Whiteley Medical specialises in cleaning, disinfection and reuse of medical devices and surfaces within medical, dental, veterinary and other clinical and para-clinical applications.

The company is a chemical manufacturer in the cleaning industry and specialises in surface coating technology and floor care products for applications in commercial, institutional and domestic settings.

---

Managing Director Greg Whiteley ‘saw the light’ in the early 90s. He moved his manufacturing operations to Tomago and couldn’t be happier with the decision.

What attracted Whiteley Corporation to the Hunter?

The availability of economically priced land and infrastructure offered a fantastic opportunity for a manufacturing business.

Newcastle is quick drive north from Sydney and is geometrically the centre of Melbourne and Brisbane. That means 60% of the Australian population base is gathered within 200km of the three major east coast cities – this gave us a central point to locate our business.

There are also good transport routes and a readily available, high-quality workforce.

What benefits have been achieved by moving to the Hunter?

The move has allowed us to develop our business, increase our profits and have a lot more fun.

We came out of Sydney, where traffic was a nightmare; deliveries were a nightmare; staff retention rates were very poor; there were real geographical location problems and taxes were higher. Additionally, on-costs are higher in the bigger cities, which means you reduce your competitive advantage.

By moving to the Hunter, we have increased our competitive advantage by controlling our costs in the critical areas of manufacturing overheads. This has enabled gross profit to increase, which gives us more opportunity to compete on the export and domestic markets.

What about the benefits of being close to Sydney?

We are only an hour and a quarter out of the Sydney boundary, which means we can send stock to Sydney in the same time or less than it would take a manufacturing business in Campbelltown, so logistically, our location is a benefit.

From Tomago, we send stock all over Australia; 90% of the Australian hospital market uses at least one of our products.

What would you say to a company looking to relocate?

Number one, there is an abundance of greenfield sites. Moving to the Hunter allowed us to buy five times the amount of land that we could have bought in Sydney.

If you were considering moving to somewhere in Sydney, in reality, it would be outer Western Sydney, where you are going to have worse infrastructure and transport logistics plus growing risks of having residential housing built up around you, thereby putting further pressure on your infrastructure use.

In the Hunter, you avoid all of those issues as well as a much better economic proposition. The economic fundamentals of moving to the Hunter are more beneficial than going to Western Sydney.

When we did our 20-year "look forward", we were looking at Western Sydney and on every single measure we put up, environmental issues, local taxes, readiness and available workforce, the proximity of the university, staff longevity and stability and the risks of being built in – the Hunter won for us.