Month: January 2019

Raymax Applications Pty Ltd (Issued by the NSW Department of Industry): The best and most innovative of NSW defence and aerospace companies will take part at the upcoming Avalon Airshow in Victoria in February 2019, showcasing their capabilities to an international audience of customers, manufacturers and partners. “The Avalon Airshow attracts international attention, providing an unmatched opportunity for NSW -based defence industries to showcase their capabilities to a global market,” NSW Defence Advocate Air Marshal (Retd) John Harvey, AM said. “That’s why the NSW Government is directly supporting 14 NSW companies to exhibit at Avalon, where their products will be seen by more than 650 companies, 150 delegations and 33,000 trade visitors expected to attend over the week.” Co-exhibitors on the Defence NSW stand at Avalon 2019 range from large and diverse businesses such as Air Affairs Australia and Quickstep Holdings, to providers of specialised products and services such as Nupress Group and Australian Aerospace Engineering. They will also include two industry networks, HunterNet and Shoalhaven Defence Industry Group, as well as the NSW Defence Innovation Network. The NSW Government is committed to a national, collaborative approach to defence capability challenges - backed by a sustainable, technologically advanced and globally…

I wanted to start off with that because 2019 is going to be a big year for us here at AMTIL. Most importantly, it will be the 20th anniversary of the establishment of our Association. It seems hard to believe it’s been two decades since AMTIL was formed with the merger of the Institute of Machine Tools Australia and the Australian Machine Tool Association. The time has flown by, but the enthusiasm of the team here hasn’t faded, and we’re looking forward to many more years supporting the interests of manufacturers and manufacturing technology suppliers in Australia. We hope to be holding a number of events to celebrate AMTIL’s 20th birthday, but the biggest of all will – of course – be Austech, which will take place at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) from 14-17 May. As Australia’s premier showcase for advanced manufacturing technology, Austech has been a core part of our activities for almost as long as AMTIL itself has been in existence. The show has…

While the air displays act as a big draw for the general public who attend Avalon, the real business is done in the exhibition. Avalon is a global business event that attracts senior civil aviation, air transport, aerospace and defence industry, military and government decision‐makers from around the world. In 2017 the last event featured 664 companies from 25 countries, 158 delegations and more than 33,000 accredited trade attendances, with a total event attendance of 210,664. As part of the build-up to the event, its organisers have released the shortlist for the $60,000 Avalon 2019 Innovation Awards. Twenty three SMEs, research institutions and individuals from six Australian states and territories have made the shortlist, submitting innovations across a range of fields from aerial sensors to helicopter training, a system to monitor space assets and a water‐powered rocket school teaching aid. Judged by an expert panel, the Avalon 2019 Innovation Awards attracted a record…

Vaxxas is an Australian-based biotechnology company with the primary goal of commercialising an innovative, next-generation vaccine delivery platform. Vaxxas’ Micro-projection Array Patch (MAP) technology targets immunological cells below the surface of the skin. The Vaxxas MAP is applied to the skin using a disposable applicator, containing and protecting the product and ensuring repeatable delivery into the skin. This project focuses on the manufacture and testing of a prototype commercial applicator to de-risk the device design prior to the high capital investment of a pilot scale manufacturing equipment and Australian based pilot scale manufacturing facility. UoS researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and Health, Professor Rachel Skinner, Cristyn Davies, and Professor Robert Booy, are working with Professor Behnam Fahimnia from the Business School to undertake usability and acceptability studies including an in-clinic assessment and a logistic impact/disruption assessment. “We are at an important stage of the…

After the best part of two decades working within the IP industry and seeing numerous missed opportunities, it remains an unfortunate reality that leaders and key decisionmakers at many of Australia’s most innovative manufacturing businesses – particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – do not adequately understand the full range of ways in which they can capitalise on their IP. This is a common theme across Australia’s advanced manufacturing sector, including within our most innovative companies developing highly specialised products and processes in areas such as aerospace, defence, automotive, clean and renewable technology, medical technology, biopharmaceuticals, mining and agribusiness. All too often the typical ‘understanding’ is that IP is only used “to stop others from copying us”. This results in the limited view that it is necessary to have a hard fought and costly court battle to resolve the issue at hand and gain value from an IP portfolio. Such a narrow outlook adversely limits the potential…

ANFF-SA is one of eight university-based hubs around Australia, which are funded by the Federal and State Governments, CSIRO and participant universities. Complementing the University of South Australia’s Future Industries Institute’s research infrastructure at its Mawson Lakes campus, the South Australian node started out a decade ago, specialising in microfluidics. While this remains a key strength, its expertise has grown to include lab-on-a-chip technology, advanced sensing, functional coatings and separation science. It is now attracting highly specialised work from around the globe with many services in high demand. Products developed in the past couple of years at the node include a microfluidic device offering gene-modified cell therapy, a non-invasive device to test urine for the presence of bladder cancer cells, a micro needle for an in-home blood-testing platform and a microfluidic chip for high-value mineral extraction. Associate Professor Craig Priest is the Director of the South Australian node. He says the success of the facility in…

