FROM THE CEO: The mother of all products

Every manufactured product you can think of, from the coffee you have first thing in the morning and the cornflakes you eat for breakfast, to the computer you use at work, the train home in the evening and the car waiting at the station, and even to the couch you sit on to watch your television with a glass of wine – they are all made by machines that were made by machine tools.

Think about that … just the coffee beans alone require a coffee bean harvester, washing and screening equipment, dry processing, roasting, hulling, polishing, sorting and grading processes. Each one of these processes requires equipment that has significant machining and fabrication work to produce it. And that’s just the coffee beans. So if you have your coffee with milk and sugar, multiply all those processes by three and then include the machine that you have sitting in your kitchen that now allows you to push a button and the coffee is produced. Whilst we may take making a coffee for granted, we cannot escape the simple fact that machine tools are the “mother” machine in every step of the process.

That being said, I would like to extrapolate “machine tools” out to what we term “manufacturing technology”, taking into account software, cutting tools, automation & robotics and all the ancillary equipment that goes into making a machine tool operate productively.

What is the point of this article you may ask? I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me give you my definition of Advanced Manufacturing.

Advanced manufacturing is the use of innovative technology to improve products or processes, with the relevant technology being described as “advanced,” “innovative,” or “cutting edge.” Advanced manufacturers “increasingly integrate new innovative technologies in both products and processes”.

I’ve raised this because we know that coffee beans can be picked, washed, dried, processed and sorted by hand. We don’t need machines to do that – unless we want a productive, efficient and profitable business!

So here is my point, we need to continuously invest in manufacturing technology in order to call ourselves an advanced manufacturing industry.

The AMTIL Board recently reviewed our vision and mission statements and I thought it is relevant to share them with you considering the above.

AMTIL’s vision is to represent manufacturing technology suppliers and users and promote advancement in technology that enables our manufacturers to thrive globally. Our mission is ensuring advanced manufacturers have access to the latest manufacturing technology through promotion, networking, collaboration and advocacy.

So we will continue to promote and encourage early adoption of manufacturing technology through all of our activities and work with government and industry to ensure Australia grows its number of advanced manufacturers well into the future.

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AMTIL is currently developing a technology dissemination project called LYNX. The LYNX Project will be a controlled three-year, persistent, consistent program of events, workshops and activities that will promote and encourage the early adoption of manufacturing technology. It will have national and regional reach to as many manufacturers as possible as we help them on their journey to become or consolidate as advanced manufacturers. It will focus on demonstrating leading edge manufacturing technologies, practical demonstrations of process techniques and displays of management methods that will help strategic decision makers advance and drive profits.

These showcases of Technologies, Methodologies and Techniques (TMT’s) will include roadshows, open days, workshops, webinars, in-house demonstrations and one-on-one mentoring. It will also include inbound and outbound technology tours and knowledge transfer activities. Editorial and case studies will top off the Project as we seek to share knowledge and promote our great Australian success stories.

The focus will be on outcomes, investment, jobs, product development and growth. We will also be encouraging our younger generation to be involved in the project and its activities as we create awareness of the many career opportunities that exist in our manufacturing industry.

If you have any interest in AMTIL’s LYNX Project or would like further information, please contact AMTIL’s Corporate Services Manager, Greg Chalker, at gchalker@amtil.com.au.