Results for: desc

AMT: Let’s start with your career background before joining UTS. Sam Bucolo: I started as an industrial designer working as a consultant, mainly for SME manufacturers. My frustration was that I kept getting the wrong brief from clients from these firms. Often they just wanted me to focus on a better manufacturing process or improved product aesthetics. As a designer, I used to tell them, this product does not meet the needs of your industry. You need to speak to your customers and find out their requirements. I worked in and out of academia and consulted to large multi-national international companies in Europe for a while and learnt a lot about corporate strategy. When I returned to Australia, I worked for the Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) for Interaction Design. It was interesting work but highlighted the challenges of getting good ideas and research to market. If you look at traditional research commercialisation, it often starts with a product, then businesses seek investors and develop, promote and…

For many AMTIL members, and other organisations involved in manufacturing technology, employees will have access to sensitive client, product and/or supplier information. Employees will also often have access to confidential processes and techniques, equipment details, pricing information and typically for more senior employees, information about strategy and business direction. Where this information could cause damage to an employer should it fall into the wrong hands, there are likely to be legitimate grounds upon which an employer may seek to protect it. While employees will be bound by a series of implied contractual and statutory obligations in relation to the protection of confidential information, the extent of these obligations can be unclear. Without a properly tailored clause in an employee’s employment contract, there is likely to be significant doubt about the scope of the implied contractual and statutory obligations. Further, Australian courts…

The shortage of skilled workers is expected to grow, but customers are always looking for intelligent solutions to produce faster, more efficiently and more accurately. Where once long programming times and high expertise were necessary, today one click is all it takes. This is where the RAS XLT Bend comes into a world of its own. Now available in Australia from Sheetmetal Machinery Australia, the RAS XLT Bend is an impressively flexible UpDown folding machine, with 4,060mm x 2.5mm or 3,200mm x 3mm mild steel capacity. Along with innovative mechanical components, the CNC’s One-Click Programming is certain to be a production highlight. The folding beam is a revolutionary new design that has been proven to reduce deflection by 20x over the bend line, without the need for adjustment. Bent parts no longer need to be flipped, as the folding beam is capable of automatically avoiding prebent flanges. Even the folding beam pendulum, critical for changing the folding beam direction, is driven…

In fact Industry 4.0 is a term developed by German government to describe its high technology strategy for manufacturing. Like all trendy new buzzwords, however, it has been quickly grabbed by consultants and the media and turned in to a catch-all term used to describe, well, whatever people want it to describe! So what is Industry 4.0? What is new and different about it, what does it change, and what should you be doing about it? I would argue that the answer to all three questions is “not much”. The reality is that we have become accustomed to a blistering pace of technological change in manufacturing over the past 20 years. Industries as old and traditional as metalworking and printing have been transformed by the combination of highly automated digitally controlled machinery and highly integrated computer aided digital work…

Sue Smith is the Executive Officer at the Australian Industry & Defence Network (AIDN)’s national and Victorian office. Smith hopes that the proposed defence spending will also provide increased business opportunities for AIDN’s 700-plus members. These are located Australia-wide, comprising mainly defence and security SMEs, plus Primes such as Boeing and Thales. “The largest chapter is AIDN-Vic with 240 members,” says Smith. “We disseminate information to our chapters Australia-wide and run networking functions.” This February, Smith, sponsored by AIDN-Vic. and 10 AIDN SME members, joined Team Defence Australia (TDA)’s exhibition and delegation at the Singapore Air show. A number of potential opportunities were identified by AIDN-Vic members during the air show. Smith explains: “TDA is an integral part of the Department of Defence, and it helps promote export of Australian industry products and…

In contrast to traditional tactile methods, InfiniteFocus is able to perform 3D measurements without touching the surface. It measures whole areas instead of only surface profiles, and delivers true colour information in addition to the 3D data. Focus variation combines the small depth of focus of an optical system with vertical scanning to provide topographical and colour information from the variation of focus. The main component of the system is a precision optic containing various lens systems that can be equipped with different objectives, allowing measurements with different resolution. With a beam splitting mirror, light emerging from a white light source is inserted into the optical path of the system and focused onto the specimen via the objective. Depending on the topography of the specimen, the light is reflected into several directions as soon as it hits the specimen via the objective. If the topography shows diffuse reflective properties, the light is reflected equally…

What if there was ONE parameter that on a daily basis describes comprehensively what happens, and is linked directly with the bottom line? Just one number sent to you wherever you are at that moment that means you know if the facility made or lost money. Well there is a measure, and it is called Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), based around the following factors. 1) The Total Available Time per year is 365 x 24 hours, and this is what the banks charge you interest on. Banks do not reduce your interest premiums if you only work one shift. 2) The Operating Time Planned is the manufacturing time planned, which could be one shift or whatever. The balance time not planned for is called Unplanned. 3) Actual Running Time is the time taken to produce the output. Output is zero during downtime. 4)…

