Month: May 2019

Various optical materials such as quartz, borosilicate glass and even sapphire were all successfully welded to metals like aluminium, titanium and stainless steel using the Heriot-Watt laser system, which provides very short, picosecond pulses of infrared light in tracks along the materials to fuse them together. The new process could transform the manufacturing sector and have direct applications in the aerospace, defence, optical technology and even healthcare fields. Professor Duncan Hand, director of the five-university EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Laser-based Production Processes based at Heriot-Watt, said: “Traditionally it has been very difficult to weld together dissimilar materials like glass and metal due to their different thermal properties - the high temperatures and highly different thermal expansions involved cause the glass to shatter. “Being able to weld glass and metals together will be a huge step forward in manufacturing and design flexibility. At the moment, equipment and products that involve glass and metal are often held together by adhesives, which are messy to apply and parts can gradually creep,…

Co-located with National Manufacturing Week (NMW), Austech is Australia’s premier advanced manufacturing and machine tool exhibition. Official figures for the first day of the event show that Austech and NMW attracted a combined total of 2,550 visitors – a very high attendance for first day. That strong turnout was in evidence on the expo floor, with many exhibitors reporting brisk traffic on their stands, leading to high numbers of promising leads and potential sales. “We’re absolutely thrilled with the number of visitors we got today,” said Kim Banks, AMTIL’s Events Manager and Austech organiser. “It’s been one of our biggest ever first days, and an increase of around 50% on the same day at Austech 2017.” Austech 2019 had already been breaking records well before its doors opened. With more than 150 organisations exhibiting, and many of them taking significantly larger stands than in previous years, the exhibition floor space covers more than 6,000sqm – a footprint unprecedented in Austech’s twenty-year history. Austech 2019 was also the fastest…

Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade Martin Pakula congratulated the winners and finalists for their work in continuing to take Victorian businesses to the next level. “The Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame Awards highlight the strength and competitiveness of Victoria’s manufacturing industry and I want to congratulate all our outstanding winners and finalists,” said Minister Pakula. “Our manufacturing industry is one of Victoria’s greatest strengths and successfully exports, invests and contributes to our thriving economy.” Inaugural awards were presented to Air Radiators, named the Leader in Innovative Product Development and Commercialisation, and to Holden Special Vehicles, who received the award for Leader in Global Supply Chain Partnerships. Robert Bosch Australia took out the Leader in Industry 4.0 award and Barker Trailers was awarded the 2019 Leader in Workforce Skills Development. For their excellence in leadership and innovation in the manufacturing industry, Rochelle Avinu from Leica Biosystems was awarded the Woman Manufacturer of the Year award, and Nicholas Orchowski…

Co-located with National Manufacturing Week (NMW), Austech is Australia’s premier advanced manufacturing and machine tool exhibition. In total, more than 150 organisations will be putting their products and services on display within Austech this year. Moreover, with a high number of exhibitors opting to book substantially larger stands than in previous years, the exhibition floor space will occupy more than 6,000sqm – a footprint unprecedented in two decades of Austech expos. “We’ve been quite blown away by the bookings this time round,” says Kim Banks, AMTIL’s Events Manager and Austech organiser. “The fact that exhibitors have been booking early and taking larger stands suggests people in the industry are anticipating significant sales activity at this year’s show. We’re also well ahead in terms of advanced registrations from people booking in to visit the show. This year’s Austech is going to be packed.” The high take-up for this year’s event builds on the momentum established with Austech 2017, which was…

Iscar fully understands the importance of parting and grooving operations in the turning process, and recognises that multiple factors need to be considered for every application, including machine tool selection, the type of material being parted/grooved, required depth of cut, and feed and speed rates. Iscar has responded to these complex needs by developing a comprehensive range of highly effective parting and grooving solutions that include an extensive choice of insert geometries, chip breakers, and carbide grades – and the range continues to expand. With Industry 4.0 demands and standards fuelling industry development at extraordinary rates, Iscar has introduced new parting and grooving technologies capable of integrating seamlessly with the new wave of machining centers that work with incredibly high feeds. TANG-F-GRIP has been designed to answer these needs and to achieve high productivity and lower costs. A…

Centor develops custom-integrated doors for residential and commercial buildings. Each unique design requires a proof of concept. Three in-house machinists used to spend all their time fabricating components in low volumes, with additional components being outsourced. This approach led to inconsistent quality, lengthy production times, and excess costs. Seeking an alternative, David Chappell, Group Manager of Product & Engineering at Centor, took a chance on a Markforged Mark Two rapid prototyping machine. He was immediately impressed. “It’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen a 3D printer do what it promised in a real-life design studio factory like ours,” said Chappell. “It just runs.” While his team of experienced manufacturers intially expressed doubt about integrating 3D printing in their workflow, they now run the printer almost 24/7. It enabled them to redirect machining bandwidth, iterate on designs, learn quickly…

Innovators currently have two options for protecting inventions in Australia – the standard patent system and the innovation patent system. The innovation patent is Australia’s second-tier patent system and requires that inventions have an innovative step, which is a lower threshold than an inventive step that applies to standard patents. Also, the term of protection for an innovation patent is eight years rather than 20 years under standard patent protection. The innovation patent system was introduced in 2001 with the aim of incentivising innovation by Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by offering a rapid and affordable system designed for the protection of, for example, incremental innovation, that is unlikely to satisfy the patentability threshold set for standard patents. Significantly, and consistently over the years, Australian SMEs have been the predominant users of the innovation patent system. Killing off the innovation patent system In 2019, the Australian Government plans to abolish the innovation patent system. This controversial measure came about…

