Brothers' business success up in lights

Ahmed Hikmet and Mohammed Hikmet are happy that their hard work has been recognised with nominations in several categories for the Westpac Manukau Business Excellence Awards. Picture / Greg Bowker

Whether checking the scoreboard, looking if a bus is due or following the keep left sign while driving, chances are that you are looking at an electronic sign set up by sign designer HMI Technologies.

Mohammed and Ahmed Hikmet set up a computer services business in Auckland in 1996 before moving into the electronics industry and then setting up HMI in 2002.

The company has been rewarded for its efforts with nominations in the small business, innovation and strategy, and manufacturing and services categories at next Friday's Westpac Manukau Business Excellence Awards.

"We've been always involved in the manufacturing and making sure that we are doing the right thing and it's time when you just stop for a moment and look around and you see the recognition [for] the work that you've done - there's nothing better than that," Mohammed Hikmet says.

He said New Zealand lags other countries in the field of electronic signs. Keeping the company on the leading edge of a fast-evolving technology is a challenge and a necessity for the firm, which employs nine people.

"If there are 10 hours a day that we are working, then definitely one to two hours' work per day should be allocated to research and [the] learning curve," Mohammed Hikmet says.

The company designs and manufactures products and components from circuit boards to light-emitting diodes.

"Unless you are just keeping that distance ahead of everyone else and keep inventing new things ... then soon they will catch you and then they'll be in the market."

The company takes pride in its brand and is focussed on quality.

"Any product [that] goes out of here it's our name on the line," Mohammed Hikmet says. "So if we are compromising a single screw that means we are compromising our name."

And word of mouth publicity from satisfied customers has been an essential part of marketing the business.

"You make sure that you go that extra mile for your client and then your existing client will become the best advertising tool for you."

The latest challenge for HMI has been to restructure the firm - including new computer, accounting, communications and payroll systems - to make sure it is positioned to capitalise on increasing turnover and a push for exports. It markets products in Europe, Australia, Dubai and South Africa.

Advice from a business mentor - a role the brothers hope to fill themselves one day - and their accountant helped them through the restructure.

"We sat there and designed a structure [like] the company that we should follow and then identified the tasks and then each one of the tasks has been assigned to a project manager ... and from there we are moving on," Mohammed Hikmet says.

"The more technology you offer, the more demand you'll get from the other side."

There are other sign suppliers in the market but there is not much competition in terms of design and manufacturing.

In July, a 70-metre-long HMI designed and built ticker sign - one of the longest in the world - was launched on the side of the New Zealand Stock Exchange building in Wellington to display market information.

The sign is operated from HMI's Manukau office where information is processed.

"It's not just a straightforward sign," Ahmed Hikmet says.

"Behind it, there is a fairly high level of technology and IT computer electronics control."

One trailer-mounted HMI sign can display road information or use a radar to measure and display the speed of passing vehicles.

These new generation signs are interactive with solar-panel power and wireless communications to relay information including number of cars, average speed and battery life back to a central control site.

"The simple look hides a complex and highly intelligent technology," Mohammed Hikmet says.

HMI also undertakes contract work for other electronic companies.

The brothers, both engineers, set up a satellite receiver manufacturing business in Jordan after they left Iraq and before they moved to New Zealand in the 1990s.

"At that time, there wasn't much choice [for] me ... now I have all the choice, being a New Zealander," Mohammed Hikmet says with pride.

"I wouldn't go anywhere else ... New Zealand appears to be the best choice that I ever made in my life."


HMI technologies

What: Design and manufacture electronic signs.

Where: Pakuranga, Auckland.

Why: Mohammed Hikmet: "It's a moving technology so it's never the same after two or three years ... the challenge is always there to innovate and to create new things."