Award-winning manufacturer of TUFF rugged technology in WA
Established in 2002, Motium is a WA-based expert in the ground-up design and manufacture of rugged computers and associated technologies for use in harsh environments. Motium provide sophisticated solutions to businesses requiring robust products that can endure and continually operate in extreme conditions and tough industries.
Motium’s products are designed specifically for key industries including mining, transportation, waste management, emergency services, marine, defence, construction, machine control, and industrial automation.
Motium was originally a distributor of small PCs. However, early in the company’s life, customers requested more durable and rugged products for use in harsh environments. Motium identified the opportunities, shifting from distributor to designer and advanced manufacturer.
Located in Perth, Motium is privately owned and operated and is one of the few businesses designing and manufacturing highly customisable rugged technology products in Australia.
Founder and Co-CEO Andrew Warenczak has achieved over 20 years of business stability by listening to the rugged technology requirements of customers, creating robust and reliable products, and developing ongoing service and support that continues for the life of the product.
“Our guiding philosophy has always been to listen to the needs of our customers and end users so that we can design, build and support the highest quality rugged technology to fit their requirements,” said Warenczak.
Motium’s TUFF product range is designed to ensure high reliability and sustained performance when deployed in applications across a range of vehicles from diggers and dozers through to trucks, ambulances and other heavy equipment and light vehicles.
The TUFF range of products include TUFF Panel PCs, TUFF View LCD Monitors, TUFF Industrial Box PCs, TUFF IIoTs and TUFF Cables.
Motium has in-house teams at its Perth site, including engineering, supply chain, production, quality, support, and service and repairs. This business model results in superior quality control from start to finish, creating a major advantage for Motium and their customers, which include Wenco, Micromine, Carlson and iVolve.
“From engineering and design through to component sourcing and manufacturing, our in-house operations give us complete control over the quality of our products. This allows us to offer cost-effective customised solution to our customers,” said Co-CEO Mrs Jackie Shervington.
“A lot of what we do in innovation is designed to improve the uptime and efficiency of the unit. Not only is long life important for total cost of ownership, it’s essential for fleet uptime. For example, at six to seven million dollars a truck, our customers cannot afford for a truck to be sitting idle waiting for a replacement unit.”
Cleverly designed, all TUFF products are made to seamlessly integrate and operate as one platform leading to reduced down-time for customers with drop-in replacements and upgrades. Every aspect of the TUFF products is designed from the ground up to last in harsh environments for a minimum three year life, with some customers still using the products after 10+ years.
Over the past three years, Motium has undergone a great deal of growth in all areas of the business including tripling the number of employees, currently at 84.
Scott Channing, Motium’s Operation Manager, has been with the company for the past seven years and has experienced first-hand the company’s rapid growth and expansion.
“We had to acquire the surrounding premises to keep up with demand. This included tripling the size of the manufacturing area and reorganising the warehouse for improved efficiencies. Undertaking this expansion was a huge task, however, this led to positive outcomes with the ability to review and refine the manufacturing processes as the company grew,” Channing said.
Due to the nature of the business, Motium operates within a just-in-time manufacturing model, allowing the company to seamlessly tailor products to the customers’ requirements.
“This means that we tailor our products to our customer’s specific demands, bringing the components together late in the value chain. With this in mind, we are however a just-in-case warehouse, where having stock of base components has allowed us to smooth out periods of supply chain disruption,” added Channing.
This model has allowed the business to continue as close to normality with minimal disruption to scheduled delivery times, especially during the recent pandemic. Lean manufacturing practices are also utilised on the production floor, which include a class 1000 cleanroom, ESD safe workspaces and numerous quality control stations.
“Quality is important at Motium, we conduct incoming quality control, in-process functional testing and outgoing quality control. This ensures that each item used in the product is tested at least twice and the final visual inspection guaranties the product arrives to customers as expected,” he said.
Agnes Gabriel is the Motium Production Planner, overseeing the manufacturing of the Motium products, with a dedicated and diverse team of experienced assemblers.
“Our Production team are highly skilled with a mix of technical engineering and electronic backgrounds. It’s important to us that we continue to invest in our Production team to compete on a global scale. New employees are provided with first-class training to become skilled in the assembly of our products,” she said.
Those employed in the assembly of the products value the quality of the Australian-made build and take on board the philosophy of producing high quality products. Before sending the products to the customers, they undergo a series of rigorous quality tests using an automated testing machine. Due to the internal team ethos to build quality items, this results in a decrease of failure rates.
Motium’s decades of industry experience, abilities in ground up development of rugged technology, and extensive design and manufacturing capabilities have culminated to produce the latest rugged Panel PC: TUFF+.
“We’ve endeavoured to make TUFF+ a very flexible platform that allows our customers to customise the product and make it unique to fit their needs. What TUFF+ offers is essentially customisation as standard,” said Alwyn Lloyd, Senior Manager Engineer & Product Development.
“Each aspect of the design guarantees the product operates reliably in conditions of extreme heat or cold, in glaring sunlight or in the dark of night, while submerged in shallow water or with exposure to dirt and dust (IP67), during constant vibration and shocks, and when subject to electrical transients.”
Striving to always be the best rugged technology partner, Motium consistently delivers on their robust, Australian-made product offering, commitment to advancing Australia’s manufacturing capabilities, and ability to deliver quality solutions for their customers.
In addition to Australia, Motium’s global reach spans four continents, directly exporting products to the USA, Canada, Europe, India, Africa, South Africa and New Zealand, with further expansion in the future.
“We do highly skilled, complex design and manufacturing and there are a few of us in WA that are advanced manufacturers producing world-class products,” added Shervington.
“There is a perception in Australia that we can’t manufacture efficient, quality and cost-effective goods here: that we have to get them made offshore. Well, Motium is an inspirational story of WA’s capability of designing and manufacturing high quality, profitable products right here in Australia.”
This is evident when Motium partnered with iVolve to create a bespoke solution for an issue with their existing hardware, which was failing within a week. iVolve persevered with the hardware supplier for over a year. However, after having 100% of the products returned at least once, and only 40% of the hardware able to be used, iVolve approached Motium to design and develop a replacement 15.6″ Panel PC product, which delivered 100% uptime and solved their year-long issue.
Motium is also an award-winning company having won the Western Australian Export Awards twice and was the 2024 Western Australian Winner of the Telstra Best of Business Awards in two categories.
Looking ahead, Motium has additional TUFF products in the pipeline, is exhibiting at MINExpo in the USA in September and is looking to expand into other industries world-wide. A purpose-built manufacturing headquarters is also planned to house this growing rugged technology business.
“We have a strong, proven management team leading the TUFF Team. We continue to adapt and evolve with market opportunities by investing in people, systems, and processes, including embracing the use of robotics, all of which will lead us in great steps for the future,” added Shervington.
“Western Australia can compete with some of the top manufacturing countries in the world and local companies don’t always have to look overseas. Our products are designed and built to last as they are Made TUFFer Down Under. We are excited for the future ahead and are committed to continuing to manufacture rugged technology in Australia.”