Bosch to shut down Australian diode manufacturing facility

Bosch’s Australian diode manufacturing plant in Clayton, Melbourne is set to cease operations, marking the closure of one of the country’s few large-scale semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

The Clayton factory, which exclusively produces Automotive Diodes for the Bosch group, has been supplying up to 60 million diodes annually. Since Bosch sold its alternator business in 2018, it hasn’t been procuring diodes from the Australian plant. 

The closure of this facility also serves as a poignant reminder of the former automotive electronics manufacturing hub at Clayton, where Bosch previously manufactured vehicle computers for Australian car manufacturers. These computers can account for over a quarter of a new car’s total value. 

Bosch said in a statement: “As previously announced, Bosch has been actively looking for a buyer for the diode manufacturing business in Australia. There has been strong interest from one potential buyer, leading to a lengthy and thorough evaluation of the business by them. Unfortunately, however, it has not been possible to reach an agreement with them to purchase the business. Consequently, it has been decided to ramp down and close the Diode business in Clayton over the next 18 months.” 

Approximately 90 employees, known as ‘associates,’ working in Bosch’s Diode manufacturing division in Australia have been notified about this decision. The diode manufacturing segment managed to survive the decline of the automotive manufacturing industry due to innovative measures established between Bosch and the Chairman and President of Bosch Australia, Gavin Smith. 

Under Smith’s guidance, many of the engineers previously employed in automotive manufacturing at Bosch were redeployed to a new venture called Bosch Australia Manufacturing Solutions (BAMS). This pioneering business, the first of its kind within the Bosch network worldwide, aimed to leverage the company’s expertise in manufacturing and specialised machine building. BAMS offered these capabilities as services to other manufacturers. 

BAMS has achieved remarkable success, not only in constructing machines but also in designing automated systems and complete production lines for various Australian enterprises. 

The business model employed by BAMS has now been replicated in other Bosch divisions across the globe, while BAMS itself has engineered production lines for overseas operations of Australian businesses.