HAROLD HAMILTON KERR
My mother, June Harrison-Owen Kuykendall, had a loving step father named Harold Hamilton Kerr who was born 24 March 1886 and died 2 September 1966. Harold was the youngest of possibly six children. He died at Mort Lake, VIC, AU, and was cremated and interred at Spring Vale Cemetery at Melbourne, VIC, AU.
Harold was an inventor who spent his life making dairy processing equipment. He founded a company called James Bell Machinery Company (after a solicitor whose name Harold saw on a sign one day) (reference James Bell Machinery Holdings Limited thirty-second annual report 1980-1981). Harold invented one of the first milking machines. He built machines which would take in milk at one end, and produce butter all packaged at the other end. He was very successful in business and raised a wonderful family.
Through the years, James Bell Machinery became APV Bell Bryant and then combined with Baker Perkins Industrial. The varied company that is known as APV, with some 4,500 employees, engineers and constructs manufacturing facilities for the food and beverage industries. In 1997, Siebe plc acquired APV. In February 1999, Siebe merged with BTR to form Invensys, a company with over 90,000 employees worldwide.
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/137.html#562
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/138.html#567
http://www.apv.invensys.com/content/foodanddrink/217a.htm
http://www.apv.invensys.com/code/Browse_Code/Viewdocument.asp?DocumentID=404&majorid=3&minorid=1
http://www.apv.invensys.com/code/Browse_Code/Viewdocument.asp?DocumentID=692&majorid=3&minorid=1
APV AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND
APV is working closely with the region's
growing food processing industry as it has been active in
Australia and New Zealand since the 1920s. The business was then
Baker Perkins Industrial which introduced bread plants before
combining with APV Bell Bryant's liquid processing business.
APV Baker moved into its present site in
Springvale, Melbourne, during 1987 and the trading name of the
business was recently changed to reflect the area of operations.
These are now APV Australia and APV New Zealand and they are
structured to meet customer needs.
The regional head office for the sub-group
is in the Melbourne suburb of Springvale. The Australian
operations are served with five branch offices in all major state
capitals.
The New Zealand head office is in Mount
Wellington, Auckland. It is backed by five other offices
throughout the country's two main islands. Manufacturing
facilities are located in Brisbane and Auckland.
CUSTOMER FOCUS
The present company policy is to maintain
an increased customer focus with high market penetration. The
emphasis is on close customer contacts and the main objective of
APV is to provide a complete and comprehensive service which
ranges from a multi-million dollar project to a single process
component, spare parts, service and maintenance. Achieving this
has resulted in the accreditation of all the region's major sites
with ISO 9000 and Continuous Improvement Programmes.
Part of the continuous development of the
company has been to divide the operations into the contracting
division and the sales and service division. The contracting side
has extensive local engineering, technology and project
management capabilities. It has the ability to work with
customers on work that ranges from the largest dairy projects to
all levels of beverage, processed food and pharmaceutical
installations. This is backed by the Brisbane and Auckland
manufacturing facilities, providing APV with greater flexibility
when executing projects.
The sales and service division handles not
only the sales and technical support of all APV products but also
maintenance and spare part supply in order to provide a full
service capability for all customers.
INNOVATION
The business has established a reputation
for R&D innovations with the leading examples being the
hybrid long plate and the tubular evaporator for the juice
industry. Such a system is operating on pineapple juice plant in
Indonesia. On the dairy side, the R&D team has made
significant developments in lactose processing capabilities with
what is widely accepted as a previously difficult to process
product.
APV in Australia and New Zealand is well placed to take advantage of this region's market growth into the new century. This is due to the sub-group's technological skills which with sharp management focus puts the company at the leading edge of competitiveness in meeting customer satisfaction throughout the region's expanding food processing industry.
HistoryAPV was founded by Dr Richard Seligman in 1910 as the Aluminium Plant & Vessel Company Limited, a specialist fabricating firm supplying welded vessels to the brewery and vegetable oil trades. Over the years the company grew through many acquisitions and expanded from a total staff of seven to an international engineering business with a workforce of 4,500. |
|||
Carefully planned growth over the years brought new process plant and automation technologies for the dairy, food, brewery, beverage, phamaceutical and healthcare industries. Through acquisition, APV was able to exploit and develop the knowledge and expertise of companies such as Anhydro; specialists in drying and evaporation, Gaulin and Rannie; experts in homogenisation technology and most recently Steridose; leaders in the field of aseptic and sterile processing. Throughout its long history APV has pioneered many of the technologies that are today's process industry standards.
Now operating as APV Systems, this history of innovation continues through our strong research and development policy. We pride ourselves on our ability to work in partnership with customers to identify and provide equipment specifically tailored to individual needs. |
|||
APV became part of the Siebe Group of companies in June 1997. With the acquisition, Siebe plc, already a major player in the Chemical, Oil and Gas, Utility and Pulp, Paper and Metals sectors added Food, Dairy and Beverage to its field of expertise, at the same time strengthening APV's position in these markets.
In February 1999, Siebe merged with BTR, a giant in industrial manufacturing and engineering, to form Invensys, a global engineering and electronics company with over 90,000 employees. Invensys is made up of four divisions: Software Systems, Control Systems, Automation Systems, and Power Systems.
