Industry News

She cites the example of Patriot Campers, which Klugo helped onto NetSuite. Another family-based company, Patriot grew out of a couple’s passion for building their own camper trailers. Fellow campers soon started asking them to make more and the business quickly snowballed after it started selling in the US. Moving to NetSuite helped Patriot in many ways. “It’s been a very fast journey for them as well,” Kloe says. “The software has enabled them to become a lot more efficient in what they do and also be able to expand internationally. If you’ve got paper-based systems and you don’t know where things are and you can’t track your orders and you’re manufacturing, it’s very hard to know where you’re at and make some sound decisions. “They’ve made some very good calls along the way. Their challenge now is making enough changes. They’re out now to seven or eight months delivery times because they’ve got such demand for their trailers at the moment.” NetSuite combines the manufacturing…

The introduction of mission-critical computing systems and automated tasks in manufacturing processes has resulted in increased safety and productivity during normal operation. But what happens when abnormal situations arise? The answer is, of course, that a human must step in. Human factors and safety culture The human factor needs to be at the centre of any safety discussion for many reasons, one of which is that human error is often the cause of incidents and accidents in the first place – despite the strict safety culture prevalent in most firms. The consequences of such incidents range from minor injury to headline-making catastrophe. If an organisation wants to ensure a successful safety culture, it must have a clear and explicit risk management strategy. To understand and manage risk, plant operators should first carry out a hazard and risk assessment to identify the overall safety requirements. After that, they should focus…

The breakthrough was announced by CSIRO’s Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra on 8 October. “Cracking the carbon code will allow industry to manufacture this incredibly strong and lightweight material for the first time from scratch, using Australia’s own top secret recipe,” Dr Marshall said. “Together with Deakin University, we’ve created the seed to grow our manufacturing industry in Australia – generating jobs of the future built on home-grown innovation.” Carbon fibre is only made by a handful of manufacturers around the world, each of whom hold their own secret, patented recipes. “From wind turbines to aerospace, even the latest Mustang wheels, a carbon fibre industry signals the kind of reinvention needed across Australian industry, shifting our focus from raw exports to high value products to retain our global competitive advantage,” Dr Marshall said. “This is another chapter in the innovation history of Geelong, where Australia’s first carbon fibre…

The town of Tuttlingen in particular continues to enjoy respect as a global centre for medical instruments, making a name for itself in the production of medical devices as early as the 19th century. Several hundred companies work in Europe’s largest medical instrument cluster on innovative products for the medical industry. One category of such instruments deals with traumatology – specifically, products for the treatment of bone fractures such as bone nails and screws. When fractures occur in hip joints and in the upper and lower extremities, bone screws may be used to compress the fragments and lock implanted intramedullary nails. These nails usually have two transverse bores, via which the nail is secured against dislocation with two screws. Why do bone screws require deep drilling? When a bone fracture has to be fixed with plates, nails, or screws, a so-called guide wire is positioned in the bone at the point in question. This wire is used to push the bone screw with…

Like a phoenix risen from the ashes, Digga, an Australian company renowned worldwide for their high-precision manufacturing of planetary gearboxes and many other engineering components, not only survived a disastrous fire in its factory, but, with the co-operation of Bystronic, used the recovery from the blaze to boost productivity, production and sales. Digga’s origins are unusual. Founder and principal owner Stewart Wright began in 1981, living in a trailer park in Brisbane, selling wear parts for big augers for the construction industry, contacting customers on the park’s public telephone box. “He is a very clever man, full of ideas,” says Marketing Manager Lionel Smitka. “Most of our success is due to him and his vision.” Customers began asking him to handle repairs and provide equipment, so he began making augers, then drive units to power them, then attachments for loaders.Today it makes more than 70 different types. “We got into planetary gearboxes in 1984,…

The Australian Institute of Company Directors defines a business as solvent when its current assets equal its current liabilities, or when current assets, minus inventory, are at least half of current liabilities. Unfortunately, many businesses I visit sail very close to the wind, and some are in real trouble without fully understanding why. A shortage in working capital becomes apparent when it’s difficult to pay employees and suppliers on time, or even maintaining good supplier relationships to preserve raw material supply for the business. The key is to maintain proper and planned cash management where cash outlays are delayed up to the maximum possible duration. Concept: Cash Flow = Cash inflows – Cash outflows Cash flow simply means the amount of cash remaining after all outbound payments are made from monies received. Positive cash-flow means that the cash received from sales is more that spent on salaries, expenses, and materials. Negative cash-flow is the opposite and often indicates some underlying problem, or could be a temporary setback. Even profitable businesses can show…

