicles now If I'm correct. The general machining factory was sold off to a private company who is now manufacturing on the site. We (you and I and the other tax payers) don't own anything there any more....
But Peter K. may have a lot more detail and may post some of his photos. Peter????

[mike48]

Thales (Spanish-owned I believe).

Thales is French, partially owned by the French Government.
Has a long ancestry.
Manufacturers of high quality civil and defence equipments.

No association, except for working on some of their "stuff".

[Christos]

An interesting array of photos.

Due to my recent age it would have been hard for me to determine what I was looking at for most of the photos. Pretty good to get a description along with the photos.

[chambezio]

What a great collection!!!
The expertise to use those big machines to build supersized "stuff" back when a slide rule was an "innovation". Would there be such factories still making such "stuff" in Australia today? Or has it mostly gone offshore?

[Combustor]

Agreed we are losing/have lost much of our heavy engineering capacity, but follow the money trail to see where it is now. Big mining and offshore oil/gas work is a huge customer for those with real capacity and ability. To find out where the ADI/Thales capacity has gone, look up hofmannengineering.com (not Hoffman) and see a company that knows where it is going. Now operates in Perth, Bendigo, Melbourne, Canada and India and who knows where next?
Think they are still basically a family controlled firm, who re-invest in good staff and equipment and are not beholden to a board whose main concern is a bunch of hungry shareholders. Seems their German heritage still shares the German investment philosophy that has made that nation a success where much of the world is failing. There is some good news out there if we look.
Regards,
Combustor.

[Combustor]

Should have been a link to www.hofmannengineering.com (http://www.hofmannengineering.com) My mistake,
Combustor.

[splinters041]

Great to see some old Aussie engineering photos. Cheers

[morrisman]

The naval turret may be for the old daring class destoyers we had Mike