Halfway through AMW with plenty of energy and attractions yet to present
First up this Wednesday morning, the second day of AMW, was an official visit from the NSW State MP. The Hon Stuart Ayres MP is Minister for Enterprise, Investment and Trade, and Minister for Tourism and Sport, and Minister for Western Sydney. Great to have him check out the show floor.
The AMRF Make the Future event started today upstairs on the fifth level, well away from the show floor, with an opening by Minister Ayres. Presented by the NSW Government and the Western Parkland City Authority. The brief for this massive facility is exciting on so many levels. Stage One will be the next generation fabrication district in Western Sydney, built in the new Bradfield City. Aiming to be opening in the third quarter of 2023, next year. The full-scale AMRF will incorporate advanced electronics and semiconductor manufacturing to service defence, aerospace and emerging industries I’m sure only the people in this little room have any concept of. The Western Sydney International Airport will be built and active right next door.
AMW definitely boasts the most full-on veritable procession of cobots, robots and things that go to work in the night. The Schmalz Australia gear was actively dancing around, picking and gripping boxes and blocks around the stand as well. “Once upon a time, programming a specific robot was an expert’s job,” said Harbinder Singh at the FANUC stand. “These days the job is so easy, with visual node-based programming systems in place, it’s as easy as ‘grip’, ‘pick’, or ‘release’, ‘or ‘wait’.” The FANUC CR-series robots have a huge presence not only at this stand, but they’re being used throughout this AMW Zone, and the cobot-using industries in most areas for lights-out modern manufacturing.
At their big stand, Headland brought in clients and demonstrated OMAX gear, TruMatic 7000 with STOPA, all Zoomed it into their AMW booth, live in a multi-camera presentation of the TRUMPF machine and their specialist going through the latest manoeuvres as though they were there. Even taking questions from the ample crowd that had gathered. Now, that’s dedication to the client.
The Women in Manufacturing event was introduced by our very own Kim Banks, usually the steady hand behind the scenes. Banks and Erika Hughes from Integra Systems gave the surprisingly large crowd of women gathered for the networking opportunity, points to remember in the business trenches. Standing in the middle of the crowd, hearing the many stories about business ideas, mountains climbed, and contracts won, makes it pretty obvious that these are brilliant, valuable members of our industry.