February 17, 2022
Online registrations are open now for visitors to the inaugural Australian Manufacturing Week exhibition, taking place in Sydney in June 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 of the very latest manufacturing…
February 16, 2022
Kaeser Compressors Australia has announced the appointment of Regional Asset Maintenance (RAM) as a distributor of the full range of Kaeser compressed air equipment in the Northern Territory. Established over 30 years ago, RAM specialises in the maintenance of critical assets and infrastructure across the NT and northern Australia, serving clients in the oil and gas (both onshore and offshore), defence, marine and mining sectors to name only a few. As such RAM is trusted with some of the NT’s most critical infrastructure. RAM is well placed to serve these industries from its facility in Darwin, which includes a mechanical workshop, NATA accredited temperature-controlled Torque and Pressure Gauge calibration laboratories, Department of Defence approved Hyperbaric Repairers Clean Room and high pressure hydrostatic testing. With a local workforce and large contractor network RAM are fully equipped to provide trade services for ongoing maintenance, projects and campaigns. In 2020 RAM became a Kolsen business increasing the company’s capacity to scale up for larger campaigns and projects, this is in addition to the already established assets and critical infrastructure maintenance commitments. On the new distributorship agreement with Kaeser Compressors Mike Apathy, Operations Manager at RAM said: 'RAM Services is pleased to have…
February 15, 2022
The nine-month research collaboration, which is supported by $138,000 in funding from the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC), will deliver alloys with enhanced material properties that optimise heat exchange operations. Dr Matthew Young, IMCRC’s Manufacturing Innovation Manager, said the IMCRC activate project had the potential to catalyse significant advances in Australia’s additive manufacturing capabilities. “Supporting novel alloy development specific to 3D printing processing conditions will maximise heat exchange efficiency, benefiting a number of sectors across Australia, from aerospace to energy,” he said. “More broadly, it will enable an Australian manufacturing sovereign capability to produce products with improved performance, geometries and fabrication. As this project demonstrates, enabling research institutions and industry to build symbiotic relationships remains key to developing a world-leading Australian manufacturing industry.” Conflux Technology’s CEO and founder Michael Fuller highlighted that improving heat transfer efficiency played a fundamental role in reducing humanity’s impact on atmospheric climate change: “At Conflux, we strive in our internal program of research and development to create…
February 15, 2022
Western Sydney-based company Custom Denning has been awarded a contract to design, manufacture and assemble 79 new electric buses. Premier Dominic Perrottet and Minister for Transport and Veterans David Elliott toured the St Mary’s factory on 14 February to inspect the production line and meet workers. “This is a true Western Sydney success story and our government is proud to have played a part in this business producing the first locally-built electric bus,” Perrottet said. “Custom Denning employs 160 workers at their St Mary’s factory and this investment will now provide more jobs to ensure our buses are built to the highest standard. “Our government is getting closer to securing a cleaner, healthier future for the people of NSW and at the same time this electric bus transition will generate hundreds of local manufacturing jobs, which is an amazing outcome for our state.” Elliott added that the $70m investment takes the number of bus orders placed with Custom Denning past 100, which will help…
February 15, 2022
The facility will demonstrate and further evolve the application of K-TIG’s innovative robotic welding capabilities. Professor John Spoehr, Pro Vice-Chancellor - Research Impact at Flinders, welcomed K-TIG as a foundation research partner, in an initiative which will harness Flinders’ research expertise to advance K-TIG’s activities. “The research & development facility is involving researchers and students by working with them to trial and test their innovative game-changing welding technology at the Factory of the Future facility,” said Professor Spoehr, who is also the Director of the Australian Industrial Transformation Institute. K-TIG Managing Director Adrian Smith said the aim of having the R&D facility within the Factory of the Future at the Tonsley Innovation District was to prove that K-TIG’s technology can not only expand Australia’s shipbuilding capability but has vast industrial applications. The Factory of the Future is under development by BAE Systems and Flinders University and will connect businesses and sectors, which are of growing importance…
February 15, 2022
