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Moduplay Named a 2026 Manufacturer of the Year Finalist
Moduplay Group has been named one of 10 finalists for Manufacturer of the Year at the 2026 Australian Manufacturing Awards. The winner will be announced at Crown Melbourne on 8 October. For a family-owned playground manufacturer that began in a Wollongong driveway, this is a moment to recognise the people behind the finished equipment.
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What the awards recognise
The Australian Manufacturing Awards were established in 2025 to recognise excellence among businesses and individuals across Australia’s manufacturing and industrial sectors. The programme covers company and individual awards, along with specialist fields such as advanced manufacturing, safety, exports and apprenticeships. An independent panel evaluates nominations and chooses the finalists before selecting a winner in each category.
Manufacturer of the Year (Company) sits among the Australian Manufacturing Gold Awards, the programme’s highest honours. Moduplay’s finalist place puts a family-owned playground manufacturer in a national field of businesses with very different products and processes. The recognition belongs to the people who turn a design into something children can play on.
Australian made, on camera and in the factory
The Australian Made Campaign has featured Moduplay in its Australian Makers series. The film puts our team and their work on camera, from the factory floor to finished playground equipment.
A family business in a national field
Moduplay’s story began in 1983, when Noel Quinsey started a backyard play business at the family home in Wollongong. The front yard displayed cubby houses, and the garage was the workshop. Roger, Ben and Athol Quinsey worked in the business while growing up. Today, Moduplay designs, engineers and manufactures commercial playground equipment in Australia, with its head office and factory in Unanderra.
The Manufacturer of the Year nomination brings that family story into a field of businesses working across Australian manufacturing. It also puts a spotlight on the designers, engineers, tradespeople, project teams and support staff whose work customers rarely see when they visit a finished playground.
What happens between an idea and a playground
A finished playspace can look effortless. Behind it are drawings, engineering decisions, fabrication, computer numerical control (CNC) processing, finishing, assembly and project coordination. At Moduplay, these disciplines work close to one another. A detail can move from a drawing to a component, be checked by the people making it and return to the project team before the equipment reaches site.
Why making here matters to us
Australian manufacturing is a choice about where skills and production capability are built. At Moduplay, it supports work for designers, engineers, machinists, fabricators, finishers and the teams that coordinate each project. Investment in people and equipment helps keep that capability in Australia and gives experienced staff a chance to pass on what they know.
Making equipment close to the people who design it also changes the conversations inside a project. A drawing can be checked against the component on the factory floor. The person machining or assembling it can raise a practical detail with the designer. That knowledge remains useful when the team needs to answer a question or support a product after installation.
Connect by Moduplay: one system, different playgrounds
Connect is our Australian-designed, engineered and manufactured playground system. Its round posts and proprietary fittings let play elements join at different angles, helping the design team shape a layout around the site.
A project can begin with a catalogue unit, adapt a starting design or configure established Connect components around an activity, theme or site constraint. The range includes Connect Multi Play, Connect Towers, Connect Theme, Connect Swings and Connect Panels. The system is designed for easier maintenance and future additions.
Explore six Connect playgrounds, from compact Sunray Crescent to Michaela Howie Playground on the coast. Scout and Wildling below show two Connect Multi Play starting points.
From our team to the playground
These two projects show how design and manufacturing decisions respond to different sites. Follow the project stories for the full scope and partner credits.
Somerville Park
For the City of Parramatta’s Somerville Park, Moduplay’s Australian team developed the playground from first concepts through detailed engineering, manufacturing and delivery. Glascott delivered the landscaping and final construction works.
Michaela Howie Playground
At Dee Why, Northern Beaches Council’s playground renewal called for equipment suited to a busy foreshore site. Moduplay supplied the main structures and steel components with its Extreme Marine specification for the coastal conditions.
As Athol Quinsey explained in Sian Powell’s article for The Australian, local production keeps opportunities, skills and more of the value of the work here. For our family business, that is a reason to keep investing in the people and processes behind each playground.
Two years of recognition, two different awards
At the 2025 Australian Manufacturing Awards, Moduplay’s Dave Vinther won the individual Gold Award for Excellence in Manufacturing. This year’s Manufacturer of the Year finalist place recognises Moduplay Group as a business. The awards are distinct, and together they give us a reason to celebrate both individual skill and the wider team’s contribution.
“To be recognised in consecutive years means a great deal to a family-owned manufacturer. Dave’s Gold Award celebrated one of our people. This year’s Manufacturer of the Year finalist place reflects the wider team, and we are proud to stand alongside such a strong field of Australian manufacturers.”
Reece Conley, Head of Marketing, Moduplay Group
The 2026 field and awards night
Moduplay is one of 10 finalists for Manufacturer of the Year. The organiser’s finalist list also includes Alstom Transport Australia, Nexans Australia, Allied Pinnacle and Braille Tactile Signs (Aust), among others. Industry Update says the awards received a record number of nominations, with a judging panel of almost 50 people.
The winners will be announced at the Australian Manufacturing Awards gala dinner at Crown Melbourne on 8 October 2026. We will share the result after the event. Reaching the finalist list already gives us a chance to thank the team and to recognise the breadth of manufacturing work taking place around Australia.
See the people behind the work
The Australian Made Campaign has also featured Moduplay in its Australian Makers series, which takes viewers inside Australian manufacturing businesses. Watch Australian Made’s Moduplay film to meet some of the team and see the factory work behind the playgrounds. Australian Made also recommended Moduplay for Sian Powell’s article in The Australian on our local manufacturing story.
For more on the family business and how the equipment is made, read about Moduplay.
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