February 24, 2022
AMTIL member AW Bell won the Manufacturing and Advanced Materials Export Award at the 2021 Australian Export and Investment Awards last November. The award takes a prime place at the entrance of the Victorian metal casting and precision engineering business. “It is a great recognition of the innovative work that our team has been doing the past 10 years,” says Sam Bell, the company’s CEO. “We are also very grateful to our partners, suppliers, customers and ongoing government support.” Leading defence primes are among AW Bell’s many valued customers for its precision manufacturing of components, which it supplies for defence land vehicles, submarines, F-35 fighter Jets, missiles, gun mounts and targeting systems. Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC), BAE, Marand (ground support equipment), Levett, Raytheon, Pratt & Whitney and Lockheed Martin are its key customers for the F35 jet components. AW Bell manufactures and supplies high-strength aluminium castings for the aircraft’s camera housing and decoy measure housing. Among its many other precision defence products and global defence clients, AW Bell also supplies Thales (Bushmaster) and…
February 24, 2022
In automotive racing, Team Penske is synonymous with winning. Its legacy has been forged by the leadership of founder Roger Penske and a team of individuals and partners dedicated to producing champions. Hundreds of race wins, pole positions and scores of national championships accentuate their commitment to excellence. However, for Team Penske, achieving that kind of performance means constantly asking how things can be done better, and technology is a cornerstone of that cause. “Technology plays a big role in racing today.” Those are the words of Team Penske President, Tim Cindric. According to Cindric, technology isn’t invented at the racetrack but rather, it’s demonstrated there. One technology that Team Penske has fully embraced is additive manufacturing. Using Stratasys 3D printing solutions, Team Penske turns ideas into racetrack reality much more quickly than previously possible. Highlighting its impact in race strategy preparation, Cindric adds: “It gives us more ideas of what’s possible.” That’s understandable since for Team Penske, additive manufacturing solutions cover a lot of ground. “When we first started using 3D printing in the early 2000s,…
February 24, 2022
In 1990, manufacturing companies drove the world economy, yet in just three decades, service companies have come to dominate – companies with well-defined leadership principles. In this time Australian manufacturing has gone from 14% to 6% of GDP. Technological change, globalisation and political inaction were driving Australian manufacturing to near extinction. The COVID-19 pandemic has created an opportunity for resurgence, but we cannot repeat history. Manufacturing must now be a sector that can manage the economic, environmental and social challenges of the next 30 years. Manufacturing must evolve again through new leadership, new management and new principles. It is said one must learn from the past to prepare for the future. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century created the mechanised manufacturing company and initiated an economic and technological transformation. It saw the rise of the owner-manager, who exploited workers of all ages in the drive for production and profit. It took over a century…
February 24, 2022
Established in Australia in 2012, Supacat is a compact prime in land systems servicing the Asia-Pacific market. The company does a lot of the design and development of military vehicle technology and components. It has its own vehicle platform that it provides to Defence, and it supports Rheinmetall with its defence projects such as LAND 400. Supacat’s core competencies are engineering and integrated logistics for products. PhoenxPLM is a leading consultancy partner for digital transformation for manufacturing businesses in Australia and New Zealand. It identifies opportunities across all industries participating in the manufacturing sector. Everything it does is focused around aligning business goals with outcome-driven technology built for digital transformation. David Kretschmer, Rheinmetall Partnership Lead at Supacat, and Kevin Metcalf, Principal Engineer and Teamcenter PLM Lead for Supacat, discussed the processes and engagements that the two firms collaborated on and then discusses what success looked like as well as what’s next for Supacat. AMT: What is the LAND 400 project? David Kretschmer:…
February 24, 2022
In school, Robert Clifford built a model of Bluebird, Donald Campbell’s record-breaking speedboat. At the time he went to and from school on a ferry, and loved being on the water every day. Then the era of the two-car family, and Hobart’s Tasman Bridge, put an end to the Tasmanian ferry industry. But Clifford knew where he wanted to be. “I wanted to be on the water,” he says. “But I couldn’t make a living in sailing. I had to go fishing, even though I didn’t want to be a fisherman.” It wasn’t an easy life, going after scallops and crayfish on small boats. He carried a dream, from childhood, of building something – of returning to a time when we travelled on ferries. So he started a ferry business. “It wasn’t successful,” he says. Clifford’s ferries only made money as a tourism business, taking visitors on night cruises. The cruises were going so well they had two boats running. Then in early January 1975, a bulk zinc…
February 22, 2022
Building on $70m of investment by Thales Australia in the Lithgow facility that has included new equipment and product development over the past decade, Phase 1 of this new industrial plan will establish a modern manufacturing and integration hub for the design, development and precision manufacture of next generation weapons systems for the Australian Defence Force, industrial partners and export customers. Testament to Lithgow’s distinguished, century-long heritage of producing world-leading small-arms and weapons systems for the Australian Defence Force, the ceremony was attended by leaders from local, state and federal governments including: Paul Toole MP, Deputy Premier of NSW and Member for Bathurst; Andrew Gee MP, Minister for Defence Personnel, Minister for Veterans Affairs and Member for Calare; and Senator for NSW Jim Molan. Toole said: “This is a momentous occasion for both Thales and Lithgow today. The $6.5m investment…
February 22, 2022
