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NEWS
Bailey Oz to go it alone
Local Bailey arm to move further away from British parentLike a well-rounded fledgling leaving the family nest, Bailey Australia will soon be making its own way in the Australian caravan market, with reduced support from its Bristol, Britain parent.
With its workforce now standing at around 75 – double that of a year ago – and production nudging double digits per week, Bailey Australia is currently making plans to produce its own full-composite body panels for Rangefinder caravans locally by early next year, instead of importing them from England.
Having a local laminating plant will allow Bailey Australia to be more reactive to the local market and produce new models faster, rather than the current lead time of more than three months for panels to be produced and shipped to Australia from the UK.
Just 20 months after its establishment, Bailey Australia is already bursting at the seams at its Campbellfield, Melbourne headquarters, to the point where all Bristol-built Baileys are now shipped directly to the company’s Morisset, NSW headquarters and dealership south of Newcastle, from where they are distributed nationally.
Australian demand for Bristol-built Baileys remains strong, according to Bailey Australia boss, Adrian Van Geelen, but with the growth of the Australian Rangefinder, the imports now account for a smaller percentage of total Bailey sales in Australia.
The company has also had to lease additional storage space in Campbellfield for around 30 new locally-built caravans due to the doubling of Rangefinder production over the past 12 months.
“Importing body panels from Bailey of Bristol is not ideal for both companies,” explained Van Geelen.
“Because the panels for Australian Rangefinders are lighter and longer than those for British models, they have to be produced in special batches and this interrupts Bailey’s main production line that otherwise builds a caravan every eight minutes.
“At this end, the arrival of containers slows our production too, due to our space limitations and this disrupts our production.
“After building caravans using Bailey’s Alu-Tech system for more than a decade, Bailey UK and we have the technology and know-how to produce them locally and it’s just a matter of finding suitable premises and gearing up for production.”
While an ideal solution would be a move into a larger factory to consolidate everything under one roof, Van Geelen said this would logistically be difficult in the short term.
“Realistically, it will be three years before we can contemplate such a move,” he said. “We are already flat out meeting demand without the interruption such a move would cause. At present, we have production booked out for several months before we can even replace current dealer stock and we expect the introduction of the new single axle Coastal series will increase demand and place even further pressure on production.”
Two new slide-out models are also expected to join the current Rangefinder Comet late this year, or early in 2018.
Bailey Australia is also in the process of going direct with factory-owned sales outlets in Brisbane, followed by Melbourne later in the year. New Queensland headquarters, likely to be located in the Loganholme/Yatala area of the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, are also imminent.
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Written byMichael Browning
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Please see our Editorial Guidelines & Code of Ethics (including for more information about sponsored content and paid events). The information published on this website is of a general nature only and doesn’t consider your particular circumstances or needs.
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