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AmPro Innovations designs and manufactures 3D metal printers, including the critical powder management systems required for the production of advanced metal parts. Established to bring fast and lower cost printers to market for industrial and research applications, AmPro Innovations was founded three years ago by Professor Xinhua Wu, currently Director of the Monash Centre for Additive Manufacturing. Since long before her time at Monash University, Wu has been building an impressive record of achieving in materials science and additive manufacturing, most notably her pioneering work in developing the first 3D-printed metal parts certified for use on commercial aircraft. Operating from a small facility on Monash’s campus in Notting Hill, in Melbourne’s south-east suburbs, AmPro designs and manufactures metal-based 3D printing technology, drawing on the expertise of Wu and her team. AmPro Innovations identified several key gaps in the emerging 3D printer market: a fully inert system for printed part compliance; printers designed for industrial applications where the…

To a great extent, customer satisfaction is based on minimising the time between the placement of the customer’s order and delivery of the finished product. In the past, manufacturers minimised lead times by machining thousands of identical parts and creating large inventories from which they could ship products immediately. This low-mix, high-volume production (LMHV) scenario enabled manufacturers to meet customer needs in a timely way throughout gradual development of the machining process and unanticipated production errors and interruptions. Today’s market requirements, however, are radically different. Customers increasingly order small batches of products tailored to specific needs. As a result, manufacturers rarely make long production runs. Groups of duplicate components are not produced in the thousands, but rather in hundreds, tens or even single units. These high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) scenarios leave no room for ongoing process development or unanticipated interruptions. Manufacturers are under pressure to develop machining processes that are…

Started by father and son Mike and Barry Koster in 1972, the business has steadily grown with an increased workforce and a quest for new revenue streams such as repair work in the earthmoving industry. During its nearly 50-year history, there has been some important milestones along the way. It wasn’t until the 1980s, as it moved into the bucket and attachment market for construction and mining, that the sub-brand name JAWS became commonly known. From humble beginnings this Queensland-based company now employs more than 120 staff, with a stronghold across Perth, Mackay and the Hunter Valley, and an increasing global footprint with the export of OEM parts worldwide. Incredibly, the company’s export sales now equal its national figures. JAWS has also added several new complementary products to its portfolio, including tyre handlers, high production coal dozer blades, water tank modules, service modules, truck bodies, mining buckets, face shovels and a vast array of construction and mining class equipment. The continued successful evolution of JAWS can be attributed to many things: innovative…

Early-stage development of selective laser melting (SLM) saw the first commercial machine delivered in 1998. It met the specifications of making ‘unbreakable’ metal parts and stood as a testament to the two pioneers Matthias Fockele and Dieter Schwarze, who together worked in conjunction with researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute of Laser Technology. Since then, 3D metal printing has evolved into one of the greatest influences on metal part production in recent history. The SLM process sees parts built in a chamber layer by layer with metal powder injected in a controlled manner then melted by laser beam to form a strong, solid structure. The technology has fast evolved from single lasers passing over the powder melting it layer by layer, to multi-lasers with high wattage increasing build speed, product quality and reliability, while reducing costs. In a recent interview, Dr Simon Merk-Schippers, Director – Business Development for Aviation and Aerospace at SLM Solutions, said: “Lightweight construction, functional integration and production…

Three of the six manufacturing sectors in the Australian PMI expanded in October (according to trend data), led by food & beverages (up 1.3 points to 61.8) and machinery & equipment (up 0.2 points to 54.2), which increased their pace of expansion (readings above 50 points indicate contraction in activity, with the distance from 50 indicating the strength of the increase). The chemicals sector (down 0.7 points to 52.0) expanded, albeit at a slower pace in October. Metal products (up 1.5 points to 43.5), building materials, wood & other manufacturing (down 3.4 points to 48.5) and TCF, paper & printing (up 1.1 points to 43.8) sectors all contracted. “The broader manufacturing sector expanded in October with strong contributions from businesses in the food & beverage, chemicals and machinery & equipment sectors,” said Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox. “Growth in these sectors was sufficient to offset further weakness among building products, metals and TCF, paper & printing…

From humble beginnings in 1982, the company has grown to become a world-leading brand that exports to more than 100 countries worldwide and counts its customers in the millions. A recognised innovator in the field of plastics manufacturing, the company operates from a new state-of-the-art production facility in Auckland that’s packed with automation and robotics technologies. The challenge To ensure its products remain internationally competitive, Sistema wants to maximise production output and quality in the most cost-effective way possible. “Based in New Zealand, we’re a long way away from many global customers, so optimising manufacturing performance is mission-critical for offsetting the impact of high logistics costs on our business,” explains Greg Heeley, Chief Technical Officer at Sistema Plastics. Ten years ago, the company implemented Epicor Mattec MES to manage its production and assembly processes. Handling everything from scheduling to the monitoring of 10 assembly lines, Epicor Mattec collects and analyses data directly from equipment and operators on the shop-floor to provide an up-to-the-minute view of machine and production availability. “Without Mattec MES, our shop-floor wouldn’t know…

