As automotive manufacturing in Australia declined, many in the supply chain were forced to overhaul their business model and seek growth overseas. Among those most affected by this shift was Australian Performance Vehicles (APV), an industrial testing services organization and a global OEM within the passive safety systems market supplying occupant restraints (seatbelts) for the automotive, bus, defense, truck and materials handling sectors.
Only one of 12 such facilities in the world, APV Tech Centre or APV-T is the most advanced dynamic, static, crash, and environmental test facility in the Southern Hemisphere and a Tier-1 provider of engineering and test services to many FTSE100, Fortune500, ASX200, and Nikkei225 companies.“It wasn’t enough for us to provide capability but to offer something more than our competitors. A large part of our success was being able to help in solving problems that our clients didn’t even know they had,” APV Managing Director Harry Hickling says.
Its success in the defense sector helped strengthen APV’s international reputation. Working with leading military forces, APV showed that its military applications were “battle proven.”
“We are very proud of our track record in keeping U.S. and Australian soldiers safe in Afghanistan with no loss of life from 15,000 military restraints. We are also proud to support the new generation of military vehicles in the United States,” Hickling says.
Although determined to expand abroad, particularly in Europe, APV still regards the U.S. market as an important part of its global strategy.
“You may not have heard about who APV is, but the United States is a strategic market for us. We are focused on supporting the transport, bus and coach and defense companies there,” Hickling says.
