Locally made, community focused: the history of A&L Windows and Doors

For our entire 45-year history, A&L has supported local Australian communities.

We have proud roots as a small, family-owned local business, having been founded by Arion Pierson and Les Johns in the Victorian suburb of Bayswater.

After starting out in the community, we’ve proudly helped build local communities. Since 1980, our 800-strong local team has manufactured and supplied windows for hundreds of thousands of family homes up and down Australia’s east coast.

Our history is built on strong, long-term partnerships with Australia’s builders—from some of the largest volume builders in the country, to smaller family-owned businesses, like the one we started out as.

They’re genuine partnerships too. The average tenure of our partnerships with builders is currently 20 years. Almost half the time we’ve been in business.

While a lot has changed since the early days, the A&L story—just like those crucial partnerships with Australian builders—is all about consistency and reliability.

A history built on consistency, reliability, and commitment to making life easy for builders

Right from the get-go, Arion and Les identified a need in the market that was not being met. This was done through ‘voice of customer’ insight—talking to builders to understand their challenges and work out ways to serve them better. It’s still a huge part of our practice today.

Through those conversations, A&L was born on the idea that…

Builders want a very short, very consistent lead time. It’s as true today as it was back in 1980.

Today, a building supervisor makes a phone call, and you can have windows on site in days. Speed, consistency, and reliability of delivery are some of the key hallmarks of how A&L operates, because they’re crucially important to local builders.

It takes a long time to become rapid

Back in 1980, Arion and Les invested a lot of time and effort in developing replicable methods. These methods changed the game. Five- or ten-day lead times were not available in the market. Instead, the average lead time was around two months.

The team realised speed comes from standardisation. Standard sizes, standard products. Repeatable procedures. It all adds up to reliability, consistency, and ultimately, value for builders.

A consistent 10-day lead time from first call from supervisor: we know that’s vitally important to builders.

Here’s why.

Australian family homes aren’t built in factories

It sounds like a strange thing to say. But for builders—even with modular building practices and other contemporary techniques—there’s no set or replicable schedule for construction. There are so many variables at play on a build site.

At any point, your timelines can be negatively impacted by:

• Site conditions
• Changes in weather
• Trade or commodity issues
• Shipping and supply chain problems, and much more.

Having surety that your windows will arrive on time—in full, as expected—is critical.

The only 100% reliable trigger for when you need your windows is the carpenter finishing the frame.

Today, between 50% and 70% of frames are built in factory to eliminate as many variables as possible. But carpenters still need to arrive on site, with the frames, for builders to know exactly when you’ll need your windows.

What’s the typical timeframe from that moment to the point you need windows on site? 5-7 days: the exact lead time A&L Windows was founded upon.

A 5-, 7-, or 10-day lead time is still critically important now. Offshore manufacturers simple cannot provide that same certainty: their average lead times are between 6 and 12 weeks. And can easily blow out well beyond that.

As a builder, the less predictable your lead times, the more likely you are to lose money, lose your reputation, and suffer from the impact of cashflow issues.

So, where do you place your trust?

Commitment, consistency, and reliability are in A&L’s heritage. Our history was founded on striving for the shortest, most trustworthy lead times possible, because we know that’s key to success for builders.

The value of reliable pricing

We always strive for reliability in everything we do, including pricing.

Our products are purpose designed for local needs. Our standard range, with Hybrid, provides the best energy efficiency performance at the best possible price. Again, it’s an approach we’ve built in conversation with the local building community, in response to local needs. But now, there’s a trend for offshore competitors to offer cheaper products.

This is where the importance of reliability comes into play. There may be cheap international manufacturers today. But will they be there in a month? Will the prices remain the same, when freight changes, factories fill up, or international construction market conditions change? Can you afford to commit your supply chain to something that volatile and unpredictable?

We pride ourselves on providing surety: with a highly visible, itemised price per product—which is uncommon for large volume manufacturers—so that builders know exactly what you get and how much it costs. We fix those prices for a 12-month period.

Transparent honesty is key to any successful partnership. We don’t disguise freight costs, service costs, or anything else. Full visibility of what you pay for means full confidence, long-term.

Consistency is key, flexibility is helpful

In talking with builders and responding to feedback, we also soon learned that flexibility is just as useful as reliable lead times.

A&L does not store work-in-progress or finished goods. This means builders can flex in response to updated timelines or changes on-site.

If timelines change on site, we have the flexibility to accommodate shifting deadlines because of our manufacturing processes. We build flexibility into the process, so that we don’t penalize builders for timeline updates. It’s just another way we’re entirely committed to making life easy for the building community.

A&L’s history is local, consistent, and committed to Australia. Our future is the same.

We’re enormously proud of the past 45 years spent building and supporting local communities. And we’re equally excited about the prospect of the future, where we’ll keep on doing the exact same thing.

A&L is part of a group that supports over 4,000 people, all based locally in Australia. We have a strong track record of partnering with reputable builders. Our service teams and technicians are right here where you live and work—we can be on-site for support within two days for urgent issues. We buy millions of dollars of locally manufactured materials, and every product is designed and manufactured in Australia.

A&L is committed to local communities, supporting builders, homeowners, our team members, and other partners. At the end of the day, it’s a pretty simple story. And one you can tell in just two words: ‘always Australian’.