From the invention of the award-winning AXIS laser-guided boring system to the unveiling of AdaptX and Riteline, OptionX Group’s journey has been defined by bold ideas, Australian ingenuity, and a refusal to accept “impossible” as an answer.
Fifteen years after that first global award for innovation, the story has come full circle, with CEO and founder Stuart Harrison named ASTT Menno Henneveld Person of the Year 2025.
A legacy that began underground
Stuart Harrison first entered the trenchless industry in the 1990s, recognising early on that underground installation would be vital to the future of safe, sustainable infrastructure.
More than a decade later, in 2009, the global trenchless industry was introduced to a game-changer. The Vermeer AXIS Laser Guided Boring System, designed by Harrison, claimed the Innovative New Product of the Year award at the International No-Dig Conference in Toronto. It was more than a new product; it was a signal that precision and control could transform microtunnelling, setting the stage for everything that would follow.
That early success sparked the creation of what would become OptionX Group, a collection of companies united by a single purpose: to advance the trenchless industry through smarter engineering and local manufacturing. From those beginnings, Harrison’s reputation for problem-solving grew rapidly, attracting like-minded innovators who shared the same appetite for challenge.
Pushing boundaries, project by project
Founded by Harrison, Edge Underground, which would later become the microtunnelling arm of OptionX Group, turned heads with its precision-engineered solutions for complex ground conditions. One standout achievement was the Donnybrook Link Branch Sewer Stage 2 project in Melbourne, a demanding installation through high-strength basalt and unpredictable strata.
Edge Underground’s pioneering use of a pneumatic rock hammer integrated with laser guidance achieved microtunnelling speeds up to four times faster than conventional methods, while reducing spoil, surface disruption and environmental impact.
The project’s ingenuity earned the ASTT New Installation Project of the Year in 2022, reaffirming Edge Underground’s position at the forefront of trenchless construction, and proving to the industry that innovation in machinery was already transforming outcomes.
Transforming sewer systems to save lives
Harrison’s focus has always been clear: gravity sewer systems are essential for improving water quality, and improved water quality saves lives.
But traditional open-cut methods put workers deep in trenches, creating significant risk. Trenchless installation, by contrast, dramatically reduces that risk while delivering the same vital infrastructure.
“We need sewerage systems to save and improve lives, and we need to reduce the risks in installing them,” Harrison says. “That’s why AXIS was created, and why AdaptX exists today. I won’t stop until the gravity sewer market becomes a trenchless market.”
The technology that changed the game again
In 2023, OptionX Group made headlines when AdaptX, an advanced vacuum microtunnelling system with several patented features, won the ASTT New Technology Award and was later nominated for the ISTT International Award.
That same year, Riteline Centralisers, the Group’s fully adjustable, WSAA-appraised casing spacers, also became an ASTT New Technology finalist, recognised for improving safety, precision, and sustainability in pipeline installation.
Together, these achievements reflected a philosophy that has guided OptionX Group from the beginning: if the technology doesn’t exist, build it, and then build it better.
Recognition for the whole team
When Harrison accepted the ASTT Menno Henneveld Person of the Year award this year, he was quick to emphasise that innovation at OptionX Group has always been a team effort.
“This recognition isn’t just mine,” he later said. “It belongs to every person in our workshops, on our sites, and across the companies who keep pushing the limits of what trenchless can achieve.”
That sentiment rang especially true in 2025, when Nugraha Angga Fadillah, a driller with Edge Underground, was named a finalist for the ASTT Jeff Pace Young Person of the Year award, a fitting reminder that the spirit of innovation runs deep through every level of the organisation. That shared spirit of innovation continues to define OptionX Group’s success, and its future.
Driven by a solutions-focused mindset, OptionX Group continues to turn ideas into industry-wide breakthroughs.
For Harrison, this recognition isn’t a finish line, it’s fuel for what’s next. While others compete within the trenchless field, his goal is bigger: to compete with trenching itself and to transform the entire gravity sewer market.
Because saving lives through safer, smarter infrastructure isn’t just innovation — it’s purpose.
Do you have news for the international trenchless industry? Contact journalist Gerald Lynch at gerald.lynch@primecreative.com.au
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