Industry News

RUAG is an independent supplier and life-cycle support provider of systems and components on behalf of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and other international air forces, as well as civil aviation, worldwide. The upgrade to its facility will improve productivity and enhance the reliability of the manufacturing process to benefit customer supply chains, including those for hydraulic components for the Joint Strike Force (JSF) F-35 program. Industry 4.0 brings with it the next-level advancement of interconnectivity between devices, equipment, tools, visualisation systems, and their human users within the manufacturing system. It is an optimisation and networking of existing computerised technologies, with a central server to create cyber-to-physical systems for ensuring a smarter, more productive factory. The move to full interconnectivity at RUAG’s Hydraulic Centre of Excellence, housed at its Bayswater facility, generates significantly improved efficiencies as it creates a new human-to-machine interface. Real-time performance data is immediately available at any given moment throughout the manufacturing system…

EGR produces thousands of tonnes of plastic sheeting a year for the automotive industry in Australia and globally. However, with COVID-19 slowing the automotive sector, EGR saw an opportunity to use its resources to help with PPE while at the same time keeping its business financially viable for the employment of its 800 local staff. EGR enlisted long-term partner Konica Minolta to assist with rapid prototyping of the face shield design. Konica Minolta was on hand to 3D print design iterations the same day or overnight, for the quick transition to mass manufacture. Capacity is now at 50,000 face shields per day in EGR’s Brisbane manufacturing facility. John Bartley, Group General Manager at EGR, said: “EGR is by nature an innovative company that can recognise new opportunities and the need to adapt to market conditions. For an Australian manufacturer, this speed and agility is critical to survival. We saw the opportunity to deploy EGR’s resources to address a critical need for…

In early 2017, the International Agency for Research on Cancer reclassified welding fumes as a Group 1 carcinogenic. The change was primarily associated with the effects of ultra-violet (UV) exposure on the skin and eyes, lung cancers and limited evidence for kidney cancer from welding fume exposures. Short- and long-term exposure to fumes impacts on a welder’s health negatively, causing eye, nose and throat irritation, lung infections, asthma, lung damage and various types of cancer. It is therefore important that welders understand the hazards of the materials they are working with and the scale of exposure. Workplace health & safety (WHS) Regulations require employers to provide information and training for workers on exposure to hazardous materials in the workplace. In every workplace, health & safety holds the highest importance and workers and employers need to ensure it is being upheld every day. To assist, Pro-Visual Publishing in conjunction with the Australian Industry (Ai) Group and the National…

The Australian PMI recovered by 5.8 points to 41.6 in May, after experiencing the largest single-month drop in the index’s history in April (readings below 50 points indicate contraction in activity, with lower results indicating a faster rate of contraction). The decline slowed across all activity indices in May, except for the exports index which recorded its lowest ever monthly result as many overseas markets essentially shut down. Many manufacturers reported that orders from their regular customers have been delayed or cancelled altogether because of the pandemic. “While less of a fall than we saw in April, the further deterioration of manufacturing performance in May is deeply concerning,” said Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox. “From an already low base, manufacturing production and employment fell, and new orders dropped further. Other than the large food & beverages group which experienced a small gain, and the chemicals group which was broadly steady, all sectors of the manufacturing industry went further backwards in May. Manufactured exports…

Blower packages assembled by sourcing components from a variety of suppliers is still quite common and usually a result of adding to the blower as new requirements arise. As an example, a blower is determined to be too loud, so a new silencer is sourced. Perhaps even a sound enclosure is purchased. However, this now means that being inside a box, the blower runs warm, so now the operating temperature must be monitored. Then, perhaps it is determined that the blower needs to make more or less air, so a frequency-controlled drive is installed. The needs grow, and so does the package and its components. There are many versions of these packages in the field and…

The Australian manufacturing sector can achieve significant costs savings, by improving the efficiency of equipment and processes and lowering energy and water consumption. Other effective strategies will include increasing the use of renewables, reducing waste, emissions and packaging, as well as using fewer raw materials. Wind and solar Wind and solar energy are becoming more cost-competitive. This means the transition to clean renewable energies is either in progress or planned by heavy industries. Now that renewables are accountable for an ever-rising share of Australia’s power mix, supplying about 20% of demand, the transition is already in full swing. Australia has the highest average solar radiation per square metre of any continent. Manufacturers, who usually have extensive roof space, can harness the power of the greatest free energy source available – the sun. B&R Enclosures, an electrical enclosures, racks and cabinets manufacturer and a loyal SYSPRO customer, has announced a piloted project at its Brisbane facility by installing a solar energy system. This has provided the company with…

