From mechanical engineering with some iconic car companies in Australia, Mario Turcarelli pivoted to take Dolphin Products to the next level, as Managing Director.
Mario Turcarelli started working with cars at a very young age. From carrying a dream of becoming a motor mechanic, his father Isidoro pushed him to complete his Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at Caulfield Institute of Technology, (now Monash University) as a ticket beyond that motor mechanic he’d always wanted to be. He is eternally grateful for that pressure. Turcarelli started his dream job at Holden in November of 1979 down at Fisherman’s Bend, just outside of Melbourne.
“Back then, we had to run all the power, torque and durability tests for engines, then tear them down and make sure they performed,” explained Turcarelli, from his office at Dolphin Products, now many years later. But we’ll come back to Dolphin in a moment.
Turcarelli’s mechanical engineering career took off like a rocket. “Holden had just moved from the red XT4 to the blue XT5 engines which had more power and better economy,” he said, “and I ran a whole series of tests comparing them and showing the improved performance and durability which was one of the features of the new VC 1980 model Commodore.”
But later on, General Motors began consolidating and shutting down factories. From 23,000 employees, by 1990 Holden was down to 6500 employees, after Pagewood, Acacia Ridge, then the Dandenong assembly plant closed down.
As a trim engineer, Turcarelli managed the door trims, parcel shelves, belt mouldings, spoilers, side skirts and badges. “It was an interesting job with lots of parts,” he said. “By the time I left Holden, about 20 engineers were managing the bits I handled all on my own in 1990.”
“In those days, the engineer’s job was to work with the designers and drafters to turn the styling project into an engineered part,” he added. Mario became so involved in a door trim project, he left Holden to work with Nylex as a Development Engineer until 1995. He learned a lot about manufacturing and dealing with other car companies like Mitsubishi, Nissan and Ford who Nylex supplied trims. “It’s a very key part of my past, but it became part of my future,” he said. “Without that expertise, I would not be here running a plastics company.”
DOLPHIN PRODUCTS
In 2013, EGT, the owners of Dolphin Products in Hong Kong, decided to sell and offered Turcarelli the Australian operation of Dolphin. They transferred the world-famous Dolphin Gaming Chip operations over to the New Territories, while still relying on Dolphin technical support here in Australia. “We took on the role, and the risk, and we are still here,” he said.
“With my wife Silvana, and an old neighbour accountant Angelo Basile, we bought Dolphin Products, and proceeded to diversify the business into Medical, Mining, Defence, and most recently as a PPE manufacturer,” Turcarelli said. “We started manufacturing safety goggles, face masks and other products to hospitals across the country.” This contract allowed Dolphin to continue to operate through all the lockdowns, hiring more people, without any Job Keeper Government Assistance.
When Turcarelli bought the Dolphin Products business, he noted the previous owners had of course taken a few machines and some patents, but he’d kept the key to Dolphin Products’ success since 1946. This was the talented team of skilled employees, the engineers and toolmakers.
“Whilst Holden was a great place to work and learn,” he added, “I have applied my skills to developing the people at Dolphin. To teach them proper problem-solving skills. Design it right and first time, make it right at the machine first time and the proper process control to resolve problems quickly.”
These days, Dolphin supplies injection moulding, tool making, rapid prototyping and tool design services in the creation of complex plastic products of all shapes and sizes. Dolphin has 25 massive injection moulding machines for an array of different thin-walled high tolerance parts, and tools with clamping forces from 50T to 450T. They are compliant to ISO 9001: 2018 and ISO 45001, and ISO 13485 for Medical clean room parts. They have access to Smart Scope CMM, Tensile testers, electrical conductivity testers, calibrated vernier caliphers and other gauges, and they have a lightbox within their own in-house laboratory.
Dolphin has been automotive component supplier to Holden, Toyota, Ford, HSV, ARB, and even Tesla in the last few years. “We made 44 different interior, exterior, and other plastic parts for the last model VFII, which was the best Holden Commodore ever made,” he added.
With the closure of the Australian motor vehicle industry in 2017, Dolphin had to diversify to survive. Now they supply a range of industries including defence, mining, telecommunications as well as medical cleanroom plastics. Dolphin also produces a range of recycled plastic parts for the ‘Happy Planet’ range of toys, all of which comply with Australian toy standards, made from HDPE recycled milk bottles.
In a tour around the Dolphin Products’ facilities, several moulds for jobs were on display, some for undisclosed industrial projects, others packaged up for shipping, ready to be trucked out to clients. The facility is clean, ordered and a model of company fidelity. The staff were focused, quiet and upbeat.
Dolphin’s capability support during COVID
During the first strike of COVID, Dolphin were asked to support local hospitals and the medical industry in a rapid response.
“We were contacted by Monash Health and HPV to develop local face shields and disposable safety goggles. At the time, they were imported products in short supply worldwide, and in big demand. We committed to producing five million safety goggles for HPV in three months,” added Mario. “We delivered these on time and have produced another two million so far. We also ended up making eight new tools and hiring an additional 24 staff, setting up a night shift, getting TGA approval for all our PPE and subcontracting some of the lens cutting to other Victorian suppliers.”
Dolphin tooled up three critical parts for the Grey Innovation Ventilator in two weeks. And helped make parts for the 2000 ventilators needed by Australian hospitals as part of an Australian Consortium. “We developed our own high reusable quality face shields made with anti-fog material and adjustable headband, then had it TGA-approved,” added Turcarelli.
“At Dolphin, we pride ourselves in having a safe, clean factory and a management team who cares for our people, our customers and the environment. We recently received a MedTech grant from the Victorian Government to upgrade our Clean Room to ISO 7 and ISO 13485 medical accreditation.
The injection moulding process
The injection moulding process is producing plastic products by inserting plastic granules, heating them, cooling them and finally giving the shape and size of the required plastic products. It is a rapid method of producing a large number of plastic products with high precision. The majority of the plastics we use in everyday life are produced from the injection moulding process.
The chosen material is heated and then injected into a specially shaped mould to create a component that is exactly the right shape, colour and size required for a piece of machinery, moving part or other types of equipment.
The moulds are normally made from a strong tool metal such as steel or aluminium to help it withstand the pressure of heavy use, and precision designed by engineers to fit their exact purpose.
Uses of injection moulded parts vary in size enormously, from the tiniest machine widgets to entire car body panels. Other popular uses for injection moulding include packaging, car parts, storage containers, toys, plumbing components and medical items.