In fact, most Australian organisations are well aware of the need for vigilance. This is especially true when it comes to the use of forklifts. This understanding of the risks has contributed to an increase in demand for robotic technology that prevents pedestrians from ever coming into proximity with a forklift. The safety issues around forklifts have been well-known and reported since the 1960s. The most important, and potentially preventable, forklift-related injury comes from the interaction between a forklift and pedestrians. In fact, a Monash University study found that pedestrians hit by forklifts made up 45% of the injuries in the study. As far back as the early 1990s, expert recommendations included finding ways to separate forklifts and people. However, finding ways to do this effectively without creating inefficiencies or high costs has been a conundrum facing manufacturers and material handling organisations for decades. Indeed, every year since 2012, WorkCover Queensland has accepted an average of 430…

Austech has consistently provided a showcase for additive manufacturing as it has developed over the years, and today the Additive Manufacturing Pavilion is now an unmissable part of the show. The boom in interest in 3D printing continues to gain momentum, and Austech 2019 visitors will get a chance to see the latest innovations in this area first-hand. The Additive Manufacturing Pavilion will feature demonstrations of the latest 3D printers and services from a range of companies and organisations that lead the field of additive manufacturing. Exhibitors will include: Additive Manufacturing Hub 3D Printing Solutions 3D Printing Systems 3D Systems Asia-Pacific Bilby 3D CSIRO Emona Instruments Pty Ltd GoProto (ANZ) Pty Ltd Headland Machinery Pty Ltd HP & EVOK3D Imaginables Pty Ltd Konica Minolta LRM Technologies Markforged Materialise Metal3D MSC Software Corporation RAM3D Raymax Lasers Renishaw Oceania Pty Ltd RMIT Advanced Manufacturing Precinct Shining 3D Tech Co Ltd Thinglab Zeal 3D To complement the Additive Manufacturing Pavilion, AMTIL will be hosting UNLIMIT3D, a two-day conference on additive manufacturing and…

Now in its ninth season, the Australian Technologies Competition (ATC) seeks to identify and accelerate Australian technology SMEs and ‘scale-ups’ with the greatest global potential across 10 industry categories. In partnership with the Federal Government’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, and five Industry Growth Centres, the Competition brings together experienced entrepreneurs, business builders, angel investors, venture capital funds, commercialisation experts, leading corporates and government representatives in a collaborative coaching environment. The purpose of the ATC is to equip tech SMEs and scale-ups with the skills, contacts and know-how to manage growth in challenging international markets. A spokesperson for ATC organiser Impact Tech Ventures said: “Our goal is to enable innovative companies with high-value technology to raise capital, form new partnerships and acquire the skills to advance their business in global markets.” “We’re also here to put commercially-attractive SMEs under the spotlight, providing a platform for recognition and an avenue to have their technology validated,”said Patrick Mooney, Impact Tech Ventures Chairman. Australian-registered businesses from across Australia are invited to apply, using an online entry form that takes less than 15…

Fast forward to today and Headland provides leading-edge technology solutions to Australian clients such as Cochlear, Sistema, RUAG and Qantas – to name a few. It may be tempting to say things have changed a lot at Headland, but the fundamentals remain unchanged. Headland remains a family business where technological innovation and a solutions-based focus has always been and remains central to the way it does business. Before taking over the business in 1979, current Headland Director Peter Kloé worked as a Product Engineer for Siemens in Germany and Production Manager for the Ford Motor Company in North America. A pioneer of women in manufacturing, Co-director Dianne Kloé began writing machine software in 1981 when computer science was still in its infancy. The tradition of drive and innovation has continued with the Kloé children. Joint Managing Directors, Richard and Annaliese, have overseen Headland’s continued expansion and exciting diversification…

The theme for the 2019 Manufacturing Hall of Fame is Industrial Evolution – highlighting the resilience of Victorian manufacturing and the people who drive the industry, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs. “We know that recognising the outstanding achievements of the state’s manufacturing industry is important, and the Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame Awards are a vital part of this,” said Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade Martin Pakula. “Our manufacturing industry is innovative and internationally competitive, with strong growth in exports, business confidence and capital investment over the past year.” Following a highly-competitive nominations and judging process, the finalists for the 2019 Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame Awards have been confirmed as: Air Radiators Amiga Engineering Australasian Fresh/Alligator Brand AW Bell Barker Trailers Bombardier Transportation Australia Camatic Seating Columbia Australia Dulux Australia Dynamic Steel Frame Holden Special Vehicles/Premoso Integra Systems Leica Biosystems Marand Precision Engineering Metaltex Australia Robert Bosch Australia RUAG Australia Safetech Special Patterns/SP Robotics Viscount Rotational Mouldings Vossloh Cogifer Australia The Hall…

All exhibition space has now been sold for Austech 2019, due to take place at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) from 14-17 May. With two weeks to go before the show begins, confirmation that the last available exhibitor stand has now been taken marks the first time that Austech has sold out in over a decade, and means that this year’s exhibition is one of the fastest-selling in the event’s history. With 2019 marking its 20th anniversary, this year’s show has already been breaking records, having been confirmed as the biggest Austech yet. “We’re just delighted to have managed to sell all the available stands for Austech 2019,” says Kim Banks, AMTIL’s Events Manager and Austech organiser. “We already were on track for our biggest show yet, and with every last square metre of space allocated, it’s just going to be packed in there. With the sales finally closed, we can now focus on ensuring we deliver the best show possible, for our exhibitors and for everyone who comes to visit Austech.” Co-located with National Manufacturing Week (NMW), Austech is Australia’s premier advanced manufacturing and machine tool exhibition. In total, a total of 170 organisations have booked stands…