AMW2023 is happening now!

The crowds in the AMW2023 halls were very impressed as soon as they walked in on the first day. A straw poll was taken of what they were thinking, and one yelled, “We’re back baby!” I think he may have had some skin in the game.

There are some very large stands showing off some incredible technology. This massive show offers the perfect setting for people from all over Australian manufacturing sectors to access suitable resources, exchange ideas and network with the largest group of like-minded working manufacturers.

By midday on the first day, we all thought the show couldn’t get any busier. There were crowds and queues in front of John Hart, OKUMA, and SWI Industries. Earlier on in the day, the very first presentation for the Future Solutions Speaker Program was Neil Matthews, the Head of Engineering at Titomic Ltd was crowded to bursting. Matthews detailed Titomic’s cold spray AM process and fed into research being done to the coating process for the aerospace, defence, transport and other manufacturing areas.

Later in the day, the CSIRO PhD Cherry Chen, was digging into some astonishing science and digging quite deep. Showing the research of using printed magnesium as the medium for bone posts because it will slowly dissolve, as opposed to titanium which ultimately needs to be removed with another session of surgery.

Walking down through the Robotics and Automation Zone, there were groups of technical school students visiting, clearly impressed and enthralled (and well behaved), making positive steps in deciding where they wanted to move in their early career.  But the best part of the buzz was the scanning of passes, the networking, and connections between workers, managers, and well-mannered competition.

The fiscal forecast brought forth in last night’s Federal Budget shows the engine of the economy is turning around, but slowly. This is a signal for a better business environment, even though the financial injections are shown to be more for society, which is the right thing to do. Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute and Chris Richardson from Rich Insight, said last night on the ABC that the Industry Department feels this will not be the first surplus for this government.

Further to this, Labor remains supportive of Australian sovereign manufacturing capability but with a clear focus on energy transition, supporting this through clean energy and decarbonisation of existing industries and low emissions/renewable technologies.
This includes $400 million for the Critical Inputs to Clean Energy Industries stream of the Powering the Regions Fund, to provide grant funding to support the development of clean energy industries by investing in sovereign manufacturing capability of critical inputs, such as steel, cement, lime and aluminium.
Jessica Olivier, RSM Australia National Leader, said that manufacturers would probably be disappointed on the asset write-off front. While this budget increased the previous $1,000 instant asset write-off to $20,000 instant (per) asset write off, we note that the current Temporary Full Expensing (COVID) measures were not extended, so any manufacturing company waiting on delayed equipment delivery will no longer access the TFE provisions and it’s also unlikely to benefit them given strict criteria. (e.g. <$10m turnover, asset costing $20k or less).
The acquisition of conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines represents the biggest single investment in Australia’s defence capability in our history. It will support 20,000 jobs over the next 30 years in advanced manufacturing.
The Budget provided $14.8m over four years to establish the Powering Australia Industry Growth Centre, which aims to develop advanced technology and skills as part of the Government’s Australian-Made Battery Plan. This will support Australian businesses looking to manufacture, commercialise and adopt renewable technologies. This is in addition to the up to $3bn allocated to investment in low emissions technologies including green metals under the National Reconstruction Fund.

It was great to see the surge of visitors on the first day, with 3,200 scanned through the doors over the opening hours. But, hold onto your hats because Wednesday is gearing up to be an even bigger, even more, positive, and deeper dive into manufacturing technology.

Register now and get down here!   australianmanufacturingweek.com.au