In 1945, Ansell designed and built the first automatic dipping machine that produced 300 dozen pairs of synthetic gloves in eight hours. Ansell introduced disposable surgical gloves in 1964 which won the company an Export Award in 1967. Further international expansion over the next two decades saw Ansell become the world’s largest producer of latex gloves for household and medical use. The latex technique used in this remarkable development was a major Australian innovation. The Company became a member of the Pacific Dunlop group in 1969.

Source:http://www.biotechnology-innovation.com.au/innovations/instruments/latex_gloves.html

The polish was developed in Australia by William Ramsay who named it Kiwi after the flightless bird endemic to New Zealand, the home country of his wife, Annie Elizabeth Meek Ramsay. Its success in Australia expanded overseas when it was adopted by both the British and American armies in World War I.

While a number of older leather preserving products existed (including the Irish brand Punch, which was first made in 1851, and the German brand, Erdal, which went on sale in 1901), Kiwi’s invention in 1906 made it the first shoe polish to resemble the modern varieties (aimed primarily at inducing shine). Ramsay and fellow Scottish expatriate Hamilton McKellan began making boot polish in a small factory in 1904 in Melbourne, Australia. They developed and improved their new formula and Ramsay launched the product in 1906 and began marketing it in Melbourne. Ramsay loaded boxes of the polish on his horse and cart, and sold it to farmers to protect their boots.

Kiwi was a major improvement on previous brands. It preserved shoe leather, made it shine, and restored colour. By the time Kiwi Dark Tan was released in 1908, it incorporated agents that added suppleness and water resistance. Australian-made boot polish was then considered the world’s best. A range of colours became available, and exports to Britain, continental Europe, and New Zealand began.

Over the years, Kiwi has been owned by a variety of corporations. For the first six decades of its existence, it was part of iterations of an Australian corporation with Kiwi in its name, all based in the state of Victoria, including Kiwi Boot Polish Co. (1913-1916) and Kiwi Polish Co. (1916-1971). The company then joined with Nicholas International Ltd, a Melbourne based pharmaceutical company producing international brands such as Aspro and Rennie. The new company was renamed Nicholas Kiwi. In 1984 it was acquired by American-based Sara Lee (at the time known as Consolidated Foods Corporation) who eventually sold off the Nicholas pharmaceutical products to Roche of Switzerland and kept the Kiwi range.

Kiwi was acquired by the American company Sara Lee following its purchase of Reckitt and Colman in 1991 and Knomark in 1987. The Federal Trade Commission ruled that Sara Lee had to divest its ownership of these companies in 1994 to prevent it from becoming a monopoly. Since this ruling, Sara Lee has been prevented from acquiring any further assets or firms associated with chemical shoe care products in the United States without prior commission approval. The Competition Commission in the United Kingdom also investigated the potential monopoly of Sara Lee in the shoe care industry.

Kiwi remains the predominant shoe polish brand in most of the world, being sold in over 180 countries and holding a 53% market share worldwide. Today, it is manufactured in Australia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_shoe_polish

Despite his 1954 report entitled “A Device for Assisting Investigation into Aircraft Accidents” and a 1957 prototype FDR called “The ARL Flight Memory Unit”, aviation authorities from around the world were largely uninterested. This changed in 1958 when Sir Robert Hardingham, the Secretary of the UK Air Registration Board, visited the ARL and was introduced to Warren.

The Aeronautical Research Laboratory allocated Dr. Warren an engineering team to develop the prototype to airborne stage. The team, consisting of electronics engineers Lane Sear, Wally Boswell and Ken Fraser developed a working design incorporating a fire and shockproof case, a reliable system for encoding and recording aircraft instrument readings and voice on one wire, and a ground-based decoding device. The ARL system became the “Red Egg”, made by the British firm of S. Davall & Son. The “Red Egg” got its name from its’ shape and bright red color. In 1960, after the crash of an aircraft at Mackay (Queensland), the inquiry judge strongly recommended that flight recorders be installed in all airliners. Australia then became the first country in the world to make cockpit-voice recording compulsory.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_data_recorder

Often innovation comes though recognizing a need that is not being met and adapting an existing product or service to meet that need.  Such was the case with Amanda Bennetts who was frustrated by the lack of boots to accommodate ladies with a wider calf.

Amanda had a passion for boots going back to her high school days and it was after a frustrating shopping expedition with her partner (now fiancé) to more than twenty shops that she came up with the idea of getting boots made.

With the help of her partner Matthew and good friend Cansion, Bennetts boots – Wide Calf Boots was launched.   What makes Bennetts boots special is the recognition that every women has different sized and shaped legs.  They just did not take the same one size fits all approach of traditional manufactures and simply expand the calf size.

