FROM THE PUBLISHER

PUBLISHER SCOTT FILBY

On the front cover of our February 2020 edition of Industry Update Magazine, our main headline posed the question, “Is it time to bring manufacturing back to Australia?”

When these words were penned in late January 2020 no person alive on earth had any idea just how true those words would become.

Fortunately, for the majority of manufacturers, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a silver lining as government, businesses and consumers have become acutely aware of the need for Australia to have a strong and resilient manufacturing industry.

Every day we see people looking closely at products to see their country of origin and businesses are taking great strides to regain many sectors of the manufacturing industries that were once lost to offshore production.

It is true that in Australia we will never again manufacture certain products.

Car manufacturing has left our shores and will never return. But there are many products that we can once again produce in Australia if we all come together to make it happen.

I have been told many times by people that really know very little about manufacturing that Australians will never pay higher prices for goods when they can purchase them at much cheaper prices. That was once true, but the world has changed, and we must face these changes as a united nation

Industry Update is really excited as we experience an increased level of inquiries we have not seen in years where manufacturers are wanting to promote their services.

2021 looks set to be a good year for manufacturers as the industry continues to grow.

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Fax: 03 9729 9604 www.ams-ic.com.au www.ams-ic.com.ausales@ams-ic.com.au sales@ams-ic.com.au ACTING EDITOR ANNAMARIE REYES

As if we are not being tested enough already, our Covid normal now asks us to get used to intermittent lockdowns on our state borders.

Early this year we witnessed in WA how mid-flight passengers were made aware of a snap lockdown after a single case of Covid-19 was sourced to a quarantine worker in Perth.

Which, needless to say, has created a sense of reluctance for business travellers to take off quickly out of fear they may be held up in quarantine for two weeks or locked out of their own state upon return.

But business owners and operators do need to travel. So could it be possible that each state deal with similar cases on a caseby-case basis. And not close down the whole city whenever new cases emerge.

The other states like Queensland and Victoria kept strict border restrictions at the time and NSW remained on cruise control focusing on spread prevention rather than extreme reactions.

But with patience, diligence and resilience the state did eventually contain the spread.

Around about the same time, with relief, Australia’s health experts supported the mandatory practise of wearing masks in public transport in NSW in a bid to keep the virus cases down. And the strategy worked because for over a month now NSW has kept its cases down, experiencing zero new cases in some of these days.

So the point I’m making is this – if there’s a will there is a way. That is, we can contain the virus, and knee-jerk responses can often be more destructive than constructive for business in the end.

I do remember in late November 2020 other states pointing the blame finger at NSW for keeping borders open, as the state dealt with cluster spread in the Southwest and Northern Beaches areas of Sydney.

Certainly, the manufacturing sector had been doing exactly that, albeit quietly. This issue of Industry Update magazine will showcase the factory of the future, revolutionising supply chains and measuring digitisation capacity of your operations.

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