Month: June 2023

The Victorian Circular Economy Recycling Modernisation Fund aims to build the capacity, capability, and resilience of Victoria’s resource recovery sector, support businesses to respond to the national regulation of waste exports, increase the quality of materials for manufacturing and create jobs in the circular economy. Projects should be focused on the purchase, installation, and commission of new equipment or technology or upgrade of existing facilities to increase domestic reprocessing capacity and/or improve the quality of material and/or increase the use of recycled content in manufacturing. What are the eligibility criteria? Applicants must be Australian businesses that have been operating for a minimum of two years. Projects must be located in Victoria and source 50% or more of the project materials from Victorian sources. What funding is available? Successful projects could receive a grant between $50,000 and $1m on a $1: $2 (Sustainability Vic: Applicant) basis. What activities are eligible for funding? Eligible projects should: — Improve the recovery and local reprocessing of priority materials. This round includes mixed paper and cardboard, plastics wastes, tyres and glass. — Improve recycling outcomes by addressing critical infrastructure gaps in…

Australia and New Zealand will soon be facing a demand for infrastructure. According to Weld Australia, ANZ has a $237bn pipeline of infrastructure spend, and it is predicted that by 2030, Australia will be short 70,000 skilled welders to deliver the critical energy, defence, rail & infrastructure required to fuel this growth. Fabrication shop capacity restraints; issues resulting from supply chain shortages; competition from overseas; and declining profit margins are all contributing factors. Fabrication shops serving a number of industries are looking at robotic welding to help solve this challenge, and are searching for a path to automation. Before a fabrication shop can proceed on making a decision on an automation solution, fabrication shops need to examine key issues such as production mix, infrastructure needs, human resource requirements and ultimately, the return on investment. They need to choose pipe welding automation systems for their fabrication shops that will help them achieve consistent, high-quality welds, while increasing their shop productivity and helping them get ahead in an increasingly competitive market. “The fabrication shop owner should consider how they are going to win more projects…

Headland Technology has been providing all-around solutions to ADVATEK for more than 15 years. When ADVATEK entered to manufacture components for the medical industry they required two crucial things, high precision, reliable machine technology, and a reliable partner to provide them with the right knowledge and service to keep the production going 24/7. They found both in Headland Technology. ADVATEK was founded in 1995 and has since been a leader in the manufacturing of high-end CNC machined components. Their facility is equipped with 11 Makino machines. Their focus is on providing top-quality parts at competitive prices and efficient delivery. Located in Bayswater, Victoria, ADVATEK has supplied components to a variety of industries including medical, telecommunications, and aerospace. Their facility has grown to include a 600sqm factory that operates 24 hours a day. The team at ADVATEK is composed of industry experts who have remained committed to the same level of passion and vision since the company's launch over 25 years ago. With many familiar faces at ADVATEK spanning decades, their team is unified, efficient, communicative, focused on quality, and ready to deliver. They…

In the intensely competitive world of manufacturing, innovation is essential. Accordingly, Australia’s largest bus body manufacturer Volgren has made its name with innovative, sustainable and efficient public transport solutions. The company built its first bus in 1979 with the promise of creating a more reliable, comfortable and longer-lasting vehicle with lower operating costs than others then available. Today, Volgren designs, manufactures and assembles public transport buses of all types across multiple technologies, including zero-emission vehicles. Thanks to its 400-strong manufacturing, operations and aftersales support teams across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and WA, its bus bodies are close to 90% locally produced and offer the lowest lifetime cost of any bus in Australia. Since 2018 Volgren has delivered dozens of hybrid and electric buses to Australian operators and is now fast-tracking delivery of Australia’s first European hydrogen fuel cell buses. Volgren’s E-bus, the Optimus E-Bus, is one of its class’s lightest zero-emission bus bodies and operates successfully in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. The body has been effectively engineered to suit multiple electric chassis and complies with Australia’s highest safety and flammability standards for buses. Although Volgren officially began…

The research, published in Nature, could help extend the applications of titanium alloys, improve sustainability and drive innovative materials technologies. Titanium and titanium alloys are essential for the clean energy transition, defence and aerospace sectors. The research holds promise for a new class of more sustainable high-performance titanium alloys for applications in aerospace, biomedical, chemical engineering, space and energy technologies. The research was led by the University of Sydney and RMIT in collaboration with Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Melbourne company Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence. Co-lead researcher, University of Sydney Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research Infrastructure) Professor Simon Ringer said: “This research delivers a new titanium alloy system capable of a wide and tunable range of mechanical properties, high manufacturability, enormous potential for emissions reduction and insights for materials design in kindred systems.” The new materials belong to an alloy class that has long been the backbone of the titanium industry. They consist of a mixture of two forms of titanium crystals, called alpha-titanium phase and beta-titanium phase, each corresponding to a specific arrangement of atoms. While…