Member News

Fast forward to today and Headland provides leading-edge technology solutions to Australian clients such as Cochlear, Sistema, RUAG and Qantas – to name a few. It may be tempting to say things have changed a lot at Headland, but the fundamentals remain unchanged. Headland remains a family business where technological innovation and a solutions-based focus has always been and remains central to the way it does business. Before taking over the business in 1979, current Headland Director Peter Kloé worked as a Product Engineer for Siemens in Germany and Production Manager for the Ford Motor Company in North America. A pioneer of women in manufacturing, Co-director Dianne Kloé began writing machine software in 1981 when computer science was still in its infancy. The tradition of drive and innovation has continued with the Kloé children. Joint Managing Directors, Richard and Annaliese, have overseen Headland’s continued expansion and exciting diversification…

AMT: When was the Rail Manufacturing CRC established and what are its objectives? Stuart Thomson: We were established in 2014. We’re part of the Cooperative Research Centres program, co-funded by the Commonwealth Government. Our specific areas are rail manufacturing and rail development in general. The objective is to support, co-fund and assist the rail industry to collaborate on innovation and R&D programs. We have a lifetime of six years, so we have about 18 months left to run. Over our six-year period we’ll have worked with a number of manufacturers, which include first, second and third-tier manufacturing organisations, rail operators and Australian research institutions working in rail R&D. We’ve also worked with manufacturing and peak bodies like the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) and TrackSAFE Foundation.   AMT: What does the closure of the CRC mean to the greater rail industry? ST: Essentially, the closure of the Rail Manufacturing CRC is required – all CRCs can now only run for one term. In terms of what it means for the industry, I think…

Since its foundation in 1914, Ford has driven innovation in automotive manufacturing. Ford is constantly thinking ahead to accelerate vehicle manufacture through increased productivity, ergonomics, and quality control. Ford’s pilot plant in Cologne pioneers the creation of each new vehicle design before it goes into mass production. They have a complete small-scale manufacturing line, which develops cars up to several years before they go into production. Lars Bognar, Research Engineer at Ford’s Research & Advanced Engineering team, has been working on creating an optimised workflow to create jigs, tools, and fixtures for Ford’s manufacturing process. Ford’s employees use many custom tools during their vehicles’ production. These are often designed for one specific task and model. Creating these tools externally takes a lot of time and is very expensive. To get tools faster, the team at Ford decided to pilot 3D printing as a possible solution. A dedicated additive manufacturing team was founded, and started using fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology from Ultimaker. It provided a faster, affordable solution with less hassle compared to other 3D printing technologies. By having a…

Companies in industries such as manufacturing, materials handling, mining, food & beverage, power generation, steel handling and forming & fabrication are focused on optimising the safety and reliability of the overhead cranes and lifting devices on which they rely for daily operations. However, as companies expand in size and have fleets of tens or even hundreds of cranes, it can be easy to miss one minor component of standards compliance, even if all due diligence is being taken to meet requirements, according to Konecranes. “We’re finding that even some dedicated safety and compliance managers may not realise there are additional procedures they aren’t aware of,” says Joseph Cefai, Consultation Service Manager, Konecranes Australia. “They have been vigilantly ensuring their employees comply to the standards they know, but weren’t aware of several additional important rules.” Konecranes has more than 600,000 pieces of lifting equipment under service contract worldwide. To fill the gap for time-poor but safety-conscious companies, Konecranes has introduced its auditing tool, Compliance Gap Analysis. It ensures that companies using cranes…

Amiga was founded in 1988 by two brothers, Michael and Dale Bourchier. Industry veterans, they had experience working across a broad range of manufacturing segments, from car parts suppliers to German toolmakers. However, they’d reached a turning point when the business they were working in started struggling. “We were basically redundant,” says Michael, who remains Amiga’s owner and General Manager to this day. “So I said ‘Let’s start up our own business’. So off we went.” The company set up operations in a tiny factory in East Keilor, Melbourne. The brothers got some help from their dad just to get the workshop wired up, and it took time and persuasion to have a phone line installed. With nothing more than a $10,000 overdraft, they had to shop around at the bottom of the market for equipment. “We went to the first auction and bought all this cruddy old equipment,” Michael recalls. “Lathes that turned, mills that vibrated… We even bought a forklift that…

Located in Kings Park, Sydney, Alliance is a privately-owned sheet metal fabrication company that was founded in 2007 by Shane Blewden and Sean Carragher. Both men had prior experience in the sheet metal fabrication industry, but after spotting an opportunity in the market and feeling like the time was right, they decided to strike out on their own and subsequently founded the business. Alliance undertakes a variety of work, but it specialises primarily in the mining and construction sectors, with the company recently putting a big focus on the construction industry. This has seen the company expand its opportunities and business potential. Alliance now services all of Australia, from locally in Sydney to many interstate locations, ranging from Perth to Mackay and across rural/urban Victoria. Blewden’s expertise lies in developing business with customers and ensuring their needs are met, whereas Carragher’s focus lies with the design of the products and their specifications. Experiencing steady growth since its formation, Alliance started out with four employees but in its short operational time has…