Founded in 1994 by David Nabulsi and his wife, this specialist manufacturer of switchboards and switchrooms took advantage of the latest in pressbrake and fibre laser technology to boost its capabilities and efficiencies in this area. Nabulsi, an industrial electrician by trade, initially established DJN Electrical as an electrical contractor primarily specialising in industrial controls and industrial electrical work. In 2000 he spotted an opportunity to start making switchboards, and built a specialised workshop for switchboard manufacturing from which DJN Switchboards was born. These used enclosures that were pre-manufactured by external companies. Early in 2017, Nabulsi decided to establish his own sheet metal department to enable him to produce the cabinets and assemblies in-house. “We wanted to build our enclosures in the most modern way possible,” says Nabulsi. “I bought a CAD designer on board to design our own cabinetry, and looked at what CNC pressbrake and laser cutter we would buy. We ended up selecting the…

Over more than two centuries of machining history, the elements of production economics have multiplied in number. Manufacturing first evolved from craft-level single-item output to mass production of standardised parts using machine tools. Improving manufacturing methods brought about a second generation of mass production featuring production lines and output of increasingly greater numbers of identical parts: a high-volume, low-product mix (HVLM) scenario. Then CNC machines and robots fostered a third generation of mass production efficiency. Most recently, digital technology applied in programming, machine tool controls and workpiece handling systems is facilitating a fourth generation of manufacturing production, known as Industry 4.0, that enables cost-efficient, high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) production. To effectively accomplish the shift from HVLM to…

Axiom Precision Manufacturing began in 1979 as Diemould Tooling and was an OEM manufacturer for the automotive industry. However, as Australia’s automotive industry started to wind down towards closure about five years ago, Axiom was already on the path to a diversification that is now helping it thrive again. “A lot of businesses probably threw their hands into the air and blamed others but Axiom actually said ‘It’s happening so what are we going to do about it?’” says Business Development Manager Peter Howard. “They identified where they thought the market was going and it looks they made a pretty good call.” That direction has been spearheaded by defence, aerospace and medical devices, with Axiom completing work for numerous defence primes including ASC, Raytheon Australia and BAE. The workforce has grown to about 60 at its Wingfield base, and Howard expects this number to swell further in the next couple of years. “Everything that finished when Ford, Toyota and Holden closed, we’ve been able…

Fujitsu surveyed more than 1,500 C-suite executives in large and mid-sized companies in 16 countries. Of the manufacturing companies surveyed, 69% said they had already initiated digital transformation programs. While these programs tended to focus on efficiencies, manufacturers are starting to realise that there is much to gain from sectors that are further along their transformation journeys. For example, when disruptors hit the finance sector, financial services providers started with innovations aimed at optimisation and driving down costs, which quickly evolved into offering alternative products and services. Transforming the value chain resulted in new opportunities for expansion, development, and growth. For 40% of manufacturers, the focus remains on achieving efficiency improvements. Using emerging technologies, they’re identifying optimisation opportunities to avoid disruption…

At Nissan, we have been manufacturing parts in south-east Melbourne for more than 35 years. While Australia’s automotive manufacturing industry has taken a battering in recent times, it is a source of enormous pride that we continue to manufacture parts locally for vehicles that wind up on Australian roads and on motorways all over the world. The parts we produce in our Nissan Casting Plant (NCAP) are carefully manufactured by a team of 192 highly skilled workers, spread across three shifts per day, seven days a week. This concentration of skill and experience results in approximately 2.6 million die-cast aluminium parts and over 16,000 tow bars annually, with an export value of $82.5m. We have experts in high and low-pressure die casting, precision machining, component assembly and accessories manufacturing, and we currently create 60 different parts specific to oil pans, gearbox and final-drive housing, as well as parts for electric vehicles, including the Inverter Water Jacket and Stator Housing.…

The new machine is a Kingfisher RAL12 CNC vertical lathe by Radar Industrial, a Taiwanese manufacturer of high-precision machine tools. The vertical spindle is supported to a full 360 degrees, eliminating ‘spindle droop’ and increasing the maximum weight allowable on the spindle. As Isaac Newton would have noticed, gravity provides a downward force on the workpiece, assisting the workholding. Minimal clamp force can be applied where desirable, and gravity keeps each part in the chuck. This not only provides additional stability, especially when machining delicate parts, but also dissipates the cutting forces created by heavy cutting. Increasing capability These facts were in the thoughts of the management team at Meeke Engineering as they considered the needs of their current and prospective customers. The team was seeking to add more capability and capacity to the company’s workshops by installing a new machining centre. They worked together with the engineers at 600 Machine Tools to identify they right machine for the envisaged…

Led by AMTIL and generously supported by the Victorian Government, the AM Hub has been established to grow and develop additive manufacturing (AM) capability. Its goals are to: promote and market AM capabilities; support the creation of high-quality AM jobs; provide a forum for dialogue and communication for the AM industry; encourage R&D, innovation and collaboration; and provide a strong, cohesive voice on AM sector development. John is uniquely well placed to oversee the direction of the AM Hub, having been at the forefront of the adoption of AM technology in Australia for more than two decades. In the early 1990s he launched Interact Plastic Services, the first private company in this country to move into AM, having purchased a Stratasys FDM 2000 3D printer. For John, part of the appeal of his new role with AMTIL has been the opportunity to re-engage with AM and…