While at work one day, diesel fitters Anthony Lye and Craig Hall found themselves covered head to foot in hydraulic oil, which as all fitters know is a common occurrence. Deciding enough was enough they came up with a simple solution to stop it happening again… and that was just the beginning.
Anthony and Craig both started in the mining industry in the early 2000s, working for different companies over the years before starting their own subcontracting businesses.
“We first met back in 2010 when we worked together for a short stint, but it wasn’t until we started subcontracting together at various sites that we decided to join forces leading to where we are now,” said Anthony.
“One day Craig and I were working together and we were changing out a large component on the attachment of an excavator, the stick cylinder, and the done way of containing the oil when removing the hoses was just to put a rag around the disconnection point of the hydraulic lines after the relief was backed off and hope it stopped the oil from spraying on you.”
You can guess where this is going. The rag blew off and Craig and Anthony were left covered in hydraulic oil.
So they decided to do something about it.
“Craig and I have always thought outside of the box and have never been the type of people happy to settle for working with the same old tools.
“Right there and then we came up with the idea of using wraps to go around disconnection points of hydraulic powered machines. That way if you were dealing with a circuit with unknown oil pressures inside you could guarantee that you wouldn’t get splattered with oil.
“Then reality kicked in. We would need certification, insurance, engineering, all those bits and pieces involved to get a product to market and so we almost talked ourselves out of it before we even began.
“But then we thought about all the hurdles we have jumped through in our lives and decided to go for it and work it all out as we went along.
“That’s basically been the premise of our entire business – whatever is thrown at us we just work out how to climb over the rung and then go to the next problem.”
So at the end of 2020 they formed HNA Group, based in Mackay. Since then the business has grown exponentially and Anthony and Craig have become known as the ‘solution guys’ solving problems that might seem little but have big impacts.
“People come to us with problems and we work it out, either by ourselves or working with their teams, until we come up with a solution. Then we take that idea and engineer it to meet Australian standards,” said Craig.
There is no messing around when it comes to getting products to market. Their first product, HNA bands, which wrap around the disconnection points of hydraulic machines, hit the market just four weeks after they came up with the idea.
“After creating the bands we started looking at what else we could do around hydraulics. We made covers for hydraulic gauges to stop fluid injection injuries and protect workers if they are handling gauges that fail. From that we went into fluid injection prevention tooling and started creating covers to go around high pressure hydraulic tooling so if there is a sudden release of oil pressure you are protected. Next was removable burst sleeving for HME.”
As they rolled out product after product, the industry began to sit up and take notice and when BHP started a project around the elimination of live work Anthony and Craig were asked if they could supply some products for project tutus.
“That was when we started to make up other tooling outside of the scope of what we were already doing. GoPro kits, power modules, PTZ cameras, thermal binoculars, Bluetooth tooling, stuff like that,” said Anthony.
“During that process we also started looking at what more we could do. There are a lot of machines throughout Australia and around the world that are required to be covered with burst sleeving so we began manufacturing circuit specific removable burst sleeving for all types of machinery.
“It started getting pretty busy! We ended up with a contract with Liebherr to supply burst and fire sleeves to all new machines coming into Australia.
This was before Recognised Standard 23 came into Queensland requiring that type of preventative safety measure.”
So while the pair reveal they are continuing to work on bigger and better tooling – and a few other projects that they are keeping hush for now – they are also getting stuck into custom engineering and industrial design.
At the recent RCOE Queensland Resources & Innovation Expo they showcased their Strut Handling Tool, a significant advancement in the process of replacing front strut assemblies on Caterpillar haul trucks and eliminating the need for overhead cranes and complex lift plans.
“That was a milestone to be able to create a product like that. It also led to the next engineering project where we found safer ways to remove batteries from trucks and so now we are creating battery lifting tools that can lift out a multitude of different batteries from different types of machines everywhere saving people from repetitive and heavy work.”
It’s hard to believe how prolific the pair has been, especially considering they still like getting out to site and working on the tools on a regular basis, juggling it with the ever growing demand for HNA products.
“It all comes down to solving problems to make things easier and safer,” said Craig.
“We learn from our failures, and we have had sh*tloads of them, but we just keep building and tinkering and coming up with new innovative tooling.
“At the end of the day solving problems is what gives us the most satisfaction and keeps us excited.
“Though it’s pretty cool when someone comes up to us and says how much easier and safer it is for them to do this or that because of something we have done.”
