Starting off supplying WA’s mining and transport sector, Fuwa K-Hitch has become one of the industry’s most striving entities, capitalising on a strong economic link between China and Australia and an indomitable can-do attitude.
“A can-do person is someone who has understood that anything can be done as long as you put your mind to it,” says Fuwa K-Hitch’s Executive Director, Mario Camenzuli. “He doesn’t have the word ‘can’t’ in his vocabulary because he always thinks of a way to solve a problem or challenge when he is facing a roadblock.” After starting a local engineering company in his parents’ backyard in 1989, it was Mario who pulled the strings to create one of Australia’s most influential trailing equipment businesses when merging with Chinese manufacturing giant Fuwa.
Combining the global manufacturing strength of the Chinese powerhouse and K-Hitch’s local expertise in the fifth wheel and kingpin market, Fuwa K-Hitch has since become a leading supplier of trailing equipment to the Australian transport industry. According to Mario, the key to success is
that both K-Hitch and Fuwa share the same philosophy. “We pour everything back into the business to insure we can service our customer’s loyalty in the future,” he explains. “We have come a fair way in a relatively short time frame on the back of our industry embracing and welcoming change and options, but in a lot of ways we are still in our infancy.
“But, it is no secret that we want to be the best, not simply a big player,” he adds. “The beauty of our connection with Fuwa is that we have the capacity to meet all the challenges of the current economic climate. Many companies lose their flexibility as they get larger but developing a new product doesn’t present the same problems for us – we can still react very quickly.”
One mainstay of the thriving Sino-Australian alliance is the axle and suspension business. The company’s production centres in China have the capacity to produce a mind blowing 1,800,000 trailer axles and 350,000 suspension sets annually – enabling Fuwa China to compete with the world’s most influential manufacturing big leagues.
But, it is not mere quantity that has fuelled the brand’s growth in Australia and around the globe. Fuwa’s one-piece forged axles are fast gaining a reputation as a tough and reliable alternative to the established brands. Built in Shunde and the almost infamous industrial park in Taishan, the production process involves a length of square or round tube being heated, swaged, pushed and rolled into a one-piece beam with significant strength and weight savings compared to
a conventional three-piece welded axle, according to Fuwa. The Fuwa axle is also used by US brand AXN and Dutch company Valx. “We also have a great working relationship with Dutch trailer suspension specialist VDL Weweler,” says Mario, who is still an advocate of a strong can-do attitude. “We work together promoting air suspended axles to compete with the European offerings. This world-class product is opening a lot of doors for both companies as the package is priced very competitively. “Whatever solution you choose, you can’t really go past Fuwa K-Hitch anymore,” he concludes. “Combining the global manufacturing strength of Fuwa China, with equipment that is purpose built and tested for the Australian market is a winning formula – especially in the axle and suspension business.”