Month: September 2017

The Australian British Chamber of Commerce is hosting an advanced manufacturing lunch on 11 October at which industry leaders from Australia and the UK will discuss the opportunities and challenges facing Australian manufacturing, explore the UK experience in this space and discuss potential opportunities for Aussie businesses in the UK market. UK businesses will spend over GB £90bn on products to support the advanced manufacturing industry in 2017. And with major OEMs including Rolls Royce, BMW, GE, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, Airbus, Lockheed Martin, and Bosch Siemens all having significant UK footprints, there is a huge opportunity for innovative Australian manufacturers to join the UK advanced engineering supply chain. The British Consulate-General here in Melbourne has extended to me the opportunity to invite up to four advanced manufacturing firms along to the luncheon as their guests. The UK Department for International Trade’s (DIT) advanced manufacturing specialist, Dr Mark Priest, is visiting Melbourne in October and will be speaking at the lunch. With over 20 years’ experience in roles with BP, Boeing, Nike and Dow Chemicals, Mark’s role is to work with international advanced manufacturing businesses, helping them assess UK market potential and to expand their operations into…

Coolant management is an important part of efficient CNC machine tool operations, and it is generally well known that degraded coolant can result in premature machine tool wear, causing decreased performance. Removing coolant from a sump using a Freddy vacuum provides multiple benefits; not only is coolant vacuumed up quickly at an impressive rate of 230 litres per minute, but any sludge and residue that has built up at the bottom of a machine sump is also removed. The sump can then be thoroughly cleaned if necessary. By doing this with a Freddy vacuum, it also removes the need to come into contact with the coolant, thus removing the likelihood of a worker contracting a skin condition through prolonged contact or having an allergic reaction. However a Freddy does more than just vacuuming out the coolant. The in-built filter removes fines, swarf, and any particulates larger than the filter rating of the…

The importance of precision measurement is now a recognised reality in today’s manufacturing world. As technology has improved, so have the tools available to manufacturers – both in their function and in their accuracy. A broad range of tactile and optical measurement technologies are now available. The most common – and basic – of these tactile, or touch, technologies is a group of devices collectively known as hand tools. This family includes such classics as micrometers and calipers. They are some of the most frequently used hand measuring instruments, but they are not without fault. Because they rely on the user to take the measurement properly and correctly interpret the result, measurements can vary greatly depending on the operator. Furthermore, hand tools do not easily provide the measurement documentation demanded by today’s…