What keeps machine tools moving and is made in Australia? Grease is the word.
Harrison Manufacturing is Australia’s leading independent expert in the development, manufacture and supply of high-performance grease, oils, specialty additives and services to many industries, including the sheet metal tooling industry. This very proudly Australian family company has been heavily involved in research and development, manufacturing and supplying industry since 1949, and is family-owned and operated, now in its fourth generation.
AMT spoke with Julie Harrison, the Owner and Director of the Harrison Group, and CEO of Harrison Manufacturing. Harrison told us the original company A.S.Harrison which had supplied the rubber and vulcanisation industries up to and during WW2, and now distributes high value-add chemicals into the industry was turning 100 years old this year.
Operating out of Australian-based facilities, the Harrison Group has a comprehensive range of additional services, and solutions in research and development. Their in-house capabilities provide solutions all the way from initial idea to implementation. Harrison Manufacturing works with a diverse range of customers; some having been with the company for over 30 years and is proud to be part of the Harrison Group of companies.
Harrison Manufacturing makes lubricating greases. “The size of the Australian market is currently 26,000 metric tonnes and Harrison has 25% of that market,” says Harrison. “That grease goes into construction at 32%, mining sector at 24%, and the metal tooling industry would be about 6%. General manufacturing equipment for helping your industry manufacture sheets into product is about 16%. And automotive still continues on at about 12%.” Primarily, Harrison makes lithium greases. Lithium is the most common metal use in making the soap element of greases. “Lithium was not cost prohibitive in the era before electric vehicles. But now that’s blown the market sky high,” says Harrison.
Australian machine tool manufacturers might be using Harrison greases and oils and they won’t know. Or they aren’t and they should be.
“You won’t see the Harrison brand out there, but we are expanding,” adds Julie Harrison. “In the past, we were what was once called a contract manufacturer. We would buy the raw materials for the client, then we’d make the products that they’d then sell to the customers. But our growth strategy is such that we’re going to double in size in the next five years. We’ll be moving into developing more products including biodegradable, and fully synthetic greases, directly for the market.”
Harrison Manufacturing specialises in the development, manufacture and supply of high-performance greases, lubricants, and specialty products. They manufacture extreme pressure greases headlined by their premier ranges of SMARTLIX extreme performance Lithium Complex Greases, and SMARTLITH Lithium Hydroxystearate greases, proven to perform in the extreme conditions experienced by equipment in Australia. The SMARTLITH and SMARTLIX range of lithium and lithium complexes are used in mining & construction, agriculture, transport and the steel fabrication industry.
“It’s quite a complex process bringing in the Lithium so it forms part of the compound, which is chemically controlled. Making this grease is definitely not like ‘bucket chemistry’. Grease manufacturing takes sometimes 12 hours just to make a batch. And these batches are up to 8,000kgs in scale. Simple lithium greases are taken up to high temperatures in a pressure vessel just like in a kitchen, but much bigger of course. So, pressure and temperature are used for simple lithium greases. Whereas open top vessels with exhaust systems and scrubbing systems are used to make complex lithium greases and that’s why it’s called complex. It’s a chemical compounding process. It’s a reaction process with catalysts.”
“The good thing about lithium, which is why it’s a more multipurpose sort of idea to use in greases, is that it creates a high temperature, high pressure, and water resistant. We develop these better-quality lithium complex greases so the machinery it goes into, lasts longer because it doesn’t need to be serviced as often, that’s why quality greases like Harrison provides that additional ‘value in use’.” Harrison adds.
Harrison SPARC
Harrison SPARC Pty Ltd. (Strategic Projects and Advanced Research Centre) is the research and development arm of The Harrison Group. The focus is to create technologies and intellectual property (IP) in a range of focus areas: energy, water treatment, sustainability, health, food & agriculture, and construction. Every one of these focus areas touch on the major global problems facing society currently – water scarcity, energy storage, recycling and sustainable manufacturing, agriculture and food supplies – and developing novel IP in these areas aligns with our company’s vision to inspire and contribute to a better world.
Our aspiration at SPARC is to be a leading Australian industrial research centre, developing commercially viable solutions to problems in these focus areas. Once developed and IP for these technologies are generated, we will be leveraging our technologies with the capabilities of our sibling companies (Harrison Manufacturing Company and A S Harrison) to bring these solutions to market.
“The Harrison Group believes in keeping manufacturing and intellectual property development in Australia for Australian industry,” said Julie Harrison. “We’re not interested in working offshore. We’re interested in selling offshore, and we’re making $5.7m of investment in our manufacturing plants over the next two years.”
Tony Granville is a PhD in Polymer Chemistry and Innovation Manager at Harrison SPARC working in senior positions at the Harrison Group for six years. His knowledge of their greases, oils, and additives is deep and expert, as well as the innovation coming through their research and development arm, Harrison SPARC. This R&D company was the recipient of a recent Critical Minerals Grant of $1.9m from the Australian Government to support the sustainable future of Australia’s mining and manufacturing industries.
“The Critical Minerals Grant will help the Harrison Group with how it is going to look in the next hundred years,” says Granville. “How are we going to be at the forefront? SPARC will develop the new IP and new technologies that advance the business in future directions. What would it look like? So we’re looking at pretty much all the big hairy, audacious problems across the different sectors, of energy, water, treatment, sustainability, construction, agriculture and healthcare space, and how we can contribute new chemical technologies to solve these issues. Because at the end of the day, that’s the crux of what we are, we’re a specialty chemical manufacturing company.”