ORANGE is earmarked to house a major factory to produce a version of a revolutionary constant velocity joint designed by local inventor Glenn Thompson.
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The Thompson Coupling is the world's first universal joint to feature no load-bearing or sliding parts. It has the potential to capture a major slice of the world's $30 billion a year market for universal and constant velocity joints.
The invention has received worldwide interest in recent months. Following a report of Mr Thompson's invention in the Central Western Daily last June, the Orange inventor and his unique joint have been featured in Australian Innovation Magazine and two major European engineering publications, Eureka and European Automotive Design.
Mr Thompson said yesterday he was "delighted” with the interest his invention had generated.
A group of local supporters, including several solicitors, has formed a company RPS Thompson, to help Mr Thompson progress from prototype to the commercial production stage.
Mr Thompson said he wanted to establish a factory in Orange to manufacture a constant velocity joint, possibly for the marine market.
"We are likely to set up a factory here to produce various types of this model,” he said.
"But the production that we do locally would be for fairly finite markets. One market niche that we think will be pretty easy to get into is the marine market and it is possible that we might build a factory here to build a marine version of this joint.
"The markets are so large that production numbers would be very high. It would be a substantial size factory. It would not be unrealistic to say we could well end up with another factory the size of Electrolux.”
Mr Thompson said commercial production of his constant velocity joint for use in cars, trucks and motorbikes was months rather than years away.
He said some major car manufacturers had expressed interest in the joint.
He said RPS Thompson would approach Orange City Council "at the appropriate time” to talk about potential sites for a local factory.
The process of refining the constant velocity joint has led to flow-on inventions, a mono-plane coupling and a standing coupling which features a centring mechanism that does not rotate and therefore does not wear.