LinkPlas: Sales rebound

Turnover is well up on last year and work has continued on new projects, says plastic-bottle maker Steve Morrison. Photo / Natalie Slade

For Steve Morrison, torture was sitting at home for a week while the machines at his LinkPlas plastic bottle factory lay idle.

It was 18 months ago that Morrison, LinkPlas' managing director, decided to shut down 24-hour-a-day production at the Albany plant, rather than lose any of his 17 fulltime staff.

"I'd never done that in the past and it didn't sit well with me to be at home with no machines running," he says. "But we've got a really good crew - there's been no staff turnover for more than three years - and we retained a full staff throughout the down-time, when our turnover was slower, material costs went up significantly and profit was down."

The decision to keep up staff morale and continue innovating helped LinkPlas survive when some rival small bottle manufacturers didn't, Morrison believes. And it helped the company recover quickly and strongly.

Turnover is already up 15-20 per cent on the previous year, after orders began to pick up again late last year; in April the company had its best sales figures since it began 12 years ago.

"I think we've survived because we're innovative. We were working on a couple of new projects - like new materials and bottle shapes - and we didn't stop working on them. We took on a salesperson a year ago, a new position for the company, which added expenses at a slow time, but we're starting to see the benefits from that.

"It helped that we're a smaller company, and a flexible one. I'm a 75 per cent owner, so we could make decisions pretty quickly when we needed to."

Morrison says he's optimistic about the next couple of years, and plans to concentrate on the domestic market. LinkPlas also has an operation in Adelaide, making the 187ml plastic "Pettle" wine bottles used by airlines.

"I wouldn't want another year like that. But we've passed the recovery, and we're kicking on now."

Steve Morrison
Managing director, LinkPlas

* Your big hope?
I want to expand the business to a point where it's of significant value. I hope for a positive economy, and a positive government.

* Your big worry?
I'm not really a worrier. We didn't foresee what was happening before, but indications in the market are generally pretty positive. We buy all our materials in US dollars so we don't want to see the dollar dropping too far.

* What would help right now?
We want to explore more funding for R&D.