Month: April 2022

The Federal Government on 3rd March announced $20m in grant funding support for Fleet Space’s Australian Space Manufacturing Hub – to be located at the recently announced Australian Space Park at Adelaide Airport – under the Collaboration Stream of the $1.3bn Modern Manufacturing Initiative . The South Australian Government is also contributing $20m towards the $66m project, which is expected to create 221 local jobs, as well as more than 1,000 others indirectly. Fleet Space is Australia’s leading space company. The company has designed, built and launched the country’s only commercial satellites and has six satellites already in orbit as it works towards a mission towards building a constellation of 140 small satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Fleet Space plans to build a satellite Hyper Factory in Australian Space Park in Adelaide, and develop new 3D printed small satellites. The Federal and State funding will supplement industry investment into the Australian Space Park by Fleet Space Technologies, AT Space, Alauda and Q-CTRL. The purpose-built facility…

The Federal Government has announced support for a project led by Australian Plant Proteins (APP) under the Collaboration Stream of the $1.3bn Modern Manufacturing Initiative to transform local production of pulse protein ingredients and help meet the growing global demand. APP owns Australia’s only commercial-scale pulse protein extraction facility. This project will quadruple production in South Australia, to produce 25,000 tonnes of pulse protein yearly. Partnering together with one of Australia’s largest family-owned food producers, Thomas Foods International and the Australian Milling Group, more than $378m will be invested in the construction of three plant protein manufacturing facilities supplying domestic and international markets. South Australia produces over a quarter of all Australian pulses and this project gives Australia the opportunity to value-add by up to eight times the value of the product. That value will be captured here in Australia for Australians benefit. Locally based plant…

The Additive Manufacturing Pavilion will be an unmissable part of AMW 2022. The boom in interest in 3D printing continues to gain momentum, and AMW 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. One highlight of the Additive Manufacturing Pavilion will be RAM3D. Based in Tauranga, New Zealand, RAM3D has been leading the way in metal 3D printing in the Southern Hemisphere for more than 10 years. From its high-tech manufacturing facility it creates parts for a variety of world-wide industries; from titanium knives used by the Team NZ Americas Cup crew, to customised handlebar extensions for the New Zealand Olympics Cycling team. It produces inconel and titanium parts for aerospace and defence customers, and can also print in Stainless Steel 15-5ph and 316L, Titanium 64, Inconel 718 (high temperature alloy) and Aluminium (AlSi10Mg). “Advances in 3D…

During the 10-month IMCRC research collaboration, the project team will use new steel forming and joining solutions to further enhance Speedpanel’s production technology, with a focus on reducing waste and optimising and strengthening panel design. This research will also support Speedpanel’s high-volume production output and enable the business to have a more refined platform for continued expansion locally and abroad. Commenting on the project, Lindsay Evans, Speedpanel’s Sales and Operations Manager, said the IMCRC activate funding would assist Speedpanel to further revolutionise the way it manufactures its fire-rated and acoustic systems. “By streamlining manufacturing processes with innovative joining solutions and advanced techniques for material monitoring and process control, we’ll be able to evolve our product offering and bring a more environmentally friendly and sustainable panel system to market,” said Evans. “Tapping into Deakin’s expertise in material analysis and forming process control will enable us to assess and monitor material properties and key production parameters throughout the process to enhance process efficiency, enabling better quality…

Biax represents a clever rethinking of the waffle pod, replacing unsightly, hard-to-manage, environmentally-damaging polystyrene blocks with a compact, lightweight and sustainably produced product. Broad adoption of Biax could help the construction industry eliminate 25,000 tonnes of styrene from the building market each year. While other brands have attempted to completely redesign the waffle pod to achieve better environmental outcomes, Biax retains the best elements of the waffle pod design, but replaces the bulky styrene blocks with compact, recycled plastic pods. The Biax brand was last year acquired by Holloway Group, an Australian business that produces and distributes a number of innovative and sustainable products, in addition to offering custom moulding through its A Plus Plastics business. Prior says Holloway Group was the perfect acquisition partner for Biax. “Holloway Group was already manufacturing the product,” he explains. “Through this acquisition we have been able to remove one of the layers between manufacturer and purchaser, which will…

The compact, easy-to-use, flexible and affordable Agile Flex has established a solid foothold in the US market, offering local manufacturers and machine shops a truly agile machine tool-loading solution as well as an antidote for staff shortages and sick leave absences. Success in North America includes a few successful installations in Canada. Now the company is entering the UK market through a recent appointment of a local distributor, also with an eye on the greater European market. While many workshops across the globe are realising the productivity benefits of installing an Agile Flex on their CNC machine tools, the Agile Flex is also developing significant attention in the Australian market due to its reputation for best-in-class software and maximum productivity out-of-the-box at a market-leading price. To get an Australian perspective, we interviewed Derek Hyde, one of the owners of Melbourne-based Jodek, to find out more about his company’s choice to invest in not just one but two Agile Flex 12D systems.   AMT: What…

