Defence Business November 2023

November 2023 Defence Business TOOLCRAFT
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Hephaestus Global companies have been involved in a range of
Defence projects, including the Collins Class submarines.
“They were small family-owned businesses,”
Sardelis said.
“Sharman’s was a four or five-person operation. And
now it goes into every MFC console globally. That’s
a pretty big success story from something that was
making just shelving 10 years ago.”
But Sardelis said Hephaestus’s staff numbers represent
a five-fold jump from 2015 and he’s predicting a
further increase in staff of 20 per cent each year.
Part of the reason is the business is not reliant on
defence contracts, which account for about half of
its work. This is complemented by everything from
automotive tooling and production to trucking, white
goods and even the renewable energy sector.
“We’ve got some nice orders going through for the next
five or six years with Defence and working with primes
providing solutions in other projects are coming through.
We see it as quite sustainable.
“Because we are so diverse, it takes out a lot of the
peaks and troughs that happen in the Defence game.
We’re not just a machining company, we’re also offering
tooling solutions and engineering solutions to some of
the bigger primes and secondary defence companies
that are making things on their own.”
But by whatever means, the company’s visibility in the
Defence space is growing multi-dimensionally.
“For example, if you go out to BAE Edinburgh, their
whole workshop is filled with Sharman work benches
and Rapier Electronics is all Sharman work benches.
“Same if you head out to the airport, with most of the
guys servicing the small planes.
“So we have a nice little presence there of providing
shop floor product as well.”