AMT: Tell us about the role of Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and its broad objectives. Kate Carnell: Sure, well, the legislation was passed through Parliament the year before last – with support from all sides, both major parties and all across benches – that produces an independent office to work for small business. The role is appointed by the Governor General, so it does not report to the government of the day. Small business is defined as businesses under 100 employees, so it’s really small-to-medium business. The legislation sets up two particular roles. One is an advocacy role, and under the advocacy part of what we do, we have input into Government regulation and legislation to ensure it’s small business-friendly. I give advice to the Minister or Ministers on small business issues, and we can hold enquiries: both self-generated enquiries, and also the government can ask us to do particular enquiries into small business issues. The legislation gives us what are pretty much Royal Commission powers. We can seek documents from Government,…

Today Engineered Components employs five personnel at its workshop in Loganholme, a half-hour drive south of Brisbane. Its founder and director Adrian De Villiers remembers clearly the day he first set up the business. “The tenth of October 1981 – I bought my first centre lathe,” he recalls. “I worked by myself for something like six years, then I employed somebody to assist me; he came in afternoons and we’d stay till about 10 oclock at night. I bought my first CNC lathe – a second-hand machine – and had that for about six years, then I bought another CNC lathe. The problem is every time you buy a machine you’ve got to employ another person. But we went on from there and kept on buying machines, expanding the customer base.” The company started off mainly producing earthmoving components. It also worked with a local firm that made overhead cranes, with Engineered Components making all the machined…

October marked the longest run of expansion since 2007, albeit at a slower rate than the previous six months (readings above 50 indicate expansion in activity, with the distance from 50 indicating the strength of the increase). Of the seven activity sub-indexes in the Australian PMI, three expanded, three contracted and one was stable in October. New orders (down 0.8 points to 55.1) and sales (down 0.4 points to 51.0) both expanded, but at marginally slower rates than in September. Six of the eight manufacturing sub-sectors expanded in October (according to trend data) led by the non-metallic mineral products sector, which stayed at a record high of 72.2 points in October off the back of strong demand for building-related products. Food and beverages also continued to perform well (up 0.9 points to 57.1 points). Ai Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox, said: “Manufacturing entered its second year of consecutive growth in October with sales, employment and forward orders expanding in the month despite some soft patches in exports and production.…

One of the major issues associated with Industry 4.0 is making work processes flexible. At the extreme end of the spectrum, this may involve manufacturing products in batch size 1 under industrial mass-production conditions – that is, manufacturing unique items on a conveyor belt. This type of smart factory – where products and production processes are one with state-of-the-art information and communication technology – is becoming home to machines that are increasingly intelligent, and increasingly autonomous as a result. Not only that, but interaction between humans and machines is also set to increase in industrial manufacturing. This is because combining the abilities of humans with those of robots results in production solutions that…

One of these products is the state-of-the-art Driven Broaching Unit, which offers economic manufacturing of oriented keyways and splines with CNC turning centres. The WTO Driven Broaching Unit can be used for both internal (ID) and external (OD) broaching, simply by rotating the insert holder by 180 degrees, and offers speeds of up to 1,000 strokes per minute. In an actual case history, a CNC machine shop based in Summerville, in the US state of South Carolina, needed to develop a process that would give the required cycle time and tool life to maintain the desired profitability. The task was to machine a high-volume component made from 8620 steel that was designed with a complex internal spline. The job shop owner initially purchased two lathes and a standard broaching system. Early in the project, however, it was observed that the broaching unit originally installed with the…

With the exit of mining and automotive component manufacturers from Australia, industry and government support have helped some firms evolve their advanced manufacturing skills and enter the medical technology market. Medical device production in Australia has grown by 1.3% annually since 2012 and is now valued at $3bn a year according to IBISWorld. South Australia is emerging as a hub for the medical devices industry and is home to the Tonsley Innovation Hub and the Adelaide BioMed City precinct, a $3bn tripartite health hub comprising a major hospital, research centres and educational institutions. The Tonsley hub is located on the site of a former Mitsubishi car manufacturing plant in Adelaide, and major tenants include medical device manufacturer Micro-X, Siemens and ZEN Energy. From automotive into medical The downturn in world commodity prices has forced South Australian company Plastico and Hackett Engineering to shift its focus from mineral analysis equipment development to components for orthopaedic implants. The company first dabbled in medical devices in 2014 but has now…

Under the theme ‘Manufacturing’s Future in a Digital Age’, some of the speakers who will be presenting at the Conference include: Brad Howarth. Keynote: ‘Navigating to a Digital Future’ Brad is a respected authority on technology, marketing and digital media. As a journalist, Brad spent the last two decades researching and writing about technology’s impact on organisations, society and individuals. While he continues to study change as a freelance journalist, as a speaker and facilitator he works with organisations to help them understand and plan for changes yet to come. In 2012 Brad was selected to participate in the Prime Minister’s Digital Economy Forum alongside leaders from Australian industry and academia. Brad’s books ‘Innovation and Emerging Markets’ and ‘A Faster Future’ (co-authored with Janelle Ledwidge), respectively examined the impact of high-speed communications technology on business, society and individuals, and the path to commercialisation for Australian technology innovation. His latest, ‘Managing for Change’ (with Peter Fritz AM) sets out a practical guide…