AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Australian Manufacturing Technology

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Contents

Volume 17 Number 05 October/November 2017 ISSN 1832-6080

FEATURES MEDICAL Investing in life sciences for a healthy return Advancing healthcare with 3D printing High-precision deep-drilling for bone screws Hope for traditional manufacturers

42 46 48 52

ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING Additive manufacturing in finished part quality Is welding the Trojan horse of metal AM?

58 60

STATE SPOTLIGHT: QUEENSLAND Qld – Manufacturing in the Sunshine State Aqualuma – Beating the LED imports Investment & strong tech. support is key

62 64 66

FORMING & FABRICATION The Phoenix of the Gold Coast Integra’s boost by fibre laser

70 72

CUTTING TOOLS Vibration control boosts metalcutting productivity Paving the way for the Smart Factory Titanium milling with Iscar tools

74 78 80

CONSTRUCTION & INFRASTRUCTURE 3D printing -New approach to making buildings Guided bearings for maintenance-free structures

82 84

MATERIAL REMOVAL Benefits of WTO’s Driven Broaching Unit

86

Investing in life sciences for a healthy return Australia’s flourishing life sciences industry generates around $4.4bn in gross economic value-add.

Investment is increasing, with the sector raising $1.384bn in 2016.

54 One-on-One with Kate Carnell AO

SOFTWARE Maintenance management in the Cloud Manufacturing digitises Virtual machine monitoring

88 92 93

SAFETY Human factors and their impact on plant safety Pilz – Bringing the Mittelstand down under Safety solutions for human-robot collaboration

94 96 98

REGULARS From the Editor From the CEO From the Minister From the Industry From the Union

10 12 14 16 18

INDUSTRY NEWS Current news from the industry

22

VOICEBOX Opinions from across the manufacturing industry

32

PRODUCT NEWS Our selection of new and interesting products

38

ONE ON ONE Small Business & Family Enterprise Ombudsman

54

COMPANY FOCUS Engineered Components - Meeting the challenges

68

AMTIL FORUM Forum Finance Forum Law Forum OHS Forum Compliance

100 101 102 103

MANUFACTURERS’ PAVILION

104

AMTIL INSIDE The latest news from AMTIL

110

MANUFACTURING HISTORY – A look back in time

118

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42

Kate Carnell AO is the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman for the Federal Government.

This body is an independent office which works for small businesses.

68 Engineered Components – Meeting the challenges Engineered Components has seen some tough times, but this Queensland-based outfit has the experience and capabilitities to see it overcome the setbacks and win some exciting projects.

82 3D printing -New approach to making buildings Technology developed at the MIT which can 3D-print the basic structure of an entire building, may enable faster, cheaper, more adaptable construction.

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From the Editor William Poole

Saving our industrial heritage I spent a week in Germany in September, as part of AMTIL’s delegation attending EMO in Hannover. The exhibition was of course spectacular, showcasing technology that will define the future of manufacturing. But elsewhere something also caught my eye that instead evoked manufacturing’s distant past.

The hotel where we were staying is built on the site of an old factory, once run by the Bahlsen biscuit company, with the conference room dominated by two enormous steam engines that once powered the factory. It’s a remarkable sight, and certainly makes a change from the dreary meeting rooms you tend to see at most hotels. It also demonstrates how a city’s industrial heritage can be integrated into the modern day – an issue which is currently under dispute closer to home, in Sydney’s inner suburbs.

The old industrial precinct along Carrington Road in Marrickville, Sydney, might not look like much from the outside, but its former factories and warehouses now house an eclectic mix of enterprises, in craft production and the arts, as well as manufacturing. More than 200 micro-enterprises and small businesses occupy the precinct, employing between 1,200 and 1,800 people. These enterprises cover everything from theatre prop makers, film prosthetics companies and clothes makers, to homewares ceramicists, jewellers and food makers. The precinct features Australia’s last intact GM-Holden building from the 1920s, as well as intact Art Deco factories repurposed for local manufacturers.

However, this hub of innovative small businesses is under threat. The Carrington Road precinct is caught up in an urban renewal scheme planned by the NSW Government as part of the Sydenham-Bankstown metro rail corridor redevelopment. Carrington Road is slated for rezoning from industrial land to mixed use, primarily medium-density, high-rise apartments.

Made in Marrickville is a new report from the University of Wollongong (UoW), Queensland University of Technology, Monash University and University of Technology, Sydney.

It uses the Carrington Road case to argue that Sydney needs to preserve industrial land to support new enterprises. The report will be submitted to the NSW Government, Inner West Council, and peak creative arts and manufacturing groups in a bid to spark debate about how to best foster, rather than lose, one of Sydney’s last unique industrial districts.

If the Sydenham-Bankstown redevelopment goes ahead as currently envisioned, Sydney will lose industrial land, a unique creative cluster, manufacturing heritage, and jobs and enterprises, many of which will close their doors or move to Melbourne or Canberra.

The report’s lead author, Professor Chris Gibson of UOW’s Global Challenges Program, believes government planners need to understand what is lost when places like the Carrington Road precinct are rezoned.

“While the Carrington Road precinct has a gritty, older industrial aesthetic and is not wellknown beyond the local area, it is a vital cog in Sydney’s functioning as a global city,” Gibson explains.

While many of the businesses in the Carrington Road precinct have an arts or cultural focus, Gibson believes the issue is not one of subsidising the arts, but of keeping industrial land that enabled a manufacturing sector to make a vital contribution to the city’s economy.

“Australian manufacturing is not in decline, it’s just changing form,” he says. “Manufacturing businesses are more likely to be small, medium or micro-enterprises, many tied to design, cultural and craft-based production industries. But to thrive, these manufacturers need access to affordable and physically suitable industrial land within proximity of major economic and cultural hubs. At the same time as the Carrington Road precinct is under threat, major cities around the world are proactively planning how they can actively create similar precincts of their own to foster creative industries and small manufacturing enterprises.”

Perhaps there’s a lesson from Hannover there.

Your Industry. Your Magazine.