The initial release of the WCE platform features WCE4, a four-flute geometry which combines advanced, high-performance features with a brand new, versatile grade offered at a highly competitive price. “With its new design, the WCE4 delivers the next generation of versatile end mills to help our customers be more productive and efficient,” said Tamir Sherif, Solid End Milling Global Portfolio Manager at WIDIA. “The WCE4 is an attractively priced tool for small-to-medium shop floors where reliability and consistent tool life are high priorities.” Two key features of the tool are its asymmetrical index and variable helix. The combination of the two reduce vibrations and enable heavy cuts, while the new grade, WU20PE, enables versatility on steel, stainless steel and cast-iron applications. These design features, coupled with the four-flute geometry, deliver an end mill with reliable performance and application versatility – even in demanding operations such as full slots and heavy cuts. The WCE platform includes four-flute, square-end and ball nose end mills with both straight and Weldon shanks and is available…

The investment includes the latest Stratasys technologies and newly constructed manufacturing pods at the Objective3D Additive Manufacturing Centre located in Carrum Downs, Victoria, making it the largest showroom and AM service bureau in the region. The new technologies are the Stratasys F770, J826, J35Pro, H350 and Origin One, and will cover fused deposition modelling (FDM), PolyJet, selective absorption fusion (SAF) and P3 programmable photopolymerization. “These new technologies represent an opportunity to seriously tackle production manufacturing using additive”, said Matt Minio, Managing Director of Objective3D. “Our greatest growth today comes from customers who either wish to manufacture serious production volumes on their own additive system or have Objective3D manufacture for them. These latest in-house technologies and new materials further enhance the ability for customers to manufacture greater production volumes using additive, producing components that are representative of injection-moulded parts for their strength and surface finish. With the…

If you’d sat behind the desks of the CEOs of Australia’s leading industrial fabrication, transport and marine businesses in March 2020 as the first wave of COVID-19 restrictions rolled out, you’d never have predicted the turn events these industries would experience over the coming 24 months. Many were forecasting reduced demand, industry downturns, staff reductions and operational stand-downs. Fast forward two years and as an industry we are riding a collective wave of strong demand. Local manufacturers are benefiting from the reduced presence of imported aluminium products, spurring increased demand for locally fabricated aluminium products. The strong growth in demand has created a different type of challenge for local businesses that use aluminium, who are now faced with supply challenges due to material shortages and supplier capacity, while subject to unprecedented aluminium pricing pressures. In fact, capacity to supply aluminium products within Australia has never been pushed so hard, with pricing impacts and supply shortages affecting everything from beer cans…

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. The ceremony was attended by leaders from local, state and federal governments including: Paul Toole MP, Deputy Premier of NSW and Member for Bathurst. Toole said: “This is a momentous occasion for both Thales and Lithgow today. The $6.5m investment by Thales in a new facility here in Lithgow shows that Thales is going to be in Lithgow for a long, long time. Today marks the future, and a new era that not only secures existing advanced manufacturing jobs…

PwC’s ideas were presented to global steel industry representatives at the 2018 Surface Inspection Summit (SIS) in Aachen, Germany. Their ideas were widely seen as outlandish at the time, including predictions that: original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) would centralise their sales online, like Amazon; would increasingly support customers with design and development, like Tesla; and would form digital networks, much like Uber. The predictions raised eyebrows at the time. However, if anything, manufacturers have since moved beyond eCommerce and adopted customer engagement (CE) and customer experience (CX) as main principles behind their online investments. As confirmed in PwC’s later Retail Outlook 2020 report: companies are competing on CE; and most of the competition now takes place online. Manufacturers have embraced multi-channel commerce models that bring several customer routes — online web pages, product catalogues and sales teams — into a unified, single ecosystem that…

This latest version of the tool features a newly designed arm structure, a larger centre tube made of carbon fibre, and a further weight reduction of more than 20% over the original design. The complex tool is capable of machining three large diameters in just one operation, saving set-up time and machining time for automotive component manufacturers and delivering the highest accuracy and surface qualities. The newly redesigned tool recently won MM MaschinenMarkt’s Best of Industry Award in the Production and Manufacturing category based on votes by readers and industry experts. “As our automotive customers expand their offerings of hybrid and electric vehicles, we continue to respond to their need for lighter weight tooling solutions,” says Ingo Grillenberger, Product Manager at Kennametal. “By leveraging advanced manufacturing techniques like 3D printing, we’ve reduced weight a further 20% over the first-generation tool, while improving chip control and increasing tool rigidity—innovations that help our customers machine faster and more efficiently.” Machining three diameters in one operation, the stator bore tool ensures the alignment and concentricity of the machined…

We encourage young people to go into apprenticeships to start their careers, and our skills-based Award system rewards workers who improve or expand their skills with higher wages. Or at least it is meant to – more on that later. We’ve long known that skills are a key part of unlocking improved productivity, which is as vital to the success of our key industries as it is for the profitability of an individual business. Our standard of living will only improve if we’re able to continually improve our productivity and we can’t do that without a skilled workforce. So, if we all know how important skills are for individuals, businesses and our nation, why are we so bad at delivering them? In my view, there is a lack of certainty amongst employers, workers, students and the community about what the Vocational…