In the 1990s, manufacturers across the world – including Australia – were sold on the lower cost of Asian labour. This is how the global offshoring boom started in Asia. In the millennium, offshoring peaked, and between 2011 and 2016, the number of Australian manufacturing jobs fell by a staggering 24%. How times have changed since then. Manufacturing salaries in Asia have risen dramatically, and manufacturers have experienced the flip-side of cheap overseas production: these include low quality, high duties and taxes, expensive freight costs, bloated inventories, and long lead times. China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires Chinese companies to contribute to national intelligence, has made intellectual property thefts a nightmare. Environmental and social issues are causing substantial damage to manufacturers’ reputations. Lastly, the rise of protectionist policies and continuous global uncertainty has turned the tide for offshoring – it simply doesn’t guarantee profits anymore. Rapid advancements in automation technologies, robotics and predictive analytics have…

In the coming decade, we will see a change in STEM careers and, consequently, the ways in which graduates will be prepared for them will need an overhaul. Based on an NAE survey of global technology leaders and scholars, STEM careers of the future will be faced with solving four “grand challenges” comprising major technology issues in the areas of sustainability, health, security, and the joy of living. What are some of the areas that teachers, students and parents should track to help create a workforce that is ready to take on the challenges of the coming decade? Below are five of the major trends that we will see affect how university students and independent learners are taught to meet the challenges of the decade ahead. Authentic learning is bolstered by authentic assessment: We are seeing the…

For the first time, researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have enabled a soft robotic arm to understand its configuration in 3D space, by leveraging only motion and position data from its own “sensorised” skin. Soft robots constructed from highly compliant materials, similar to those found in living organisms, are being championed as safer, and more adaptable, resilient, and bioinspired alternatives to traditional rigid robots. But giving autonomous control to these deformable robots is a monumental task because they can move in a virtually infinite number of directions at any given moment. That makes it difficult to train planning and control models that drive automation. Traditional methods to achieve autonomous control use large systems of multiple motion-capture cameras that provide the robots feedback about 3D movement and positions. But those are impractical for soft robots in real-world applications. The researchers describe a system of soft sensors that cover a robot’s body to provide “proprioception” — meaning awareness of motion and position of its body. That feedback…

Prima Power is a leading specialist in machines and systems for sheet metal working. With manufacturing facilities in Italy, Finland and the US, it delivers machines and systems all over the world. Its range of machinery in this field covers all applications: laser processing, punching, shearing, bending, automation and now additive manufacturing. The Prima family of highly advanced servo-electric solutions for punching, bending and integrated processes is the widest in the world. Prima has been at the forefront of this technology since 1998 and is a world leader in servo-electric machinery. The company is also among the main world players in the 2D laser segment, with a wide range of top-performance, highly efficient machines used in a multitude of fields around the globe. Prima is now one of the only laser system manufacturers able to offer its own solid state diode laser up to 10kW. All Prima products are developed according to a “Green Means” concept, combining sustainability and productivity. Industry 4.0 marks a new era in the history…

The process known as ‘Design Thinking’ has been adopted as standard practice at some of the world’s most successful companies – Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, to name just a few. Similarly, some of the most prestigious seats of learning teach courses in this progressive approach to problem-solving. Rikke Friis Dam, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Interaction Design Foundation and product designer Yu Siang Teo, explain the main phases of the Design Thinking process as taught at Stanford University’s renowned school design institute: Empathise with your users. Define your users’ needs. Ideate by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions. Prototype to start creating solutions. Test your solutions. As they explain, these steps are not linear: “You should not understand the phases as a hierarchical or step-by-step process. Instead, you should look at it as an overview of the modes or phases that contribute to an innovative project, rather than sequential steps.” Roger Simpson, design consultant and mentor to the team at Integra believes that ‘Design Thinking’ as a…

Activated carbon is one of the most widely used materials for environmental remediation in the world. It contains small holes, or ‘pores’, which give it an extremely high internal surface area, which allows pollutants to ‘stick’ to the inside of the carbon, removing them from the ecosystem. Activated carbon can be used in a range of applications, including water purification, remediating contaminated soils, treating air pollution, and recovering gold from mine sites. Globally, approximately 3 million tonnes of activated carbon are used every year for the purposes of cleaning up contaminated soil, water, and air, as well as recovering precious metals. Most activated carbon is made from expensive and non-renewable hardwood or coal, rather than cheap and abundant sources of agricultural waste, or from coconut shells in developing countries. Founded by Dr Lewis Dunnigan and Ben Morton, Bygen has ambitions to become the world’s first sustainable producer of high-quality, bespoke activated carbon. The company first began transforming low-value agricultural waste into activated carbon…

Based in Schmallenberg, Germany, transfluid specialises in the production of tube bending and tube processing machines, and has been developing customer-focused technologies for tube processing since 1988. The high-tech engineering company offers tailor-made solutions for the construction of plants and machines, for the automotive, energy and shipbuilding sectors and the manufacturing of medical equipment. The bending systems produced by transfluid can take isometrics data and generate bending data without separate programming of the robot system.transfluid has now designed the next step in the development of its range of tube bending robots and improved it again. The online connection to CAD systems has always been possible, which reduces the set-up time a lot. Another important aspect is to simplify the software connection because of the robot programming capabilities of each customer. The latest generation of machines can process isometrics data online. There are…