Australian Manufacturing Week 2023 was an outstanding success

On behalf of the Australian Manufacturing Technology Institute Limited (AMTIL), which owns and operates AMW, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the many organisations and people involved in putting on the event. First and foremost – the 348 exhibitors who put on a fantastic showcase and the 15,914 attendees (an all-time record) – from 29 different countries – who came to visit Australian Manufacturing Week. In addition to the visitors we also had over 3,000 exhibitor personnel and over 300 students attend the show, making it almost 20,000 people involved.

I would also like to thank our contractors who largely go unnoticed in the overall scheme of putting on such a large event but are an integral part of making it happen. So at the risk of embarrassing some companies and individuals, I write this article to thank them and give our readers some insight into the mechanics of running our show.

Thank you to Roger Motteram and his team at Harry the Hirer, including Igor Kolevski, Corinne Thomas, Leigh Provis, Philip Brightwell and Tim Whelan. The 4-6 months of daily pre-show email communication to ensure every “T” is crossed and every “I” dotted with our team ensured a smooth move-in. The Begg trademarked “Sector” plan, which involved five sectors of carpet lay and stand build over five days, was well received by other contractors and certainly gave us a few laughs along the way. Over 15,000 carpet tiles were laid with a fair percentage of them having to be kicked back into place after being run over by forklifts! Also thanks to the electrical and rigging crew led by Travis Wall and his team including of electricians and riggers, including Carla San Miguel Moreno, Steve Porter, Dan Owen and Derek Jensen. Safety is paramount during our move-in and move-out process and the challenge of having carpet laid, rigging done and crane movements all at the same time (along with everything else) was made easy by the professionalism of the HTH staff. An interesting fact is, that in order to provide power to all the stands and equipment, over 11kms of electrical cable needed to be laid in the carpark prior to the show.

Our logistics contractor GEL Events, ably led by the “Freightman” Michael Stubbs, again did a great job of controlling the logistics of freight, loading dock chaos, forklifts and crane movements. Special thanks to Michael Barker, Fiona Ganatzos, Heath and Tony for an outstanding effort. To be on-site from 6.00am until 10.00pm most days and be organised and flexible at the same time takes a great deal of management and patience. The nightly debriefs in Sector Six always came with a few laughs too! And of course the L Arthur crew led by Mark Vannamen did an outstanding job coordinating the 210 crane lifts and over 300 lifts in total of machines weighing in excess of 5 tonne.

F Wood and Son is our plumbing contractor and well done to Paul Wood and Brian Campbell on another smooth show. It was great to also see a couple of apprentices also working on our show. Thanks to Alana and Mark behind the scenes for getting the administration done.

Thanks to Derek Metcalfe and the guys at Infrabuild, with some late changes to our schedule being easily accommodated. Another interesting fact is that we recycled over twelve tonnes of swarf and scrap metal generated by exhibitors at the show.

Thanks to our gas suppliers, Peter Kuebler at BOC Technologies and Scott Sutton at Coregas, again accommodating some rushed changes to our schedules and late orders being placed. Interesting fact: On the Thursday prior to the show opening, 55 gas packs were delivered to the venue and each morning of the show a number of stands had to have gas pack changeovers.

Thanks to Christian Wood at Cryocut for supplying and removing over 3,000 litres of cutting fluid and meeting all the exhibitor requirements.

Thanks to Mark Shenoda and his team at AGE Electrical for testing and tagging all the electrical leads.

Thanks to Judith Graham at Monash Tech School and Jack Parr at the Vernier Foundation for pulling the student tours together. Getting the next generation of employees interested in our industry is a significant activity.

Thanks to Jamie McGuiness at IKON Cleaning for being so accessible each and every day. Cleaning is often a thankless task, so good on your team for having our show looking so good at opening time.

Thanks to Christian Cramp and Kevin Alexander and his team at Australian Security Services, including Julie, Kavina, Bill, Muhammad, Walter, Else and Mustafa. Your smiling faces each morning and evening was great to see. Interesting fact: we clocked up 1018 man-hours of security during the show.

Thanks to the MCEC venue staff and their Operations Manager Sheldon Fernandes for his appreciation of our efforts. Quite understandingly the MCEC has very strict guidelines and safety considerations and liaising with Sheldon to provide a safe working environment provided an excellent outcome. Thanks to Laura Waples, Miranda Pertzel , Jason Stuckey, Scott Sandilands and to Steve and Mick, working the dock and behind the scenes to help make everything happen.

Thanks to our registration providers, LUP Events. To Jenny Byard and Gemma Stonem in the lead-up to the event, thanks to you. Great effort by Joseph Obsioma and his team on site to manage the record number of registrations and help out when we looked like running out of lanyards.

Finally, thanks to my team led by Kim Banks, Anne Samuelsson, George Joshua, Dea Stavar, Julie, Caroline, Paul, Nick, Greg, Franco and Koulla on another outstanding show. Our show plan has 543 task items and each one of them has been managed and ticked off on time on budget. Great effort team and an outstanding result!

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