For over 50 years HI Fraser has been providing engineering design, supply, manufacture and repair services to the Department of Defence and, more recently, to the oil and gas production and processing industries. As an Australian-owned company, HI Fraser has workshops in Sydney and Perth and is focused on keeping work in Australia wherever possible.

HI Fraser has provided significant local content for many defence projects. The first major contract was in 1992 for the manufacture of over 90,000 individual components for the Collins Class submarines, where HI Fraser competed against suppliers from Europe, the US and Asia. All of the components were manufactured in HI Fraser’s Sydney facilities or by other local subcontractors.

More recently HI Fraser was awarded the Endeavour Awards 2010 Australian Manufacturer of the Year and the 2010 Manufacturers Monthly Global Integration Award for HI Fraser’s involvement in the AWD and LHD projects. In both of these challenging projects, HI Fraser determined where they could compete on the global market and where they needed to alliance and value-add to global suppliers to ensure involvement in the projects.

As a result of HI Fraser’s positioning, the specialist gas, fluid and waste engineering company has won significant project scopes something the Endeavour Award judges thought worthy of the Global Integration Award.

In commenting on the awarding of the 2010 Manufacturer of the Year the judges said: “HI Fraser’s manufacturing and engineering for the AWD ship-build project brings $4m in to the Australian economy which would have otherwise been sourced from overseas.”

To win the award as a small / medium enterprise is a significant achievement for HI Fraser as the 2009 Endeavour Award was won by Toyota.

HI Fraser’s general manager – East Australia, Chris Williams accepted the award, which he said acknowledges not only the skill and dedication of HI Fraser’s team but also the global partners that have helped it become involved in the AWD and LHD projects. HI Fraser would especially like to acknowledge the assistance we have received from industry capability network Victoria and South Australia and the DMO Skilling Australian Defence Industry (SADI) Program.

The awards reflect the beginning of HI Fraser’s involvement in the AWD and LHD projects which are core to their business of design, manufacture and maintenance of gas, fluid and waste systems. HI Fraser hopes to see solid work-flows throughout the life of the AWD and LHD vessels maintenance and eventual system upgrades and has already begun working with their global suppliers to support installed products in related industries.