Australian Manufacturing Technology

Editor William Poole wpoole@amtil.com.au Contributors Carole Goldsmith Sales Manager Anne Samuelsson asamuelsson@amtil.com.au Publications Co-ordinator Gabriele Richter grichter@amtil.com.au Publisher Shane Infanti sinfanti@amtil.com.au Designer Franco Schena fschena@amtil.com.au Prepress & Print Printgraphics Australia AMT Magazine is printed in Australia using FSC® mix of paper from responsible sources FSC® C007821 Contact Details AMT Magazine AMTIL Suite 1, 673 Boronia Rd Wantirna VIC 3152 AUSTRALIA T 03 9800 3666 F 03 9800 3436 E info@amtil.com.au W www.amtil.com.au Copyright © Australian Manufacturing Technology (AMT).

All rights reserved. AMT Magazine may not be copied or reproduced in whole or part thereof without written permission from the publisher.

Contained specifications and claims are those supplied by the manufacturer (contributor)

Disclaimer The opinions expressed within AMT Magazine from editorial staff, contributors or advertisers are not necessarily those of AMTIL. The publisher reserves the right to amend the listed editorial features published in the AMT Magazine Media Kit for content or production purposes.

AMT Magazine is dedicated to Australia’s machining, tooling and sheet-metal working industries and is published monthly.

Subscription to AMT Magazine (and other benefits) is available through AMTIL Associate Membership at $165 (inc GST) per annum.

Contact AMTIL on 03 9800 3666 for further information.

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From the CEO Shane Infanti – Chief Executive Officer AMTIL

Representing Australia at EMO 2017

AMTIL was in Germany for EMO 2017, the largest machine tool and manufacturing technology exhibition in the world.

AMTIL regularly sends a delegation to the major overseas exhibitions, and EMO is a show that has to be seen to be believed. Held every two years, the six-day event occupies 17 enormous halls on a sprawling exhibition complex on the outskirts of the city of Hannover. Under the motto of ‘Connecting Systems for Intelligent Production’, this year’s event brought together more than 2,200 exhibitors from 44 different nations showcasing the latest machines, solutions and services for industrial production.

Among those exhibitors was AMTIL, which had a booth within the International Associations area of the show, alongside manufacturing assocations from countries all over the world. As well as enabling us to provide information and advice about manufacturing in Australia to anyone who came by the stand, it offered the opportunity to network and interact with those other associations, sharing insights about the state of the industry and exploring opportunities to collaborate.

Moreover, having a fixed presence on the exhibition floor meant we were able to support any Australians who were visiting the show, offering a port of call where they could drop by for a chat and a coffee – our team was pleased to bump into a fair few familiar faces from back home during the week of the show. Australian companies were also making their presence felt in the exhibition, with the ANCA Group, ProfiStop and Sutton Tools all running eyecatching stands. EMO took place amid an increasingly optimistic global economic climate, with the IMF having recently announced growth projections of 3.5% for global GDP. According to forecasts by UKbased Oxford Economics – the forecasting partner of the German Machine Tool Manufacturers’ Association (VDW), which produces EMO – industrial production and investment on the part of the machine tool industry’s main client industries is expected to grow this year by 3.4% to 5.6%. The two organisations expect Asia to take the lead in investment growth at a rate of 6.5%, followed by Europe and the Americas.

Machine tool consumption is expected to grow at a rate of 3.2%.

AMTIL is also a member of the Steering Committee for the Global Machine Tool Report & Forecast produced by Oxford Economics, and EMO was an opportunity for the Committee to get together to discuss the report and look into ways in which it can be improved to better serve the needs of the

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

associations’ members. The Committee’s meeting was one of several that AMTIL representatives attended during the course of EMO, along with the International General Managers’ Meeting run by CECIMO (the European Association of the Machine Tool Industries), and the international meeting for CELIMO, the European federation for associations representing importers and distributors of machine tools, tooling and related technology. Being part of these meetings is another way in which AMTIL is developing valuable relationships with its international counterparts and representing the Australian industry overseas.

It wasn’t much of a surprise to see that Industry 4.0 and the digitalisation of manufacturing was one of the big talking points of this year’s EMO. It seemed like every other stand featured exhibits that somehow drew on the potential of Industry 4.0, and it came up in meetings and conversations repeatedly throughout the week. Most notably, the VDW used its flagship event as a platform for the launch of a new initiative by the German machine tool industry to facilititate networked production,

in collaboration with companies such as DMG MORI, Heller and Trumpf. According to VDW Chairman Dr Heinz-Jürgen Prokop, the aim was “to develop a standard for linking a huge range of disparate machinery control systems to a shared interface (a connector), and create the requisite software”. The planned standard will enable data to be read from different machines with differing controllers, and transported into infrastructural systems or the cloud in a standardised format for analysis and use in optimising production. For machinery manufacturers, this would be a significant easing of their workload. It’s an exciting project with huge potential, but it’s also just one of many initiatives or new products that were being unveiled to the world at the show. For AMTIL, the opportunity to see these developments unfolding up close and to understand what’s going on at the cutting edge of manufacturing worldwide is what makes attending events such as EMO so invaluable.

I’d like to congratulate VDW on their success in organising such a spectacular event, yet again.

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From the ministry The Hon Arthur Sinodinos MP – Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science

Riding the wave in med tech

When it comes to industries with enormous potential, it’s difficult to look past the rapidly expanding medical technologies and pharmaceuticals (MTP) sector.

As populations around the world age, and consumers in newly prosperous economies seek even better health care, the global MTP sector sits on the cusp of an exciting era of unprecedented growth. Worldwide, the sector is expected to be worth almost $3 trillion by 2025.

If we’re prepared to make the most of our opportunities, Australia stands to benefit from this extraordinary growth. In Australia, it’s estimated the MTP sector could add $18bn and 28,000 new jobs to our economy over the next eight years. The opportunities for growth are there.

We already boast a vibrant MTP sector—it’s just a matter of capitalising on our strengths and ensuring we ride the wave with the rest of the world.