One company at the forefront of these enormous changes has been Okuma, which has been a focal point with its leading-edge technology. Okuma’s Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand, Phil Hayes, recalls a study at the Ford Motor Company in Geelong some years back that identified that a part sat on a pallet for almost six hours before its next machining operation. With some quiet smugness he also recalls the successful transition from a line of eight machines, each machining two features of an oil pump body at one set-up, to two machines machining every feature at 64 units at one set-up, commenting at the time that the maths was not difficult. Hayes recalls that Ford implemented a huge number of efficient new processes and methods, but this did not save them from the short-sighted industrial climate of the time,…

What does production superiority mean to aircraft manufacturers? In a word: billions. In the land of the giants, US-based Boeing beat European rival Airbus in net new orders and deliveries in the first quarter of 2015. While the first quarter is the traditionally slow quarter for new orders, it’s deliveries that generate the most revenue, and Boeing handed over a record number of jets for the period. For manufacturers of all sizes and types of aircraft, and their entire supply chain of components and parts suppliers working in difficult-to-machine materials, production delays can mean order cancellations, and cancellations can mean shifts to better-equipped builders. One technology provider that knows this better than most is Fives Cincinnati, whose plant in Hebron, Kentucky, produces Cincinnati machining centres, composites fibre-placement systems, and multi-spindle Cincinnati profilers. Fives Cincinnati is recognised as a preeminent provider of manufacturing solutions in key industrial markets including aerospace, automotive and truck, heavy equipment, oil and gas, rail, wind energy and general machining. With manufacturing and support operations strategically located worldwide,…

NMW is Australia’s largest, longest-running manufacturing event, bringing the industry together to see, touch and discuss new and innovative manufacturing solutions. This year’s event takes place against a solid backdrop of manufacturing industry growth; the AI Group’s March figures show that Australian manufacturing has grown for eight consecutive months and is now at its strongest point this decade. NMW 2016 will showcase hundreds of products and services from around the world, laid out in 12 Product Zones, ranging from Automation & Robotics to Digital Manufacturing, Intralogistics, Advanced Materials and more. Among dozens of firsts for NMW 2016 will be innovative materials handling systems from Magnet Sales and Millsom Materials Handling, next-generation LED lights from LEDified, as well as new 3D printing technologies – from Konica Minolta, Amaero Additive Manufacturing, 3D Printing Systems, 3D Printing Studios, Sydney 3D Printing and more – that can help boost your production capabilities. NMW also gives you the opportunity to…

Pressform Engineering was established by John Worner in 1976. After graduating in metallurgy from Curtin University, Worner had initially seen an opportunity to get into stainless steel fabrication with a couple of partners, together establishing a reasonably successful fabrication business. The partnership ultimately ran into problems and the company was broken up, but John decided to continue with the pressing side of the business. “We went forward with the pressing side because I felt it was a better thrust of a business in that it’s based on niche products,” says John. “And so that’s what we’ve developed over the last 40 years, with more and more customers, more and more products.” Today Pressform operates from a 2,200sqm facility in Bassendean, in north-eastern Perth, with a workforce of around 35. From its beginnings in pressing, the company has expanded its capabilities substantially to include CNC punching and perforating, profiling, rolling, bending and stamping, as well as all forms of welding,…

The AutoCRC assists Australian companies to participate in the global automotive market. Through its two divisions: Business Excellence and Research (currently the Automotive Australia 2020 CRC), the organisation also provides a link between the automotive industry and universities across the country, enabling final-year engineering students to get on-the-job placements and potential future career options. “Our co-operative research centre is focussed on developing technologies relevant to the global automotive industry,” says AutoCRC CEO Ian Christensen. “The Business Excellence division’s role is to help auto suppliers improve their operational and business processes to be more competitive globally. This is more important than ever, as the big three auto manufacturers, Ford, Holden and Toyota will all have closed their Australian auto manufacturing operations by late 2017. “ Christensen explains that the AutoCRC’s annual spend is $12m. Its funding is derived on a 50/50 basis from Federal Government and individual auto companies that participate in its projects. He describes an innovative research program that AutoCRC facilitated recently where South Australia-based Precision Components teamed up with the…

The Melbourne-based company, which specialises in hi-tech tool and cutter grinders, was also named the winner in the Manufacturing category. Co-founder and Director Pat Boland accepted the awards on behalf of ANCA. Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb made the announcement at the awards ceremony held to honour the achievements of Australian businesses in international markets. “ANCA has been a leader in its field for 40 years and in that time it has significantly expanded its export markets and is on track for a record year of growth,” said Robb. “They’ve hired 160 new employees to meet the increasing demand for their products, and are proof that Australia has a very healthy future manufacturing high-quality and innovative products.” ANCA exports 98% of its products to customers such as Boeing, Sandvik and Rolls Royce. ANCA machines are used to make tools that are used to make products such as planes, cars, smart phones and medical products. On receiving the major award, Boland thanked the team at ANCA and his co-founder Pat…