Hanwha Defense signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 7 February with Bisalloy, a specialist performance steel manufacturer and supplier headquartered in New South Wales, Australia. Under the agreement, Hanwha Defense will procure Bisalloy steel for its signature land defense platforms, such as the Redback Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) and the K9 Self-Propelled Howitzer, for exports to international markets beyond Australia. Bisalloy is one of the Australian Industrial Capability (AIC) partner firms for Hanwha Defense Australia, which is participating in Commonwealth’s LAND 400 Phase 3 program with the Redback IFV. Both companies will also conduct joint technical analysis and development of integration of Bisally steel into the Redback and K9 for exports to the market of Europe and others. “We’re pleased to work closely with Hanwha Defense and enter its global supply chain,” said Michael Gundy, Managing Director of Bisalloy. “Bisalloy steel’s capability has been proven over its 40-year history, and through working together we believe we will contribute to Hanwha’s product portfolio and its international…
February 10, 2022
Kaeser Compressors has just announced the launch of its latest generation of compressed air filters that provide highly efficient filtration for flow rates from 0.6 to 32.0 m3/min. Thanks to a number of sophisticated design features, Kaeser filters can create significant reductions in costs and CO2 emissions. The efficiency of a compressed air filter depends most on pressure loss, and with every 1 bar of pressure loss increasing an end user’s energy cost by 6 percent per m3/min of compressed air, the choice of compressed air filtration will therefore be significant. Kaeser Filter products deliver a 50 percent lower pressure loss in comparison to other filters on the market - and this is a value that remains constant throughout the entire service life of the filter element. As a result significant cost reductions and CO2 emissions are made possible. This is thanks to a number of design features: Kaeser Filter products use filter elements with flow-optimised element heads. The filter inlet is offset towards the air inlet. This increases the flow cross-section at the air discharge side and contributes to outstanding filter efficiency with minimal pressure loss. Generously dimensioned connection flanges furthermore help to keep pressure losses to a…
February 10, 2022
The new report, Rebuilding Vehicle Manufacturing in Australia: Industrial Opportunities in an Electrified Future, has found Australia is uniquely blessed with advantages to attract and retain EV manufacturing and rebuild the nation’s car-making capacity. This potential, however, will not be met without major government action. “When it comes to creating an EV manufacturing sector, Australia enjoys advantages other nations would die for: rich reserves of lithium and rare earths, strong industrial infrastructure, a highly skilled workforce, powerful training capacity, abundant renewable energy options, and untapped consumer potential,” said Dr Mark Dean, the report’s lead author. “And contrary to popular belief, we wouldn’t be starting from scratch. Thanks to the resilience of our remaining automotive manufacturing supply chain, a surprising amount of auto manufacturing work – including components, specialty vehicles, and engineering – still exists here.” However, Dr Dean said his research found Australia’s advantages would count for little without significant government support. The report…
February 10, 2022
DMTC Limited is working together with Australian defence manufacturers assisting in their capacity and technology development in digitalisation, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) – including smart factories. Spanning an 11-year career at DMTC, Deepak Ganga is currently Head of Program Management, where he leads the Enterprise Program Management office, responsible for business transformation and the strategic alignment of DMTC’s programs. “We have expanded a lot recently,” says Ganga. “As well as traditional defence R&D projects, we are also working on technologies with applications in related areas like health sciences, AI, robotics, IoT and Industry 4.0. During the last two years, we’ve been working behind the scenes on our program governance framework and to standardise processes. We’re now developing more software to digitalise project management tasks, as well as automating the reporting that we need to continue to do to demonstrate the value we provide to our stakeholders.” DMTC collaborates with many innovative Australian industry, research and government partners,…
February 10, 2022
Speaking as a company auditor, one of the key procedures we perform to conclude our opinion on financial reports and address the going concern basis, is devoted to determining whether the company can pay their debts as and when they fall due, which is a key solvency requirement for businesses looking forward one year ahead. Indeed, we take the forecast cash flows and we flex them to address locked-in commitments, potential (new) sources of cash inflows and any other potential movements of cash over the next year. We want to know in a worst-case scenario, how it is possible for the business to survive? All business owners should adopt the same philosophy that we do to survive and to thrive. Surprisingly, our observations are that cash flow management has a low priority in businesses or where it is implemented, the quality, timing and usefulness of the reporting is negligible at best. Here’s the problem: forecasting is an inexact…