Australia is an acknowledged world leader in the area due to our healthy ecosystem of start-ups, established companies and thriving research environment. We boast more than 500 medtech companies and, as a nation, have produced a succession of impressive success stories over the years. From life-changing cochlear implants, to life-saving vaccines, world-first 3D-printed heel bone replacements, Australia has an incredible track record when it comes to medical technologies and pharmaceuticals.

The Government has recognised the role of the nation’s MTP sector and what it has to offer to international markets and patients. We’ve therefore invested heavily in the sector, particularly its long-term sustainability, via a raft of initiatives.

In late August I launched the ‘M2’ precinct, a world-class facility that brings CSIRO and Monash University biomedical researchers together to commercialise new medical technologies and pharmaceuticals for industry. It’s a collaboration we hope will ensure the next generation of medical devices are not only created on our shores, but also developed and built here, resulting in a globally competitive medtech industry.

Through MTPConnect, our growth centre established under the $250m Industry Growth Centres Initiative, we’ve given the sector a significant shot in the arm, investing $15.6m in dollar-matched, industry-led projects to boost competitiveness and productivity.

MTPConnect has hubs at the New Horizons building at Monash University in Melbourne, the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology at Sydney University and the Medical Device Research Institute at Flinders University in Adelaide. It’s helping to fund innovative projects that will develop and increase commercialisation of new medical therapies, devices and digital health systems.

We’re also helping to support innovation and growth in the sector through programs like the Biomedical Translation Fund, Medical Research Future Fund, Biotech Horizons program and the R&D Tax Incentive. The R&D Tax Incentive program supports more

than 1,200 medical, health and life science businesses to invest over $1.5bn in R&D annually.

Through the $500m Biomedical Translation Fund, the Government is jointly promoting commercialisation with the sector. The Medical Research Future Fund, including its Biotech Horizon programme, is currently at more than $7bn and is scheduled to reach its target of $20bn in 2020-21.

The Department of Health’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is implementing a four-year, $20m suite of Medicines and Medical Devices Regulation reforms. These reforms are designed to create greater flexibility in approval pathways for medicines and medical devices – including better use of overseas assessment reports and provisional approvals in certain circumstances. It’s all about speeding up the access to market without compromising the safety, quality and efficacy or performance of medicines and medical devices.

From an industry and innovation perspective, these reforms will increase the capacity of Australian companies to bring products to market more quickly. These reforms should also encourage international investors to leverage the TGA’s global technical reputation and conduct clinical trials in Australia as well as work at other stages of R&D through to commercialisation.

Supporting clinical trials is crucial for the sector. My department, Austrade and MTPConnect are working with the sector to promote foreign investment in Australia. Since 2013, the Australian Government has committed $53m to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical trials in Australia.

The rise of patient-specific 3D printing of surgical implants will provide challenges — as well as opportunities — for the sector. At the moment, there’s no comprehensive framework to support the development of these medical devices.

The TGA recently held a workshop to consider the appropriate regulatory framework for this area of manufacturing and help Australians make the most of opportunities arising in this area. It was attended by consumer groups, academia, industry, health care professionals, researchers and hospital biomedical engineers.

I am particularly excited about the tremendous potential that lies in patient-specific 3Dprinted medical devices, so look out for more news on breakthroughs in this area.

Australia has an extensive track record in the MTP sector — and it’s one we want to continue. The investments we’re making establish Australia as an important international hub for medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. And beyond the economic growth and employment this will create, the sector has another very important benefit — a healthier and happier Australia.

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From the industry Innes Willox – Chief Executive Australian Industry Group

Merging boundaries in traditional sectors: New risks

The boundaries between industry sectors are breaking down. It is harder to define concepts we think we understand such as manufacturing or construction or services.

Manufacturers will typically tell you now that they can make more money from selling ancillary services off the back of their products than they do from just selling products. In construction, prefabrication is pushing a lot of that industry back into permanent factories or pop-up facilities. It is estimated that 10% of Australia’s construction sector – typically bespoke onsite work – will soon be pre-fabricated offsite.

These trends have profound implications for the management and regulation of safety. The merging boundaries of traditional sectors can introduce new, unfamiliar risks to established companies and workforces, at while possibly reducing exposure to traditional risks.

Fluidity in the definition of industries can also challenge how we collect and evaluate safety statistics. If an industry’s boundaries are changing significantly, what should we make of changes in that industry’s injury rates? If they go down, have the risks just gone to another sector or is it a real improvement? What do policymakers and regulators do with statistics that may not be reliable indicators of trends over time?

In any event, it remains fair to say that companies in these sectors necessarily still expend a lot more time, resources and attention attending to safety management than most other companies because of what they make and how they make it and the very visible hazards involved.

In this context, it is useful to group forces of change and disruption on our industrial economy under three headings: Technological Change – the capital we work with; Market Issues – the factors changing the parameters of business competition; and Demographics – the people issues.

In terms of safety, technology trends manifest in a number of ways.

The most immediate effect is often a reduction in traditional physical risks through increased automation of repetitive, dangerous tasks and sensing emerging hazards before they are critical.

Apart from improving productivity and quality, safety is often cited as a key driver for adopting new technology – automation eliminating the risks of manual handling and machine operation; drones doing work in remote and extreme environments; and robots taking on repetitious, tiring or heavy work. Some of this technology is also being applied directly to improving safety, like using virtual reality to adapt people to hazardous situations or training them to operate heavy plant without the normal risks to inexperienced employees.

Of course, risks can also emerge from new technology, particularly the physical and cognitive challenges of an increased pace of production and the 24/7 nature of knowledge work. There are also risks from machine autonomy. Drones can take cars off the road but create headaches for aviation regulators and authorities managing built-up areas. Then there is the intriguing, important field termed the “ethics of artificial intelligence”. The debate over the ethical, legal and insurance issues for driverless cars is an early sign of this policy dilemma.

One issue common to many technology advances is how well regulation can keep up with risks that may emerge. We need regulation to be responsive to deal with new risks while not stifling innovation or unfairly infringing on privacy.

