Bearing Service Company, or BSC as it is best known, has been serving a wide range of industries from mining, automotive, farming and agriculture, to food and beverage over the past 60-plus years since its inception in 1954. Part of Motion Asia Pacific’s group of businesses, BSC’s branches across Australia have been providing manufacturers and service personnel with a complete range of industrial parts and components from bearings to power transmission
and more.

But, what Leon Stefanec, State Sales Manager at Motion Asia Pacific, wants to emphasise, is that beyond being a key supplier of parts and services to many industries, BSC is also actively involved in providing engineering and manufacturing services to major businesses. In fact, Motion Asia Pacific Group Engineering was founded to provide bespoke engineering solutions based on the group’s extensive experience in
the industry.

“Our manufacturing workshop in Chullora can provide engineering consulting services for upgrades and new equipment design. We have a large team of engineering specialists who bring with them extensive experience across every industry and that helps us in providing practical solutions to our customers that can resolve real-life problems,” he says.

To illustrate the capabilities of Motion Asia Pacific Group Engineering, Leon uses the example of engineering services offered to a large confectionary manufacturer
in Melbourne.

“Around 18 months ago, a multinational confectionary manufacturer based in Melbourne and a customer of our sister company decided to close down a section of their maintenance department to reduce their ongoing costs. After learning through the BSC branch in Mulgrave that BSC can help them with engineering design and manufacturing services, they contacted us and asked us if we could manufacture parts based on their existing drawings. They also required us to reverse engineer certain parts based on the samples they provided.”

“The parts we were asked to replicate are mostly unique to the confectionary industry and made with either stainless steel or other food grade materials. Using a combination of our in-house design and manufacturing capabilities, as well as our ties to other small manufacturing companies, we were able to reverse engineer the parts, which then enabled our customer to outsource the job to us completely,” says Leon.

The other benefits gained by the customer in outsourcing the production to BSC Group Engineering, Leon points out, is in better inventory management.

“Ever since the plant has shut down their machining shop, they no longer needed to hold any inventory of the raw material, which has helped them streamline their ordering process. Whenever they need a certain component, they place an order with BSC and we manufacture and deliver the part to them. We also maintain extra stock for some of the more frequently ordered parts to help reduce the turnaround time for our customer,” he says.

Additionally, Leon says the engineering team has been able to use their expertise to improve the design of some components. 

“Another big bonus for our customer is that we have been able to do some research and development and improve some of these components. In one case, we used a hard-wearing compound of industrial nylon to increase the wear life of a certain component. We also regularly do refurbishment work as part of our service, where we dismantle the worn components, clean them, manufacture new wearing parts if necessary, and then re-assemble before providing the fully assembled component to the customer.”

The ultimate result for the BSC customer has been significant time and cost savings, Leon says.

“Prior to this, our customer had to purchase a lot of their spare parts from the original equipment manufacturer, which was a lot more expensive than manufacturing them in-house. By offering an all-in-one service, BSC Group Engineering has brought relief to the manufacturer, both in terms of costs and time.”