Having made its debut two years at Austech 2017, the Digitalisation Pavilion will again explore the latest technological developments at the cutting edge of manufacturing today. With the industry entering a new phase of rapid, radical change, often described as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, breakthrough advances in fields such as robotics & automation, interconnected devices and the Internet of Things, big data and Cloud computing are ushering in the era of the smart, connected factory. Amid ever-accelerating rates of technological change, and ever-growing competition, it is vital to not get left behind. The Digitalisation Pavilion will provide a snapshot of how the latest smart technologies are changing the very basis by which products are manufactured today, while offering insight into how these changes can benefit you and your business. Meanwhile the Air Technology Pavilion is a new section of the Austech exhibition, focusing on the latest state-of-the-art compressor equipment…

As a keynote presenter at our conference, we are pleased to have Rob Gorham, Executive Director of America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute at the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM). America Makes is the US’ leading collaborative partner in additive manufacturing and 3D printing technology research, discovery, creation, and innovation. Structured as a public-private partnership, America Makes innovates and accelerates additive manufacturing and 3D printing to increase the US’ global manufacturing competitiveness. Rob previously served as the Director of Operations and Deputy Director of Technology Development, where he led the development of a robust member-driven additive manufacturing roadmapping methodology and shaped the America Makes’ project call process, which has resulted in a $300m research & development portfolio. Rob also led the NCDMM, Siemens, and Deloitte team…

Multicam has a long association with schools, colleges, universities and trade training facilities throughout Australia, and it was especially pleasing for them to see these talented young ladies taking on engineering and manufacturing subjects in what are primarily male-dominated vocations. During the sponsorship presentation, Stephen Heusz, from Multicam’s head office in Newcastle, New South Wales (NSW), was given an extensive tour of the Impro Racing team’s facilities and an in-depth explanation of the teams’ efforts and goals. The F1 in Schools challenge is the world’s largest secondary school STEM competition where teams design, manufacture and race miniature F1 racing cars over a fixed distance. The cars are conceived and designed using industry standard CAD/CAM software and produced using CNC machinery. Once designed and software tested to satisfaction, the students then machine the car body, 3D print…

The 90-nanometre material is 1,000 times finer than a human hair and is able to rapidly heat up to 160 degrees Celsius under natural sunlight in an open environment. This new graphene-based material also opens new avenues in: Thermophotovoltaics (the direct conversion of heat to electricity). Solar seawater desalination. Infrared light source and heater. Optical components: modulators and interconnects for communication devices. Colour displays. It could even lead to the development of ‘invisible cloaking technology’ through the development of large-scale thin films enclosing the objects to be ‘hidden’. The researchers have developed a 2.5cm x 5cm working prototype to demonstrate the photo-thermal performance of the graphene-based metamaterial absorber. They have also proposed a scalable manufacturing strategy to fabricate the proposed graphene-based absorber at low cost. The research is published in Nature Photonics and has been funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant. “This is among many graphene innovations in our group,” says Professor Baohua Jia, Research Leader…

The manufacturing industry – in Australia and worldwide – functions as a kind of ecosystem, where individual organisations exist within a network of interdependent relationships. Many OEMs are multinational corporations selling products to customers all over the world. However, most of them would struggle without the support of numerous smaller manufacturing businesses that form their supply chains. And neither the biggest OEM nor the smallest SME would retain their competitive edge without the latest advanced manufacturing equipment, provided by technology suppliers with the experience and expertise to fulfil their requirements. All these facets of the manufacturing ecosystem will be on display at Austech 2019. The participation of BAE Systems Australia and Volgren will provide a valuable insight into how companies like these operate and the opportunities that exist in their supply chains. “We’re very happy that BAE and Volgren have agreed to take part in Austech this year,” says…

The Manufacturers’ Pavilion is a specially dedicated section of the Austech exhibition that spotlights Australia’s precision engineering and advanced manufacturing industry. Having first featured at Austech back in 2013, the Manufacturers’ Pavilion has grown steadily to become an integral part of the show, with more than 20 exhibitors already signed up to participate this year. “We’ve worked very hard over the years to make the Manufacturers’ Pavilion a key aspect of Austech, and it’s been really satisfying to see how it’s grown,” says Kim Banks, AMTIL’s Events Manager. “We’re picking up a real sense of excitement from among those manufacturing business that have booked their stands this year.” The Manufacturers’ Pavilion showcases the capabilities of Australian component manufacturers, precision engineering firms, toolmakers, advanced manufacturers and general engineering companies. The Pavilion will help exhibiting companies to promote their capabilities to an expected audience of more than 10,000 visitors, connecting with potential clients, partners, and other organisations such as government, research and training bodies. As well as a broad array of…

CSIRO’s Data61 is one of the global leaders in the field, with capabilities ranging from legged robots and 3D mapping through to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). Fred Pauling, Robotics and Autonomous Systems group leader at CSIRO’s Data61, said the 600sqm facility would enhance the group’s world-class research capabilities. “The new centre expands our research infrastructure to develop highly autonomous robotics systems that can interact safely and seamlessly with humans and other dynamic agents, in challenging indoor and outdoor environments,” Pauling said. “Our robots are already being used to safely inspect and create 3D maps of underground mines, monitor biodiversity in the Amazon Rainforest, and navigate difficult terrain in emergency situations.” One project being spearheaded by the centre is the testing of technology to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments as part of a three-year Subterranean Challenge funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The centre houses the biggest motion capture system…