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The second major group of trends is based around the ongoing integration of Australia into global markets. One major driver of economic growth has been the globalisation of manufacturing processes. The OECD has estimated that well over half the goods in international transit at any time, on container ships or cargo planes, are components bound for the next stage of production – not finished goods on their way to a consumer. This has resulted in cheaper goods – even for elaborate products like cars. But it has clearly challenged the product standards system that we rely on as users and consumers.

The problem has been most visible in the building products sector; the Grenfell Tower fire in London gave graphic evidence of what happens when the end of the chain assumes that all before it has been checked for conformity. We have had our own examples here.

In 2013, Ai Group produced a major report into non-conforming building products that highlighted these risks across a wide range of products from structural steel to electrical cables, plastic pipes to drainage grates. And, of course, asbestos.

The recent focus on the level of asbestos still being imported into Australia in building products and industrial consumables is a clear sign of the stresses globalisation can put on regulatory systems that fail to adapt. That observation applies equally to government regulatory systems and companies’ own internal procurement and quality control systems.

The third set of trends relates to people issues. Here perhaps the issues are common across all sectors. For example, the ageing workforce is reflected in injury statistics. In 2001, one in ten injuries was sustained by a worker aged over 55. Now it is one in five.

Workers aged between 45 and 54 years of age have accounted for the highest number of fatalities in the same period.

Multiple periods of learning and working within one person’s career means people may go from novice to expert to novice again in parts of their work, in a cycle rather than a linear progression of familiarity with their work and their working environment. There is also vigorous debate as to how employment regulation should deal with the trend towards a ‘gig economy’. In some respects, OHS regulation has anticipated this by no longer framing safety responsibilities solely around the common law employment relationship.

Stresses on traditional management structures, including safety professionals, as they try to cope with rapid, complex change and uncertainty and ambiguity in markets, can also elevate risks to their own mental health as well as those they lead.

Traditionally, OHS specialists are trained very well from a technical perspective on hazard topic areas. However, to operate at a professional level in OHS as these trends gather pace, requires understanding and competency in behavioural aspects of OHS – attitudes, drivers and perceptions of safety; managing change and understanding how people learn at different ages and in different environments.

It is important for OHS leaders to understand their own role (both positive and negative) in building the capacity of their workplace to deal with these trends.

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From The Union Paul Bastian – National Secretary Australian Manufacturing Workers Union

Late to the station on rail reform

“Extreme complexity… is no reason for inaction, inertia or quiescence.” This was perhaps the most telling sentence to emerge from a 2011 review of the UK’s public transport rail sector.

It could just as easily have been referring to the current state of affairs in Australia’s own rail industry.With 36 different public transport train types running on 27 different loading gauge arrangements across the country, Australia’s rail fleet has all the consistency and standardisation of a Dunkirk flotilla.

Rail manufacturing and maintenance is an industry employing almost 20,000 people and representing $1.75bn per year in national income. And the public’s appetite for rail public transport is only increasing. As our population expands and congestion on roads increases, public transport solutions are increasingly in demand.

Over the next decade Australian governments are planning on spending over $46bn on rail public transport projects, including billions of dollars on new rolling stock.

Unfortunately, despite the sheer size of the investment in public transport, Australian governments lag woefully behind the rest of the world in implementing any form of consistency in procurement or design. Each state remains hobbled to a fragmented, ‘go it alone’ approach for the design and ordering of its public transport rolling stock. Tony Taig, an international rail figure who reviewed the Australian Rail Industry Safety and Standards Board for Australia’s Transport Ministers, describes this phenomenon as how “Australia… seems to ‘out-Europe’ Europe” in the complexity of its rolling stock.

This exposes local manufacturers to the inefficiencies of small order sizes, production volatility and a lack of homogeneity between vehicle design, componentry and certification. These inefficiencies directly jeopardise Australian manufacturing jobs and put at risk our local rail manufacturing footprint.

Yet the business case for standardisation and co-ordination in the rail sector is compelling. Low-volume orders are slugged with significant mark-ups due to their one-off nature. Of the 36 different public transport train types in service, 23 have fewer than 100 cars, indicating that the majority of rolling stock orders have been for minor quantities. In modeling completed by a joint DeloitteAustralian Railway Association (ARA) report, if an order was to increase from 50 wagons to 150 wagons the corresponding unit cost reduction would be 40%, from $4m down to $2.4m. To put this in context, the same ARA report noted that the annual wagon demand for public transport across Australia was in the range of 300 units per year.

Productivity gains go hand in hand with harmonisation. The Deloitte-ARA report lists key efficiencies in economies of scale, smooth demand, standardised design, planning and componentry resulted in a 19% estimated annual productivity gain. A productive and cost-efficient rail manufacturing industry opens doors to global markets and there remains some optimism that a rolling stock export industry could be established.

A sustainable pipeline of orders allows for an end to the ‘boom or bust’ – or as it’s morbidly now known in political parlance these days ‘valley of death’ – approach to public transport procurement.

The cyclical nature of rail procurement has reinforced poor labour strategies, the loss of skilled workforces in downturns and drastic skills shortages during peaks. Manufacturers have been unable to plan effectively because of the political and economic uncertainty that clouds future orders. In turn this has dampened manufacturers’ willingness to invest in staff through training, capital facilities or research & development.

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Australian governments are planning on spending over $46bn on rail public transport projects, including billions of dollars on new rolling stock.

Unfortunately, Australian governments lag woefully behind the rest of the world in implementing any form of consistency in procurement or design.

We have witnessed over the last year the horror stories that have resulted from poor procurement decisions from when states have “gone it alone”. The current Queensland Government has inherited from its predecessors a $4.4bn train fleet, manufactured in India, specifically to service the 2018 Commonwealth Games that has failed on-track testing with regard to breaking, air-conditioning, ventilation, sightlines and disability access. There is no set timeline when these trains will be ready for service and the shipping of any future trains from India has been halted until the issues with those already received have been resolved. A similar situation has recently arisen in NSW, where trains ordered to service the Blue Mountains line were too wide too run on certain lengths of track resulting in a planned 60km of track to be replaced and changes to overhead wiring, signals and station platforms.

