Industry News

The one constant is change. Change does not have to be rapid or radical. It can be subtle and seamless. But if you are not constantly changing aspects of your business and personal lives, you are at risk of being left behind. So as I look back over the last year and plan for the next year or two, I am conscious of the minor changes we have made to our business and how we operate. One internal change is our commitment to work/life balance and providing flexible working arrangements for staff. There is certainly a mind shift to the way we employ staff and keep them invigorated, accountable and productive. Our biennial flagship exhibition – Austech - ran in May 2017 and was a great success with over 12,000 visitors and…

Producing Australian sparkling wines is a challenge gladly accepted by boutique wine-maker Peterson House in the Hunter Valley, which has achieved standout success with its sparkling wines. However, being able to track each bottle as it left the winery and travelled along the distribution chain to local or international destinations was a longstanding concern, particularly when it came to feedback on quality. Several years ago Peterson House opted to use a laser system that would make a permanent mark on each glass bottle. The Linx CO2 laser system form Raymax Applications in Sydney was easily integrated into existing operations, providing markings at speeds of some 2,500 bottles per hour. The system offers both accuracy and durability, as the laser process removes, or ablates, a layer of substrate (glass) leaving a traceable permanent mark. As each bottle passes along the line, the bottles are dried, warmed to an ambient temperature of around 20 deg.C, then coded just prior to labelling. For identification and traceability purposes, each bottle…

What comes in a cylinder and is extraordinarily powerful? The answer is hydraulic power, which is a cornerstone of kinetics – the part of physics that is concerned with the relationship between motion and its causes – specifically, forces and torques. This power is seen everywhere in the industrial world, from tipper-trucks and rock-crushers in the civil engineering and mining industries, to extruders and press-brakes in factories and workshops, not forgetting cranes and earthmoving machines. Nordon has been in the hydraulics business since 1974, and has built a solid reputation for its expertise, product quality, and commitment to customer service. Nordon’s customers at home and abroad require hydraulic cylinders from tiny to enormous, and they don’t always want them today – sometimes, they want them yesterday. At its manufacturing base…

A staggering 51 million used tyres are discarded annually in Australia, causing environmental and health problems like the sea of stockpiled tyres in Stawell in western Victoria. Only 5% of used tyres are recycled locally in Australia, but researchers from the University of Melbourne have teamed up with Tyre Stewardship Australia and Merlin Site Services to come up with an innovative way to reuse the rubber. Project technical lead, Dr Mahdi Disfani from the Melbourne School of Engineering, has spent the last 18 months working on a pilot project with his colleauges Associate Professor Lu Aye, Dr Guillermo Narsilio and Dr Alireza Mohammadinia, that increases the number of uses for permeable pavements made from recycled tyres. “While there are a number of recycling solutions for tyres, like using them in children’s playgrounds, in landscaping or in asphalt layers, but the applications for high volume are limited,” says Dr Disfani. “Roads and pavements are everywhere. With the right product, we could have a serious…

At 10.45 on the morning of Friday 20 October, a VFII Commodore Redline rolled off the production line at GM Holden’s Elizabeth plant in north Adelaide. A private ceremony was held to commemorate Holden’s manufacturing history and pay tribute to the employees past and present who had helped build the company. And then the factory closed its doors for good. “Today is about paying tribute to the generations of men and women across Holden and our supply network who have given so much to our company,” said Holden Chairman and Managing Director, Mark Bernhard. “Holden is the icon it is today only because of these passionate people. On behalf of everyone at Holden, I thank you for your service from the bottom of my heart.” The shuttering of the Elizabeth site followed close on the heels of Toyota Australia closing its Altona plant on 3 October, with a ceremony attended by approximately 3,000…

‘From the idea to the finished product’ is the mission statement for Fetzer Medical, a medium-sized company established in 2008 by Peter Fetzer. The family business has a longstanding background in the development and manufacture of surgical instruments and medical devices. To build on this, Peter set the company a target: to operate exclusively as an independent OEM, establishing all the necessary human and technical resources to that end. Fetzer Medical launched an extensive capital investment, qualification and certification programme, beginning its five-axis machining in 2008. This was rolled out with the stated aim of offering a flexible and swift approach to delivery for varying product and batch sizes. All relevant materials, including titanium, are machined and Fetzer Medical supplies its customers with ready-to-use products – from prototypes/individual parts to large production runs and complete systems. The business currently employs 45 highly-qualified employees and state-of-the-art equipment. Roughly 75% of the work involves complex milling/drilling operations, which have been performed at Fetzer…