Finding the right fitting is a very important part of a Bennetts wide calf boot.   Detailed measurements of all the styles in their range of Ravishing wide calf Boots are provided starting with the normal boot size, the top (Calf) and narrowest part of the boot (ankle).   Some of the boots will fit easily first time and others will need slight stretching in certain areas for that perfect fit.

The extra wide calf boots are high quality high fashion with most made in genuine leather which is more flexible and durable.  The design philosophy at Bennetts boots is to make boots that never go out of style and will suit almost the entire wardrobe.  Each of the boots in the Bennetts boots collections is made in limited numbers and comes with a “Certificate of Authenticity” with batch number and individual number signed by founder Amanda Bennetts.

Independent research found that more than 75% of Australian women aged between 15-to 55 have trouble or know a friend who has trouble fitting boots around their curvy calves.  The only option up until now was to pay a small fortune to have custom plus size boots made or order expensive wide calf brands from overseas that might not fit properly anyway.  With the launch of Bennetts boots – Wide calf boots, now every woman in Australia can access wide width boots fashion including wide calf knee high boots that fit and at a reasonable price.

This is the problem women with a curvy calf find with most available boots

Visit Bennetts Boots – Wide Calf Boots for more information

This plastic reacts to heat, handprints or heated formula will cause the reaction. This can be merely amusement for the baby or it can give a warning that there is hot liquid in the bottle and give the feeder some warning prior to exposing the baby to the heated contents.

The polypropylene plastic used is Bisphenol-A (BPA) free. BPA is a common chemical used in the manufacture of many plastic items however it is known to leech out of the plastic and contaminate the person using the plastic utensil. The manufacturers claim the bottle will change colours ‘thousands of times over and over for months on end’.   If you are looking for the best baby bottles then check out best baby bottles reviews to find out what is best for your baby

In 1883, Hugh Victor McKay, a 17 year old, tired of turning the heavy handle on his fathers’ winnowing machine in country Victoria, wondered if a harvester could be made to winnow as well. With the help of his brothers George and John, he built a prototype made of old metal scraps and farm tools.

It was finished in 1884 and called the Sunshine Harvester. It was an immediate success because it separated the grain, straw and chaff using a rotary fan making the entire harvesting process automatic.

He soon established a factory and was selling thousands of the machines in Australia and overseas. In 1904 McKay purchased land for a plant in Braybrook near Melbourne.

So important was the Sunshine Harvester to Australian agriculture that the entire area surrounding the new plant was officially renamed Sunshine in recognition of its contribution.

]]> http://aussiethings.biz/the-sunshine-harvester/feed/ 0 http://aussiethings.biz/aussie-chopsticks/ http://aussiethings.biz/aussie-chopsticks/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:30:00 +0000 admin http://aussiethings.biz/?p=507 The Aussie Chopsticks were invented for people

who had difficulty using real chopsticks.

The Aussie chopstick is a successful invention by Bill Allardyce. The story goes that one day, Bill was fiddling with a bent piece of wire and had the idea of joining two chopsticks together. Realizing how easy it was to manipulate the bent wire he thought that if he could use chopsticks in a similar way, it would prevent food from spilling onto the table and floor.

Satisfied his idea was marketable he decided to make a prototype. After several weeks he created the model which was basically two chopsticks connected by a bent piece of plastic and some car body filler. His next move was to attempt to patent his idea but his first attempt failed because the ‘tweezer’ concept was already available on the market and could not be patented.  He instead had to take out a design registration to protect the idea.

With the idea protected, he re-designed the Aussie Chopstick for mass manufacture which took several months at considerable cost. The first run was for 20,000 and within a short time orders came in from major supermarkets for 30,000 pairs. By 1990 more than 250,000 Aussie Chopsticks had been sold. In the mid-1990s the Aussie Chopstick was sold to a major direct selling company.

Like many amateur carpenters, George Lewin found it impossible to cut a straight line through timber with a hand saw or even an electric saw. in 1975 he gave up trying to make a table saw, instead he set out to invent a simple bench that would guide the saw and hold timber still.

Once Lewin had the bench right he demonstrated it on a tv program. It was an immediate success with hundreds of Australians clamouring to buy one. In 1976 he started to manufacture Triton Workcentres. George Lewin understood the problems of the amateur woodworker who wanted to make things and the workcentre was sold with a four hour video explaining how best to use it.

The product has since been copied by other manufacturers around the world but few retain the originality and quality of the Triton.

Ben Lexcen was an Australian yacht designer who longed to build a a world beating 12 meter  racing yacht to win the America’s Cup with. In the 1980s he spent several months in Holland at a ship testing laboratory where he was experimenting with a new idea; a keel with wings that flew though the water. Lexcen found that yachts could turn much faster and sail a little closer to the wind with his winged keel. It was built into his new yacht ‘Australia II’ and kept a very closely guarded secret.

In 1983 Australia II became the first non-American boat in 132 years to win the America’s Cup Race and the Lexcen design is said to have played a major part in this victory.