These are the headscratching results when public policy decisions fail taxpayers and consumers. But they are hardly surprising when state governments are tasked with seemingly reinventing the wheel for every rolling stock tender.

A national approach to rail public transport procurement is first and foremost not a Commonwealth takeover. The last thing desired by the Federal Government, state governments and the broader electorate is an ego-measuring contest over public transport. This is something that the industry can little afford.

The Prime Minister and Premiers should instead examine the benefits of establishing a national public transport authority. Such a body would be tasked with laying a common framework that rail procurement decisions would look to minimise fragmentation, offer maximum opportunities for local business and local jobs, and reap the benefits of expanding economies of scale.

This approach is not unique in of itself. The Keating Government’s ‘One Nation’ transport policy that ran between 1991 and 1996 looked to bring about similar reforms across freight rolling stock and rail infrastructure. The ‘One Nation’ policy sought to implement a national rail freight corporation where the Prime Minister and state Premiers were equity shareholders. Decisions were made together that aimed at overcoming the traditionally disparate nature of interstate rail operations. There is no reason why a similar framework could not be established to co-ordinate public transport rail procurement.

In economic modelling completed for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), such reforms could result in almost 700 full-time manufacturing jobs, an additional GDP contribution of $4.2bn to $5bn and between $6.6bn and $8bn in added gross output of the sector.

Reform of the sector is in itself tantalisingly close. All that is needed is clear foresight, a willingness for Australian governments to work co-operatively, and the political leadership – and gumption – to achieve longstanding change that benefits workers, manufacturers and consumers alike.

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industry news

The AMTIL National Conference – Register now

Registrations have opened for the 2017 AMTIL National Conference, in Melbourne on 14 November. Hosted by AMTIL, the peak national body representing the advanced manufacturing and precision engineering sectors in Australia, the one-day event will explore the theme ‘Manufacturing’s Future in a Digital Age’.

The Conference will focus on the latest trends in digitalisation and the ways in which emerging technologies will impact our industry in both the short and the longer term. The Conference will present a unique opportunity to learn about the trends and developments that will shape and define Australian manufacturing in the coming years, as well as to network and celebrate our industry. Anyone with an interest in manufacturing and its future is invited to attend the Conference, which will be held at Leonda by the Yarra, in Hawthorn, Victoria.

“Developments such as Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things, robotics & automation and big data are all over the headlines at the moment, yet there’s still also a lot of uncertainty about what all these developments are going to mean for manufacturers in practical terms,” says AMTIL’s CEO Shane Infanti. “The Conference follows on from the Digitalisation Pavilion that we ran at our Austech exhibition this year, which was a great success, and

showed us there was a great deal of interest in finding out more, from our members and across the industry. We felt that a Conference would be the perfect vehicle to bring together some of the key experts in this field and give people the opportunity to find out about it first-hand.”

AMTIL has put together an impressive line-up of speakers for the Conference, with experts from across both industry, government and the research community.

The keynote address will be delivered by Brad Howarth, one of Australia’s foremost authorities on technology, marketing and digital media. Other speakers include: David Chuter, Managing Director and CEO at the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC); Dr Nico Adams, IMCRC Program Lead for Digital Transformation; and Dr Steve Dowey, Technology Manager at Sutton Tools and a Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University.

In addition there will be a series of panel discussions over the course of the day.

For AMTIL, the National Conference will be the first in what is planned to be a regular event going forward.

“I’m very excited to be able to announce the 2017 AMTIL National Conference,” adds Infanti. “We feel that this is something that will be of great benefit to our members and the industry here in Australia as a whole.

The team at AMTIL has worked very hard to deliver what I’m sure is going to be a terrific event. I’m looking forward this being the first of what will become a regular, unmissable fixture on the calender for Australian manufacturers in the years to come.”

The AMTIL National Conference will take place on 14 November at Leonda by the Yarra, Hawthorn, Victoria. For more information on the Conference please contact AMTIL Events Manager Kim Banks on kbanks@amtil.com.au. www.amtil.com.au/Events/AMTILConference

Jump in confidence among Australian SME exporters

Findings from Efic’s latest exporter sentiment index indicate that small-to-medium enterprises are increasingly confident about prospects in an international marketplace.

The biannual index, which surveyed more than 1,200 Australian small and medium exporting businesses, looks at perceptions about current and future economic conditions and the international business outlook.

“All key indicators have lifted significantly since the last survey, which was in market in November 2016,” said Swati Dave, CEO and Managing Director of Efic. “We have found that confidence among respondents is strong in terms of economic conditions, their financial position and perceived future profitability from international revenue and employee growth.” Expectations for future economic conditions over the next 12 months have increased by ten basis points since the last survey. There is also a much stronger expectation of international business profitability with 58% of all respondents

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anticipating increased profitability over the next year. Around half of surveyed businesses are expecting to increase employee numbers, an increase of six basis points on the previous survey.

Two-thirds of all respondents are expecting future sales revenue to increase. Businesses with a turnover of $10m to $100m are even more confident of growth with 70% expecting sales revenue growth from overseas sales.

“The increased confidence is driven by an increased demand in export markets and due to improved sales strategies,” said Ms Dave.

While positive sentiment is significantly higher since the last survey, competition in international markets has increased. Of those respondents who expected declining sales, 27% cited increased competition in

international markets. This is a significant increase from the November 2016 results when 12% of respondents felt constrained by international competition.

Access to finance appears to be easing slightly with 34% saying that borrowing money for an overseas venture will be easier in the year ahead.

“However one in five respondents surveyed are expecting finance access to become more difficult – primarily due to the cost of credit increasing and working with financiers that do not understand the complexities of managing working capital through the export cycle,” said Ms Dave.

“It is in cases like these where Efic is able to help with expertise in exporting and the ability to support businesses when their bank may not be able to assist.”

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industry news

Focus on opportunities at Victorian Manufacturing Showcase

The fourth annual Victorian Manufacturing Showcase will be held on 24 October at Victoria University Sunshine campus, with a focus on ‘Creating New Opportunities’.