The five-year ‘Just-in-time implants’ project brings together the Australian Government, RMIT University, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne and global medical technology firm Stryker. Worth more than $12.1m in research effort, the work is funded by Stryker with co-funding from the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC), which is contributing $2.36m in cash. RMIT’s Professor Milan Brandt and the project team will combine 3D printing, robotic surgery and advanced manufacturing to create tailored implants for patients with bone cancer. “Our aim is to bring the technology to the theatre,” said Brandt. “While patients are having their cancer removed in the operating theatre, in the next room, we are custom printing an implant to precisely fill the space left after removal of the diseased bone.” St Vincent’s Professor Peter Choong said just-in-time implants will transform the delivery of care for people with bone cancer: “By combining specialised imaging techniques, 3D printing and the accuracy of robotic assisted surgery, we are aiming to deliver a personalised implant…

Australian Advanced Manufacturing was launched in October and will continue to produce Bauselite componentry for luxury watches. The components will be made at Flinders University campuses in Adelaide, more than 15,000km from Switzerland where the majority of luxury watch componentry is made. Bauselite is a very strong, very light ceramic material developed by Dr Jonathan Campbell and colleagues from the Flinders Centre for NanoScale Science & Technology. It was used to create Bausele’s Terra Australis watch, released in 2015, which became the first watch from Australia to be accepted for showing at Baselworld, the world’s largest watch and jewellery trade fair. “The new material and method of production solved a number of issues specific to using ceramics in watches,” Dr Campbell said. “It’s a significant accomplishment that watch components are being produced here, signalling a major step forward and a powerful statement about Flinders’ delivery of elite engineering.” Bausele CEO Christophe Hoppe said Australian Advanced Manufacturing aimed to expand its production of high quality watch components. “Controlling manufacturing is really important and…

All seven activity sub-indexes in the Australian PMI improved in November and all indicated expansion in the month. New orders (up 5.3 points to 60.4 points) and exports (up 8.9 points to 57.6 points) were especially strong, which bodes well for growth in 2018 (readings above 50 indicate expansion in activity, with the distance from 50 indicating the strength of the increase). “The manufacturing sector lifted strongly in November, building on an uninterrupted growth phase that began in October 2016,” said Ai Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox. “Sales, production and employment all jumped ahead in November and the strong rise in new orders points to further good news as we head to Christmas. The resumption of growth in exports is particularly encouraging after a slight easing in momentum in recent months. Five of the eight manufacturing sub-sectors expanded in November (according to trend data), led by the very large food & beverages sub-sector (up 0.8 points to 59.7…

Implementing a successful growth-generating digital strategy comes down to vision and top-down leadership. Without these, imagining the future and thinking big become stuck in short-term budgetary concerns. The reality is: it’s about spending money to make money as the manufacturing industry digitises. Embracing digital services directly impacts business growth. Increased financial investment in manufacturing digitisation allows businesses the opportunity to see the big picture and adapt appropriately to demand volatility. Evidence shows that globally, investment in digital initiatives has increased manufacturing costs by 1%. Much of this is due to the investment, training and skills needed to use and operate cutting-edge technologies, but this increase in costs is not in vain, as manufacturers are already beginning to see growth from investment in digital strategies. For certain manufacturers, digital is estimated to have added 5.4% to total revenue between 2015 and 2016. This is a worthwhile…

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) technology is gaining momentum, but the level of adoption is still quite low compared with traditional subtractive metalworking methods. In 2016, only 957 metal AM machines were sold worldwide, compared with hundreds of thousands of CNC subtractive machine tools. Part of the reason for the low adoption level may be the misconception that metal AM technology can only be used to 3D print new parts, which limits its potential use. This may be due to the fact that the most commonly used metal AM technology, powder bed fusion (PBF), can only 3D print new parts built-up on flat two-dimensional plates. However, metal AM technologies, such as powder-fed directed energy deposition (DED), can not only 3D print new metal parts, but can also add materials to existing components, enabling a broader range of applications such as repair, surface modification, and hybrid manufacturing (which combines…

Call it innovation, call it redeployment, there is no doubt that creating something new from the same stuff is the current challenge facing the Australian manufacturing industry – looking for new markets, new opportunities, new products, new uses for old equipment. If you listen to predictions of the future of work you’d be forgiven for being a bit anxious; the majority of the jobs that our young kids will do have not even been ‘invented’ yet. One thing is certain, continuing to do things the same way and having the same expectations of your workforce will mean you keep getting the same results and the same frustrations. Unfortunately, you can’t innovate when you do things the same way, and you won’t get anything different from your workforce if you keep treating…

“Our business has been built on tackling the most challenging demands for tools, and the aerospace sector is a prime example of an industry that constantly demands sophisticated solutions,” says Jeff Boyd, Export Manager at Sutton. “However, it’s a tough market where there is a lot of competition and success is based on the ability to prove productivity gains.” Several aerospace component producers in France had been buying a competitor’s brand, leading Sutton Tools’s European office to identify an opportunity to manufacture a superior performing solution, and in doing so, win some new business by delivering a productivity gain of 20% for the customer. The continual demand to reduce costs by increasing productivity is a key issue for the aviation and aerospace industries, with customers emphasising the need for reliance on tool stability so that they can confidently forecast their production schedules and reduce machine downtime. “We recognised that development…