About Us

Who We Are

R & I Instrument & Gear Co (Aust) Pty Ltd continues to expand and cement its place in niche markets where is it highly regarded as a quality supplier to many of Australia’s leading Original Equipment Manufacturers of both Medical & Scientific Instruments, the Defence and Aerospace industry, general Industrial users including Mining and Utilities and also as a support for R&D projects by many involved in Industry, our Universities and individuals alike

Our commitment to precision machining/precision engineering and meeting Customers’ requirements is supported by our continuing Quality Accreditation. We are a registered Quality Endorsed Company meeting both requirements for ISO 9001:2015 and AS9100D CERT-AU1645-QCQ-QCM. Audited by TQCSI Global (most recent accreditation April 2021) and we also work hard to meet various other Customer demands to satisfy their requirements such as FDA; RoHS etc. Please see our quality policy here, for more information.

Our origins date back to 1948 and in 1999 the Company came under the control of the Hardman family as a sister Company to Hardman Bros Pty Ltd (a Private family business) which is involved in more Industrial type Power transmission applications with larger (bigger) capacity in Gear cutting and Precision machining. The direct investment in both property and plant and the commitment to our personnel is considerable and we plan to continue our involvement in niche areas of Australian manufacturing for the foreseeable future.

Our History

Our story so far

1948

R & I Instrument & Gear Co. Pty Ltd was a family owned partnership originally established in 1948 by Robert Brown and his wife Irene. The business initially started out in the garage at home and over time grew and progressed to the point when they relocated into the premises at 355 Neerim Rd Carnegie where it continued to grow for over 40 years.

1960-1970

R&I become involved in the manufacture of automotive instrument parts and fine pitch gears and was a prime supplier to both OEM’s and also the Automotive instrument repair industry both in Australia and New Zealand. Through the late 1960’s and 1970’s R&I found its way into the infancy of the development of Medical and Scientific machines in Australia.

1978

Jeff Rowell and his wife Joyce took over the business in 1978. Jeff previously had dealings with the Company dating back to 1958 when he first started ARGOSY Instruments after leaving the RAAF where he had become a well trained and highly regarded Instrument maker. Under his guidance R & I continued to make their mark on the industry as a well regarded manufacturers’s of both small precision components and fine pitch gears for the growing Medical and Scientific Instrument sectors

1993

In 1993 Andrew Rowell took over as the Operations Manager, as the start of a succession plan for Jeff and Joyce to step back from the business and retire. Andrew was familiar with the Company as he had first worked for R & I in 1976 during his summer school holidays (with Bob Brown)

1999

R&I had a short stint at Rowville starting in late 1993 as the next growth phase first started however by 1999 it was obvious that considerable expenditure to update machining capabilities and computerise our Resource Planning and Job Management capabilities was needed to move into the 21st Century. Discussions exploring various options were held and eventually a deal was done with the Hardman family in late September 1999 to take over the business and relocate it into a new building being built at that time on the existing Hardman Bros site in Lower Dandenong Road, Dingley Village

2019 and beyond

With Hardman Bros business acumen and Andrew Rowell’s attentive leadership R&I have gone from strength to strength due to their exceptional business ethics, Customer Service and consistently superior outputs meeting and exceeding Customer demands. R & I has great appreciation and understanding of the value of Customer Service and the need to meet varying KPI’s required by a diverse customer base. The Company has adapted to KANBAN agreements; RoHS considerations and also able to meet demands of Customers to satisfy requirements of both the US FDA and also AS9100 managed by our M1 ERP Software and guided by our own Internal Quality System currently established to AS9001 (and we are now working towards and very close to achieving AS9100)

We understand that every customer may have slightly different expectations and requirements however this does not diminish our philosophy to produce high quality components that meet or exceed our Customer’s expectations with Delivery in Full on Time and the Target of zero-defects.

Our pro-active approach to establishing and building Value Managed Relationships has enabled us to have long standing relationships with many Companies supplying parts that are used in Medical & Scientific equipment as well as Aerospace and Defence applications to all parts of the globe.

Under the astute guidance and investment by the Hardman family the business continues to expand and cement its place in a niche market where it is still highly regarded as a quality supplier to many leading manufacture’s of Medical & Scientific instruments, Industrial users, Public utilities, Universities, R&D and is also engaged in both Aerospace and Defence Industries.