A truly elegant solution
About FormFlow
FormFlow is based in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The company was established in 2016 to commercialise a world first metal forming process that has now been used to create a unique range of products for the building industry.
We have expanded our technology and product range to include production and prefabricated building systems that complement the bend.
Our highly capable team has strong links to Deakin University and our other development partners.
Our engineers, architectural designers, project managers, administrators, production staff and tradespeople can take a project from initial concept stage right through to completion.
We believe in collaborating with leaders and experts external to the company to bring outstanding products to the market.
We use Sociocracy, a system of dynamic governance to create an environment where organisational effectiveness, equivalence/equality and consent decision making are fundamental guiding principles of the way we work.
In 2019, we licensed our foundation technology, the C90 bend, to BlueScope Steel in Australia and now have the opportunity to scale this, and our rapidly expanding portfolio of new technologies both nationally and internationally.
The relationship we have with BlueScope Steel has been extremely important in the development of our highly efficient, steel based modular building system. The result is a flexible and responsive supply chain capable of ramping up the production of new concepts rapidly.
In 2016, FormFlow founder Dr Matt Dingle approached Geelong based engineering company Austeng for assistance to develop a prototype machine to validate a new bending concept. Following successful preliminary trials in September 2016, FormFlow Pty Ltd was born.
Dr Matthias Weiss from Deakin University joined Austeng’s Ross and Lyn George and Dr Matt Dingle as co-founders of the new venture. Over the next six months FormFlow and Austeng collaborated on developing an industrial scale machine to bend commercial grade corrugated sheets.
The science of our work is based on research by the late JP (Jim) Duncan of the University of British Columbia and his cousin, JL (John) Duncan then of McMaster University, Canada, and later The University of Auckland, NZ. They discovered the mathematical theorems of folding ‘inextensional’ curved sheet.
‘Inextensional’ is a geometric term meaning that the sheet cannot stretch or shear, and deformation is limited to a sharp bend. Such folding has been practised for many years in the art of origami. Identifying the mathematical rules governing it permitted the design of these shapes in a computer-aided design system. Because the sheet is not stretched, high strength, low elongation sheet such as roofing steel can be shaped in this way.