Aeronaut Automation is an Australian company specialising in the manufacture of wide span flatbed automated cutters. Our factory is situated in Terrey Hills, on Sydneys northern peninsular. The factory is about 40 minutes from Sydneys CBD.

Unlike other companies manufacturing automated cutters, Aeronaut began as sailmakers… Aeronaut Sails, specialising in sails for round the world, single and short handed boats and fast multihulls. Unlike most sailmakers, we had a metal-working lathe with a milling attachment which later came in handy for prototyping our cutters.

Drawing the panels on cloth by hand is hard on the knees and painfully time consuming. So we bought a basic pen plotter in 1987. We soon found that the patterning software we had bought with it, could also design products like sails, but we couldn't cut a sail number let alone things like boom covers, bags and biminis. So we set about developing our own software, Panelmonger, for translating all sorts of files from sail and cad software into something we could plot were soon were selling Panelmonger to other sailmakers for file translations and our own plotter was hard at work doing things like full size boat hulls for boatbuilders.

We had an association with Sails Science in New Zealand and both of us realised that most sailmakers wanted a full package of software and plotter so we looked around for something which we could offer to the local market. Although the plotter we got was OK, like a lot of floor mounted plotters, it was quite flimsy and not as good as the Axon plotter we already owned. Many of the plotters we imported from the UK were damaged in transit by things like the heavy transformer breaking loose and clearing out inside the control box. There wasn't much support for configuring the software either, so we got used to a lot of repair and improvements. And then we decided to make our own.

Two of the plotters we sold were installed miles away - 800km and 1600km. If and when a wire failed and had to be fixed, as it did on both, we were working for a loss. This focussed us on the importance of designing reliability in right from the start (and only using good quality robotic cables!)

The change from Aeronaut sails to Aeronaut Automation came about when a local sailmaker said that he wanted to buy a cutter but he wanted us to make it for him. And he sent a cheque, which sat on the office desk for a couple of months until the kids complained because they couldn't have chips and ice cream on big a day out. The kids had somehow appeared while we were making software and plotters.

After selling six cutters in five weeks to various marine businesses we decided that was where the future lay for Aeronaut.