The event will be hosted by Industry Capability Network (ICN) Victoria in conjunction with the State Government’s Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR). According to Don Matthews, Executive Director of ICN Victoria, the whole objective of the event is to provide opportunities for Victorian manufacturers to gain invaluable insights into other successful Victorian businesses, by showcasing those businesses effectively, and allowing them to network with other manufacturers and government representatives.

“It’s part inspiration, part education, part networking,” says Matthews. “I think given the context of how the manufacturing sector is transitioning to a new reality, where we’ve seen the closure of automotive, and Hazelwood: how do you create new opportunities amid that changing landscape?”

This year a number of companies will be on display that have made the successful transition from being largely dependent on one sector, such as automotive and into servicing more diverse marketplaces. The showcase will feature companies that have either successfully transitioned into new sectors or built stronger positions in their sectoral market place. Representatives from

Sutton Tools, Siemens, Impresa House, Composite Materials Engineering, Integra Systems, Glaxo Smith Kline and Class Plastics have all been invited to speak.

“The Showcase is all about the stories of those companies,” Matthews adds.

“They’re personal stories really, about how they’ve transitioned. We’re not looking for a standard corporate presentation, it’s really: ‘Our story. This is how we did it’. It’s personal and it’s inspiring.”

Matthews sees the future of manufacturing as finding opportunities in new niche value-added markets and growth areas. That can be medical, pharmaceutical, new energy, food and fibre, transport, defence, construction etc.

“I think that’s where some of the opportunities lie, given the investment that’s going into those sectoral areas. Advanced manufacturing is another opportunity. And that’s all in the context of not just providing domestic capability, but also getting ultimately into global supply chains. That’s pretty important.”

The Victorian Manufacturing Showcase 2017 will take place on 24 October 2017 (8.30am – 2.30pm) at Victoria University’s Sunshine Campus. Attendance for the visit is free. To register visit: http://bit.ly/VMS2017interest

Monash blasts manufacturing into a new era Students at Monash University have launched manufacturing into the Space Age using revolutionary 3D printing technology to design, build and test a world-first rocket engine.

State Minister for Industry and Employment Wade Noonan met PhD students at the Woodside Innovation Centre at Monash University on 11 September to get a first-hand look at the Aerospike Rocket Engine. The State Government also announced a $2m grant to develop an additive manufacturing hub so Victoria’s smallto-medium enterprises can benefit from this world-leading technology.

“Victoria is the home of manufacturing and a world-class centre for 3D printing technology. We make things, and we’re proud of it,” said Noonan. “This world-leading 3D printed rocket engine is a tremendous example of why Victoria has the most advanced manufacturing capabilities in the nation.”

Also known as 3D printing, additive manufacturing revolutionises how components are made. From industrial tooling to customisable and intricate orthopaedic implants – the additive manufacturing process is faster, cost efficient and more complex than traditional methods.

The Aerospike Rocket Engine project brings together local researchers working in aerodynamics and combustion and experts from Monash spin-out company Amaero Additive Manufacturing.

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Two years ago, Monash researchers and their partners were the first in the world to print a jet engine, based on an existing engine design. That work led to Amaero winning contracts with major aerospace companies around the world.

Monash researchers subsequently accepted a challenge from Amaero to design a rocket engine, Amaero printed their design, and the researchers test-fired it, all in just four months. The project team took the idea from concept to physical testing in only four months and developed an engine capable of generating enough thrust to lift five adults.

“Traditional bell-shaped rockets, as seen on the Space Shuttle, work at peak efficiency at ground level,” says Marten Jurg, an engineer with Amaero. “As they climb the flame spreads out, reducing thrust.

The aerospike design maintains its efficiency but is very hard to build using traditional technology. Using additive manufacturing we can create complex designs, print them, test them, tweak them, and reprint them in days instead of months”.

The Aerospike Rocket Engine team has formed a company, NextAero, to take their ideas to the world.

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Industry news

Manufacturing Australia appoints James Fazzino as Chairman

Manufacturing Australia has appointed James Fazzino as Chairman, replacing Mark Chellew, who is stepping down after leading the organisation since early 2015.

Fazzino, who steps down as Managing Director and CEO of Incitec Pivot Limited in November, was a founding member CEO of Manufacturing Australia. He is well known not just for his transformation of Incitec Pivot’s business, but also for his passionate belief that Australian manufacturing can compete on the world stage.

During his 14-year-tenure at Incitec Pivot, first as CFO and then as CEO, Incitec Pivot increased in size six-fold, with Mr Fazzino overseeing construction of two new manufacturing plants, successfully integrating the $3bn Dyno-Nobel acquisition and restructuring the group to become a global industrial chemical company with operations around the world.

Under Chellew’s leadership, Manufacturing Australia has been an advocate for Australia’s large enterprise manufacturing sector, and led debate about the policy and market reforms needed to secure the next generation of industrial employment in Australia. Member CEOs of Manufacturing Australia thanked Chellew for his “outstanding leadership” throughout his time as Chairman.

Fazzino said he was delighted to be succeeding Chellew.

“Mark has been an outstanding advocate for Australian manufacturing and the Manufacturing Australia member companies,” said Fazzino. “I have enjoyed working closely with him as a member CEO, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to

succeed him as Manufacturing Australia Chairman and continue this important work.

“Manufacturing has a strong future in this country. Its definitely not a sunset industry. But just as businesses must adapt in a globally competitive manufacturing sector, so too should policymakers.” Our challenges are well known and long championed by Manufacturing Australia: we need to get energy costs down and productivity up to remain internationally competitive; we need a regulatory system that ensures safety and standards without stifling innovation or competition; and we need to grasp the opportunities of free trade, while defending ourselves against unfair trade practices.”

“None of that is easy, but it is achieveable. I look forward to continuing Manufacturing Australia’s constructive approach and working with governments to find solutions to big challenges.”

