Episode 128 -- Jeff Lang from Vortair

In this episode of @AuManufacturing Conversations, we hear from Jeff Lang, a serial entrepreneur who is currently CEO and Executive Director of Vortair.

Lang shares plenty of detail about the highs and lows of founding and growing high-tech manufacturing businesses, why the industry needs better leaders and to stop blaming others for its difficulties, and more.

Episode guide

0:33 – Athletics aspirations and abandoning them to do a trade in signwriting.

1:32 – The early days of automation and digitisation. “I’ve been lucky and in the right place at the right time with my age.”

3:05 – The emergence of snowboarding in Australia and making boards in the mid-1980s. 

3:52 – Founding Force Industries and making skis, snowboards and kite boards.

4:32 – Reluctantly offshoring to China in 2004.

6:05 – Being approached by the CSIRO in 2007 to work on cold spray additive manufacturing for sports products, then realising the market potential was in other industries.

8:15 – Partnering with Professor Richard Fox, an oncologist, at Force Industries and then at what would become Titomic.

9:40 – IP, CSIRO, wifi and parking a patent with them.

11:05 – An unusual offer from the UK to buy their patent.

13:15 – Raising capital, deciding on a direction for the company, and being approached by Innovyz.

14:30 – Reasons why Titomic listed publicly. “We went to market with nothing more than a patent.”

16:38 – The disconnect between the big investors and most manufacturing in Australia.

17:33 – The national weakness around value-adding and two theories on why it exists.

20:20 – The stepping aside to become CTO to progress the manufacturing readiness of cold spray.

21:20 – The gap between a founder’s passion and the board’s expectations.

22:10 – Printing a tank and other projects resulting from discussions with prime defence contractors.

23:30 – A change of board and direction following the 2020 capital raise. “We did over-corporatise too quickly.”

24:40 – The bulk of the market was in the US and Europe, so it’s necessary to set up there. 

25:58 – Leaving in 2022. 

26:30 – “What upset me the most…”

28:40 – People want to point fingers and apportion blame.

29:30 – It’s unfortunate the mining sector has lost interest in value-adding.

30:25 – What’s lacking in Australia is fortitude and leadership from the manufacturing industry.

31:50 – “We should have the cheapest energy in the world.”

33:37 – Vortair Technologies and becoming aware of its founder’s work via CSIRO’s interest in metal swarf milling.

35:02 – Making an offer to buy the patent earlier and the deal collapsing.

35:42 – The inventor, Axel Andre.

36:30 – Building a powdering system for an unnamed tomato processor in New Zealand.

38:06 – Waste to value in tomato processing and elsewhere.

39:25 – Grinding kerbside glass.

40:55 – Why being able to mill various substances into tiny particles is useful.

42:30 – Milling insect larvae. Making carbon black from pyrolised car tyres.

43:40 – “Resource carbon black” from municipal waste rather than petrochemicals. 

45:10 – Financing the company privately. Plans to create different divisions within Vortair for different industry problems. Potential joint ventures.

47:20 – Considerations around manufacturability, robustness, food safety, supply chain and other requirements.

48:45 – Praise for SEW Eurodrive as a supplier. (Full disclosure: SEW is an advertiser with this title.)

51:10 – A pet issue: a lack of commercial thinking among startups.