Member News

The event was attended by more than 180 industry leaders from manufacturing businesses across Australia, as well as representatives from manufacturing technology suppliers, government and industry bodies, universities and research organisations. AMTIL CEO Shane Infanti has been with AMTIL since the very beginnning, and he noted that the association’s 20th birthday coincided with a strong resurgence in Australian manufacturing. “It’s great to be celebrating 20 years of AMTIL at such a positive time for our industry,” said Infanti. “There’s been a lot of pessimism in recent years with the GFC and the car industry closures, but right now we’re just seeing exciting stuff going on all across the sector. So tonight’s event isn’t just about looking back on 20 years of AMTIL; it’s about looking forward to what I think is a very bright future for Australian manufacturing.” AMTIL is the peak national body for the precision engineering and advanced manufacturing sector in Australia. The association was founded on 11 August 1999, following the…

It has been more than a year since China’s Government implemented the National Sword policy which would go on to have significant impacts across the global recycling sector. The policy set restrictions on the contamination levels of plastic waste, unsorted paper and textile materials, meaning China would only accept materials with a contamination level of 0.5% or less. From the 1990s up until 2013, global wealth manager Credit Suisse says it was cheaper to transport recycled materials by ship to China than it was to domestically transport by truck or rail in its 2018 report, The age of plastics at a tipping point. One particularly difficult waste identified in the report was modern food packaging, which use layers of different polymers as well as other materials like aluminium and ink layers that need to be separated before sorting if they are to be reprocessed. “Food packaging is also often contaminated by its contents, requiring screening and washing,” the report notes. “Councils also have different requirements…

AMTIL has been working on putting plans in place for the development of the Export Hub, and these are now starting to build momentum. Phase One – Get ready The first stage of the Export Hub has involved setting up its governance structure, with an advisory committee and financial management system put in place, and the appointment of an Export Hub Manager and Export Hub Coordinator. Industry engagement will be done through four mechanisms: Primes and OEMs will be approached to identify their critical key supply chains and encourage them to work with the Export Hub on aspects as networking, business improvement programs and trade mission activity. Key partner organisations such as the Entrepreneurs’ Programme, the Industry Capability Network, the Australian Rail Authority, and Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) will be invited to suggest relevant companies. AMTIL Members in these supply chains or who wish to access them will be encouraged to be involved. Other companies who find out about the…

The alfred AI solution, powered by Microsoft Azure, helps the company analyse and process more than two million orders per year and better serve its 250,000 global customers. alfred is already helping tkMX optimise its logistics network – allocating materials to the right location much faster, minimising transport volume and enhancing usage of the company’s transport capacity. Axel Berger, Head of Digital Transformation at tkMX, discussed how alfred is changing the business. AMT: Tell us about alfred and why tkMX developed it. What business challenges were you facing? Axel Berger: We are a wholesaler, so data insights and data algorithms are possibly one of the strongest levers we have to improve our business. We had a lot of data that we weren’t using before, for three main reasons. First, we didn’t really have the expertise to work on specific data science topics – we had…

Four of the seven activity indexes in the Australian PMI expanded in July (readings below 50 points indicate contraction in activity, with the distance from 50 indicating the strength of the decrease). Despite falls in sales (down 8.1 points to 42.7) and production (down 3.6 points to 48.3), a return to positive territory for supplier deliveries (up 4.8 points to 51.9) and a stronger new orders index (up 3.2 points to 53.0) suggest manufacturers are gearing up for more production in coming months. The exports index improved again in July (up 1.5 points to 54.6), with strong overseas demand for Australian consumable manufacturing products such as food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, vitamins and cosmetics. Three of the six manufacturing sectors expanded in July (according to trend data), with the gap between the expanding and contracting sectors growing in recent months. Food & beverages (down 0.7 points to 59.2) and building materials, wood & furniture (up 1.3 points to 63.7) led…

Despite businesses in Australia having a legal requirement to comply with their State’s workplace health & safety (WHS) laws, more than 100,000 serious workplace injuries still occur every year. These range from mental stress, to trips and falls, to collisions with objects. A leading auditing and training organisation in occupational health & safety is alerting organisations to commonly overlooked workplace practices that are risking the health and safety of their employees. SAI Global is a global risk management provider that has audited and trained thousands of organisations seeking to meet the ISO 45001 international standard for WHS, in addition to the workplace health & safety acts and regulations in their own state. SAI Global recently released a list of the seven workplace hazards commonly overlooked by employers: Heavy workloads…

