Omnitronics has won the Local Manufacturing Award at the 2026 ARCIA Excellence Awards for the 960SIP radio dispatch console, a hardware console designed, assembled, tested and supported at the company’s Osborne Park headquarters in Perth since 1996. The award was presented at the ARCIA Industry Gala Dinner at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins on 14 October 2026, held in conjunction with Comms Connect Melbourne, and was accepted on behalf of Omnitronics by Osiris Luque, Technical Quality Manager, with Tina Mucha, Chief Marketing Officer, giving the acceptance speech.
The Omnitronics team accepts the Local Manufacturing Award at the ARCIA Industry Gala Dinner, Melbourne, 14 October 2026. Photo: ARCIA.
The award
A second Local Manufacturing Award for an Omnitronics product
The Australian Radio Communications Industry Association (ARCIA) Local Manufacturing Award recognizes products designed and manufactured in Australia for export. It is the second time Omnitronics has won the category, following the 2023 award for the DRG100 Digital Radio Gateway.
The 960 console entered production in 1996 and was re-engineered for IP as the 960SIP in 2008. Thirty years on, the product line remains in current production and continues to ship globally through resellers and integrators, with recent shipments to India, France, Finland, New Zealand, Canada and Papua New Guinea, alongside its Australian installed base.
Thirty years in Osborne Park
Why the 960SIP is still built in Perth
The 960SIP is designed, built and supported by one Perth team spanning hardware and firmware engineering, PCB assembly and batch testing, technical documentation, sales and marketing, as well as the omnicare support team that still services consoles installed decades ago. Engineering, the production floor and the support desk share the same building in Osborne Park, so a fault reported by a customer can reach the people who designed and built the unit the same day.
More than 90 percent of the 960SIP is Australian content, measured as ex-works local content by cost. All industrial, circuit, firmware and mechanical design is Australian intellectual property wholly owned by Omnitronics, and every console is serialized, batch-tested and released from Perth. The balance is commodity electronic components for which no Australian source exists.
“This award belongs to the people in Osborne Park who have designed, built and supported the 960 for three decades. Because we own the design and build it ourselves, we can still manufacture, repair and spare a console specified thirty years ago. Our customers in mining and public safety buy on that certainty.”
John Jordan, CEO, Omnitronics
In the field
Who runs the 960SIP today
Available in 6- and 12-channel variants with SELCALL, DTMF and ANI signaling, the 960SIP is sealed against dust and operable in gloves, requirements set by the Australian mine sites, gas plants and vehicles it was built for. Customers continue to specify it where a physical switch must keep working in dust, in gloves and when a screen has failed. It is in service across mining, oil and gas, police, utilities, national parks and vehicle-mounted command posts.
In Australia the 960 line is still being ordered and supported, not maintained as a legacy product. Current users include the Western Australia Police Force, the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) in Western Australia, the NSW Rural Fire Service and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recent export orders have gone to TSLO Telecom in France, Cogent in New Zealand and Akvarius in Latvia.
Key facts
960SIP at a glance
- Product: 960SIP hardware radio dispatch console, 6- and 12-channel variants (960CC, 960CSD)
- Signaling: SELCALL, DTMF and ANI
- Built in: Osborne Park, Perth, Western Australia, since 1996; re-engineered for IP in 2008
- Local content: more than 90 percent Australian, measured ex-works by cost
- Team: one Perth team across engineering, production, documentation, sales, marketing and support
- Award: ARCIA Excellence Awards 2026, Local Manufacturing Award (second win, after the DRG100 in 2023)
- Markets: mining, oil and gas, police, fire and emergency services, utilities and national parks, in Australia and export
Updated October 2026. Media enquiries: Tina Mucha, Chief Marketing Officer, [email protected].
Thirty years of Perth-built dispatch
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