Chellew said: “I couldn’t be happier that James will succeed me as Chairman. Manufacturing Australia is a unique and very important organisation, and I know James will continue its work while enjoying the respect of the business community and the political community alike.”

Manufacturing Australia’s members include Adelaide Brighton, BlueScope, Brickworks, Capral, Cement Australia, CSR, Dulux, Incitec Pivot, Orora and Rheem.

ANCA Motion opens new branch in Tianjin, China AMTIL member ANCA Motion held a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony on 8 August for its new branch in Tianjin, China.

The new branch is a significant step forward in ANCA Motion’s commitment to the Chinese market. The state-of-the-art facility is 273sqm and is capable of housing 12 staff, covering the areas of: applications development & support; training; and sales & logistics. Grant Anderson, CEO of The ANCA Group, said: “ANCA Motion is looking forward to building a future here in Tianjin with expansion in the years to come. Our staff in Tianjin are an experienced and highly capable team offering the Chinese market specialists in application development, Industry 4.0, IoT, EtherCAT and mechatronic systems. We are excited about what we have to offer and the potential relationships that will be made here in China.” ANCA was established in 1974 by its two cofounders, Pat Boland and Pat McClusky, with an original focus on CNC control systems in Australia. They found themselves in the niche application market of tool and cutter grinding, which then became the core of business for the next three decades.

Through the success of these applications, the company in 2004 incorporated an office in Shanghai to provide sales and support for its tool and cutter grinding machines. This success lead to the formation of ANCA Motion in 2008, to specialise in CNC control systems for the global automation markets, including specalised machining.

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

ANCA Motion’s strength is its advanced CNC controls, which deliver high precision and performance in applications such as five-axis machining and high-speed laser cutting, developed over decades and setting the standard for the global market.

ANCA Motion designs and manufactures flexible control systems, specialising in high-precision solutions for CNC machines. It tailors its hardware and software to the exacting requirements of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), providing solutions that give its customers a competitive edge. ANCA Motion’s continuous support and innovation throughout the life of their products, allows it to deliver world-class products and services to the global market.

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Interlloy celebrates their 30th year in business and 17th year buying Everising bandsaws.

Interlloy is one of the leading sellers of engineering steels and alloys.

With branches in most states and a very large quantity of Everising saws, Interlloy services Australia wide with a commitment of next day delivery and customer service. Over the years Interlloy and Complete Machine Tools have formed a solid relationship where a supplier has turned into a solutions provider.

Everising is one of the top selling bandsaws and with one of the largest national steel merchants continually buying Everising saws it’s a true testament to the reliability and quality of Everising.

Everising is the bandsaw steel merchants choose.

E-530 High Speed Bandsaw Recently installed in Interlloy Brisbane

P-150 High Speed Circular Saw Recently installed in Interlloy Melbourne

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Industry news

AAMC names Mark Goodsell as Executive Director The Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council (AAMC) has announced that Mark Goodsell will take on the role of Executive Director for the AAMC. manufacturing sector. With almost 30 years with the Australian Industry Group, Mark has a deep understanding of manufacturing and the enormous demands of 21st Century global business.”

AAMC Chair John Pollaers welcomed the appointment of Goodsell, currently Head of Manufacturing at the Australian Industry Group, as part of an important strategy to build closer alignment with Ai Group and significantly expand the work begun by the foundation members and executive of the AAMC. Pollaers warmly complimented outgoing Executive Director Jennifer Conley on her contribution in establishing the organisation.

“Jenny built enormous good will for advanced manufacturing among stakeholder networks – indeed among our most influential policymakers – and translated complex issues into clear communications for a broad audience,” said Pollaers. “The CEO-led AAMC has been at the forefront of shifting the conversation around manufacturing as a direct result of that start-up phase.

Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox said: “Ai Group is looking forward to deepening our already close involvement with the AAMC and building on our engagement with its members. These companies are among those at the forefront of new models of Australian manufacturing success.”

“Mark is eminently qualified to be taking the Council’s work to its next phase of expansion pursuing success for Australia’s

The AAMC is a CEO-led private sector initiative pursuing Australian success in advanced manufacturing. The AAMC brings together industry leadership to drive innovation success and resilience in the Australian economy. www.aamc.org.au

International accolade for Deakin 3D printing pioneer

Deakin University Professor of Additive Manufacturing Ian Gibson has become the first Australian academic to receive a prestigious international award recognising his lifetime contribution to the world of 3D printing.

The International Freeform and Additive Manufacturing Excellence (FAME) Award is given annually to recognise an outstanding researcher in the 3D printing field. Professor Gibson received the award in August at the Annual International Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium in Austin, Texas.

Head of Deakin’s School of Engineering, Professor Karen Hapgood, said the accolade recognised the international significance of Professor Gibson’s extensive contributions to the field of additive manufacturing over many years. “Additive manufacturing and 3D printing are commonly thought of as new technologies, but in fact are the result of decades of work by excellent engineers like Ian,” Professor Hapgood said. “The FAME Award is a huge testament to Ian’s expertise and achievements over his career.

And we hope to continue this exciting work well into the future, with an even greater focus on developing innovative and practical applications for 3D printing technology right here at Deakin.”

The FAME Award recognises three of Professor Gibson’s major career achievements:

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

• Co-authoring seminal 3D printing textbook Additive Manufacturing Technologies, which has sold more than 250,000 copies worldwide.

• Establishing the Rapid Prototyping Journal, the main industry journal, which has been in operation for 25 years.

• Leading professional community engagement, through the establishment of the Global Alliance of Rapid Prototyping Associations and similar initiatives.

Professor Gibson said it was a privilege to be among such companies as the eight other FAME award recipients, and said as an elder statesman of the industry he’d learnt to embrace the label of “3D printing dinosaur”.

“It’s nice to feel like you were part of paving the way. I sometimes refer to myself as someone who was looking into 3D printing before it was considered cool,” he said. “I got involved in this area around 25 years ago, at a time when the cheapest machine was a quarter of a million dollars.

“We were really developing our own knowledge and expertise in that space as we went along, there were no textbooks to guide us. Now there are hundreds of thousands of these machines worldwide.”