The Personal Property Security Act (PPSA) came into effect in January 2012 and effectively abolishes ownership (title) of an asset as the right to recover it from a customer or client in liquidation. The requirement is not widely known by business owners, but it can cause significant delays when financing equipment or selling existing equipment. The Personal Property Security Register (PPSR) allows lenders and businesses to register their security interests. Secured parties, buyers and other interested parties can search the PPSR to determine whether a security interest is registered over the personal property. Examples of personal property include: Art Cars, boats and caravans Crops and livestock Inventory Plant and machinery Shares Non-material items included Accounts Intellectual property Investment instruments Licences Business owners purchasing second-hand equipment need to establish if a security interest is registered over the personal property prior to taking on the additional equipment. If assets are to be sold and they are not de-registered when finance is repaid, there can…

Not unlike previous industrial revolutions throughout history, its occurrence highlights a need for change, modernisation and an upheaval in the way current processes are carried out. The mantra, ‘out with the old, in with the new’ certainly applies here. Thousands of manufacturing hubs are embracing the current technological changes by actively adopting new machines and software in their factories. So what does this mean for your business? The four crucial areas of transformation High-performance machines First things first – in order to be in with a chance to beat your competition, you will need to ensure that you are operating machinery that is adding, rather than detracting, value to your business. If you have an older machine model that is constantly in need of repairs and services, isn’t too flexible in its output range, and isn’t quite cutting it (excuse the pun) then an upgrade may be in your favour. Without being aware of it, dealing with older machinery can be a hindrance to your company’s performance,…

Radiotherapy aims to deliver a curable radiation dose to tumours while sparing surrounding healthy tissue, which is achieved by the accurate conformal delivery of ionising radiation via an external beam using linear accelerators, or an internal beam using sealed radiation source (called brachytherapy). Modern radiotherapy involves CT-simulation, 3D-treatment planning and its quality assurance processes prior to patient treatment to produce highly conformal dose distributions and to ensure its safe and accurate delivery. It is common to build anthropomorphic RDPs through moulding and casting, to mimic the radiation properties of humans as a radiation dose cannot be directly measured in patients. As part of quality assurance (QA) of patient treatment plans, patient-specific dose measurements are often performed using RDPs combined with various dose measurement tools. Unfortunately, anthropomorphic RDPs manufactured through traditional moulding and casting techniques…

AMT: Let’s start with a quick outline of what the AM Hub is. How was it set up and what are its objectives? John Croft: The AM Hub was formed to introduce Australian manufacturing companies in Australia into additive manufacturing. It's been born from a $1.85m Victorian government grant and will run for three years. It was officially launched in September 2018, and has now been running for a year, and since its inception, we now have 153 member companies under the Hub. I think the Hub needs to be the catalyst. What that means is, if you look at a pie, you’re going to have several segments around the pie, with the Hub at the centre acting as the catalyst. What we're trying to do is to bring together the service providers, the technology providers, government mechanisms, industry participants, and we’re working with research…

With a fibre laser, the laser beam is generated in an active optical fibre. It is then guided to the cutting head of the machine through a transport fibre cable. Fibre lasers are best suited when using nitrogen as an assist cutting gas for thin and medium sheet thicknesses, up to 12mm, and non-ferrous materials such as copper and brass. New higher-powered fibre modules allow thicker materials, including mild streel and stainless steel, to be cut with comparable CO2 cut quality and speeds. For thicknesses below 6mm when cutting using nitrogen as the assist gas, fibre lasers are up to five times faster than CO2. To cut mild steel with oxygen the fibre laser beam is defocused to the same diameter as the CO2 kerf width, so the exothermic reaction can take place, the same as oxy fuel gas cutting. Fibre lasers are more compact than CO2 lasers but deliver more than double the power output, with the same input power supply. The comparative wavelength of the fibre…

With sectors such as pump and valve, oil & gas, automotive and aerospace continuing to specify stainless steel components, the challenge for cutting tool manufacturers is to deliver solutions that can provide ever greater tool life and/or productivity to help machine shops succeed in an intensively competitive global marketplace. At Sandvik Coromant, there are high hopes for one such new solution. The challenge There are many different family groups within the ISO M stainless-steel material classification. However, two of the most common are austenitic stainless steels and duplex stainless steels. Austenitic stainless steels include familiar grades such as 304 and 316. Although relatively soft in the annealed condition, and with very good ductility, these grades undergo extensive work hardening during any form of machining. Work hardening produces hard surfaces and hard chips, which in turn lead to notch wear and compromised surface finish on the…

The new facilities make up the largest space of its kind in Australia with a 1200sqm workshop housing advanced manufacturing and prototyping tools and machines including 3D printers, vacuum formers, industrial robots and waterjet cutters. Technical and trade-qualified staff will assist students and researchers in bringing their ideas to life. UQ Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology Executive Dean, Professor Vicki Chen said the new facilities would give UQ students a competitive edge when entering the workforce. “One of our main roles as a university is to give our students the confidence and capability to embrace the challenges of a changing world,” Professor Chen said. “And with the launch of UQ Innovate, we are in a much stronger position to fuel their curiosity, so they can drive sustainable solutions at the cutting edge, today and tomorrow.” Design-and-build teams from the student-led UQ Racing and UQ Space teams have used the University’s facilities and expertise to produce nationally competitive race cars and rockets. Managing Director of UQ Space, engineering and…