This is the third-generation version of Creaform’s patented metrology-grade scanner. Its launch marks more than 15 years of innovation in technology to meet the evolving needs of the manufacturing and engineering industries. The HandySCAN BLACK has been designed for professionals who need an effective and reliable tool to capture accurate dimensional measurements of physical objects. HandySCAN BLACK combines high-performance 3D scanning with a sleek, ergonomic design. Its distinctive simplicity and portability advantages are a staple of Creaform’s product line. As the company’s flagship portable metrology-grade 3D scanner, the HandySCAN BLACK sets the standard for measurement, regardless of size, material or complexity, within seconds anywhere. Features include: 4X resolution: Fine details and large volumes are captured thanks to the unique and versatile combination of improved high-performance optics and multiple blue laser technology. 3X faster measurement speed and instant mesh: The larger scanning area features 11 blue laser crosses that take up to 1,300,000 measurements per second, ultimately cutting down the time between…

South Australia is home to major defence companies such as BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Saab Australia, as well as several emerging space start-ups, including Fleet Space Technologies, Inovor Technologies and Myriota. The state capital Adelaide is home to the Air Warfare Destroyer project and the Future Submarines project, which promises to deliver 12 Attack Class submarines to the Australian Navy to replace its Collins Class fleet. Satellite research centre to advance Aussie space industry The Australian space industry has received a $245m injection with the launch of the Cooperative Research Centre for Smart Satellite Technologies and Analytics, headquartered at the University of South Australia in Adelaide. The national SmartSat CRC will bring together a $190m cash and in-kind investment from 82 industry and research partners with a $55m pledge from the Federal Government over seven years. The $245m in funding for advanced telecommunications and intelligent satellite systems makes the SmartSat CRC the biggest space industry research collaboration in Australian history. Bid…

The history of the German compressed air specialist Kaeser Kompressoren truly is a remarkable story. Although many a company gets to celebrate its centenary, they cannot all boast such sustained and continuously positive development. While the Kaeser product range can be found in action all over the world, the general public rarely come face to face with the compressed air specialist’s products. Only the portable compressors catch the eye, with their black and yellow livery, when used for road construction work. Compressed air stations tend to be hidden away in outbuildings. Nonetheless, Kaeser compressors are just as likely to be found in power stations in Australia as in Peruvian gold mines, used by aerospace engineers in the US, fish farms in Norway, car manufacturers in Germany, at the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland, on ski pistes in Austria, on Arabian oil fields or the weaving mills in Asia. Often considered the fourth utility, compressed air…

Many types of heat exchangers are used in industry. In the case of recuperators, two liquid or gaseous media with different temperatures are pumped into separate circuits. A heat exchange takes place without mixing the media. Recuperators include bundle heat exchangers, which are usually made of metal and consist of a tube bundle that conducts a medium, and an orifice baffle with a front tube plate through which a second medium flows. Depending on the size of the heat exchanger, the front tube plate has a large number of bores. To ensure that the medium does not escape at this component transition, high requirements are set at the bores with regard to position accuracy and dimensional accuracy. The triple-edge replaceable head drill TTD-Tritan from Mapal has been tested in the petrochemical industry and produced convincing results when machining a tube plate. On the TTD-Tritan, the tool head and tool holder are joined by Hirth serration. This connection is easy…

An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is an integral part of operations, but your requirements of this system would be different whether you are operating a tin can factory in Toronto or manufacturing stereo equipment in Sydney. This means that a one-size-fits-all approach won’t take into consideration the industry nuances at play, nor embrace the individuality of your business that ultimately enables your competitive edge. The reality is the choices you make right now will affect your competitive advantage and your ability to remain relevant in a rapidly changing business environment. The aspect of choice should be extended to the selection of elements that make-up the solution whilst also addressing your immediate business priorities as well as offer the potential to extend…

RAM3D is a metal 3D printing facility and high-tech manufacturing company producing parts for a diverse array of industries world-wide. The technology has greatly advanced over the past five years and RAM3D has seen a shift from prototyping to include full production work. This is possibly a result of the early adopters of the technology starting to move their projects increasingly through the project stage. The two key drivers to this transition are: Designers have recognised that the technology opens different design avenues. They can look at the areas of function and load and only place material where it is needed. This design freedom results in a highly optimised part in both functionality and cost. The cost of production by 3D printing has reduced. RAM3D operates four machines; they have been able to cover their overheads and apply the lessons they have learned over time to refine the process and ultimately bring benefits to companies having parts made. Throughout most of the world, two of the early…

Established in 1962, the Opie Manufacturing Group – an Australian fabricated metal manufacturer, offering a wide range of products and services – has been part of that transformation, and is fully embracing the Internet of Things. Covering over 7,000sqm under roof, Opie Group’s expansive state-of-the-art manufacturing and metal processing facility in Emu Plains, NSW, is one of the largest in the industry. ((subhead)) The problem Prior to November 2018, Opie Group’s machines were operating independently not only of each other, necessitating manual intervention in the production process, but also of the customer care process, leading to a lack of visibility when it came to understanding what stage of the production process a project was at. “Previously, we had no data available to determine where our inefficiencies were throughout the production process and where…