The outstanding contribution SPEE3D’s technology has made to furthering the manufacturing capability of Defense was recognised by the US Defense Strategies Institute (DSI) at their 6th Military Additive Manufacturing Summit, which took place in Tampa, Florida. At the summit, SPEE3D was announced as the inaugural winner of the Defense Strategies Institute’s Award for Expeditionary & Tactical 3D Printing Excellence. The Defense Strategies Institute (DSI) is a non-partisan Institute designed to assist in advancing the mission critical goals of the United States' Military and Government. They are also the organisers of the Annual Military Additive Manufacturing Summit event which enables thought leaders and key policymakers across military services, Defense agencies, and civilian organisations to come together for actionable discussions and debate. The 2022 Military Additive Manufacturing Summit focused on advancements made in the 3D printing space, as well as how the DoD is working to quickly integrate AM technologies in order to supply durable, affordable equipment and parts to the Warfighter in the battlespace. “We had an incredible number of entries…
February 17, 2022
Owned and operated by AMTIL, AMW is Australia’s premier manufacturing solutions event. Under the theme ‘Where technology meets innovation’, AMW 2022 will take place at the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) in Darling Harbour from 7-10 June 2022. The opening of registrations marks a major milestone in the build-up to the exhibition. Preparations for AMW 2022 have been marked by high levels of early interest, with the floor space almost entirely booked out well before the end of last year. “It’s great to finally have opened up registrations for visitors to AMW,” says Kim Banks, Head of Events at AMTIL. “We’ve had an incredible response from exhibitors, with stands getting booked faster than any of us had anticipated. There’s clearly a really strong appetite across the industry for an exhibition like AMW. Now we’re just concentrating on welcoming as many visitors to the show as we can.” AMW will occupy more than 9,000 square metres of floor space at the ICC Sydney, with more than 155 organisations taking stands to exhibit some…
February 17, 2022
It is the week of launch day at solar system innovator 5B’s new headquarters and clean tech campus at Mascot, a few kilometres south of Sydney’s CBD. After a quick look at its warehouse and proving ground, we walk past a big pile of unboxed monitors and desks that are yet to have chairs wheeled under them. The mood is friendly but urgent. There is a place to get into shape, an event for hundreds fast-approaching, and stuff everywhere. Last year was a breakout one for a company moving at a rate that guarantees this article – written in mid-December – won’t include important recent events. 5B gained a presence in three new countries in 2021, is in the middle of a $50m capital raise at the time of writing, and has just announced that it has acquired its manufacturing partner since 2018, IXL Solar. “We used to manufacture internally three years ago and then IXL took it all on,” explains CEO Chris McGrath, who…
February 17, 2022
New technologies and methods of production are shifting the focus from mass production to more bespoke, advanced, and higher value-added manufacturing. Design and associated service delivery are now as important as the production process itself. The Government’s vision is for Australia to be recognised as a high-quality, skilled and sustainable manufacturing nation that supports a modern and resilient economy. The ability to make things here, and do it well, will drive investment and innovation, grow our exports and create new jobs, including critical high-skilled jobs. The lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic have provided a powerful impetus to increase our self-sufficiency in key sectors, including vaccine production and defence. The pandemic has presented a number of big challenges which our manufacturers have overcome with ingenuity and agility. Many Australian industries have rapidly embraced digital solutions to continue operating. But just when the worst of the crisis seemed to be passing, the Omicron variant has put severe strains upon workforces and supply chains. It is yet another test of the…
February 17, 2022
In a recent white paper, SMC’s Industry Projects Manager for Energy (EU), Andy Still, shared his thoughts on how companies can optimise their energy efficiency in-line with one of the industry’s best-kept secrets. While it is possible to introduce compressed air efficiencies, today, some plants still suffer from 20 to 50% leakage rates as well as other forms of wastage. It’s common knowledge that the typical operating pressure (for main compressed air lines) in industrial plants is around 7 bar. However, not so commonly known is that by simply lowering the pressure to 5 bar, facilities can reduce their energy consumption up to 15%. Dropping the pressure to 4 bar offers savings of up to 29%. “The global understanding of pressure reduction is that it will affect performance,” Still explains. “Although this statement is true for some equipment, it must be said that most processes can operate efficiently at reduced pressures.” Bill Blyth, Energy Conservation Group Manager at SMC Corporation ANZ, echoes this sentiment saying that while…
February 17, 2022
As a global leader in crane maintenance – with more than 600,000 pieces of lifting equipment of all makes and models under service agreement worldwide – Konecranes is offering Oil Analysis as a supplement to its service agreements. When combined with routine inspections and preventive maintenance, the cost of doing an Oil Analysis can be kept very low. “Good managers know that the key to changing a crane’s oil is finding a good balance of not too late (when it may impact on performance, cause additional wear, or even screech in protest), and not too early (when it will add unnecessary cost, without delivering a benefit,” says Mark Beckwith, Australian Service Operations Manager at Konecranes. With a crane’s gear case sealed off, it means visible signs of wear and tear are hidden from view, as the crane continues performing vital tasks for industries such as manufacturing, automotive, construction, public and…
February 17, 2022
Fully automatic, efficient, and process-reliable – bending cells show their advantages particularly in large-scale production. They reduce cycle times and perform bending tasks with maximum precision. The CNC 40 Rotary from Schwarze-Robitec’s High Performance series can also be easily expanded into a bending cell. Thanks to its freely rotating bending head, it realises even complex tube geometries without collisions. All of the steps related to tube processing – from tube feeding to loading and unloading of the machine to post-processing – are automated. Each bending cell is designed by Schwarze-Robitec to be highly customised to the user’s production requirements. The CNC 40 Rotary bends tubes made of all common materials such as aluminium, titanium, copper, steel, and stainless steel with a diameter of 6mm to 38mm. This also applies to tubes with already preformed contours. Thanks to its rotating bending head, the rotary function offers the particular advantage that tubes can be bent in both left and right bending directions in a single operation.…