Professor Gibson has been at Deakin University’s School of Engineering at Waurn Ponds since 2013 and said that since then Deakin had established itself as one of the premier universities in Australia, and worldwide, in the space of 3D printing.

“Not many others have the facilities and experience to match us,” he said. “And our approach is different from most others, we have a strong design focus and look closely at how this technology can be applied in a number of other sectors. We have a better understanding of how it interacts with industry.”

Professor Gibson said he had seen the sector become a lot more diverse over his time and he was excited about the future.

“We’re seeing improvements in quality, materials and speed of build, as well as reduction in price, that’s all making 3D printing a much more competitive option against other technologies.”

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Government news

Victoria launches blueprint for manufacturing jobs

The Victorian State Government has unveiled plans to boost manufacturing, create highly skilled jobs and help businesses grow as part of a new industry strategy.

Minister for Industry and Employment Wade Noonan joined manufacturers in Dandenong on 13 September to unveil Advancing Victorian Manufacturing – A Blueprint for the Future. The strategy, backed by $12m in new funding and initiatives, builds on the Government’s existing programs to support manufacturing businesses and create new jobs. The statement sets out four key actions including: • Creating manufacturing jobs of the future.

• Helping small-to-medium businesses grow, innovate and capture new market opportunities.

• Strengthening the local supply chain.

• Taking Victorian companies to the world and finding export opportunities.

New initiatives will be launched aimed at helping manufacturers develop new products, improve training and skills, increase competitiveness and support export growth.

“Victoria is the home of manufacturing,” said Noonan. “This strategy is all about creating jobs of the future, growing businesses and taking Victorian innovation to the world. We look forward to rolling out the initiatives in this statement to drive a new era for the industry.”

“Dandenong is a nation-leading manufacturing hub supporting thousands of local jobs,” added Member for Dandenong Gabrielle Williams. “We have to plan for the future of this industry, and that’s exactly what this statement is doing.”

The Government’s Advanced Manufacturing Advisory Council, led by Ross Pilling, developed the strategy, which features input from businesses, industry associations, unions and research organisations.

“Manufacturing is one of Victoria’s great strengths,” said Pilling. “We have worked closely with industry to develop this strategy and ensure the sector is primed for future growth.”

The $18m Future Industries Manufacturing Program has already supported more than 30 projects to create around 250 new jobs.

Manufacturing employs more than 283,000 Victorians. In 2016, manufacturing experienced the fastest employment growth of any industry in Victoria with around 40,000 new jobs created.

To access Advancing Victorian Manufacturing – A Blueprint for the Future, visit: www.economicdevelopment.vic.gov.au/ advancing-manufacturing

Grants help researchers Tasmania appoints and SMEs go global new Defence Advocate Eighteen Australian researchers and 11 SMEs will share in $1.4m in government grants to meet and collaborate with global partners to progress their ideas.

The Tasmanian Government has appointed a dedicated Defence Advocate to raise the profile of Tasmania’s capabilities with decisionmakers in Canberra and abroad.

Arthur Sinodinos AO, the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, announced the grants on 17 August, under the Global Connections Fund, which will provide seed funding to help viable Australian projects to grow in scope and scale, and to test commercialisation and proof-of-concept activities. The Global Connections Fund, a component of the Global Innovation Strategy, provides funding of $4.9m over four years to support Australian researchers and SMEs to collaborate with a global partner through its two components: Priming Grants and Bridging Grants.

Rear Admiral (Rtd) Steve Gilmore has accepted the role, which aims to strengthen the linkages between the defence services, defence primes and Tasmanian local industries to advance the state’s contribution towards the $30bn a year national defence investment.

The 29 grant recipients will each receive up to $50,000 under the Bridging Grants component of the Global Connections Fund. The recipients will collaborate with global partners from Austria, China, Czech Republic, Finland, India, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, the UK, the US and Vietnam.

The $1.4m funding assistance from the Federal Government will be leveraged to attract an additional $2.4m in cash and in-kind contributions from the recipients and their international partners.

The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) supports the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science in the delivery of the Global Connections Fund. More information about the Global Connections Fund is available at: www.globalconnectionsfund.org.au

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Gilmore will provide strategic advice on focusing engagement activities to further attract Defence, public and private investment whilst also identifying opportunities and knowledge of the sector in general. He will work closely with Tasmanian industry to identify capability, better match industry to defence needs and to share advice and information with potential contractors.

In a statement, Matthew Groom, Minister for State Growth said: “As our Defence Advocate, [Gilmore] will provide a strong and trusted voice for Tasmanian industries and service providers. This role will be invaluable in assisting government and industry stakeholders in navigating the Defence processes and practices in order to be at the forefront of future contributions and participation.”

Gilmore recently finished full-time service after a defence career that included many years at senior levels of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), both at home and in service abroad. He has extensive experience in strategic policy and strategy analysis and development, capability planning, operations and training requirements through senior command and leadership appointments spanning the past 20 years.

Commonwealth Government Entrepreneurs’ Programme partnering with AMTIL

It’s all about you.

Incubator Support

The Entrepreneurs’ Programme (EP) is a Commonwealth Government flagship initiative focused on raising the competitiveness and productivity of eligible companies at an individual level. The programme forms a part of the Australian Government’s Economic Action Strategy and will deploy over 100 experienced Advisers and Facilitators, offering support to businesses through three key elements: 1. Business Management 2. Innovation Connections 3. Accelerating Commercialisation 4. Incubator Support The Incubator Support initiative will provide funding to incubators to deliver support services to Australian start-ups with an international focus.

Funding will be available to support the establishment of new incubators in regions or sectors with high innovation potential, and for existing incubators looking to expand their services. Funded incubators will deliver a range of activities designed to improve the prospects of commercial success of innovative start-ups, allowing them to realise their economic potential faster than they otherwise would.

The initiative will support entrepreneurial activity and contribute to the development of the innovation ecosystem, including in Australia’s regions.

The Incubator Support initiative provides funding through two components, both of which require matched funding from applicants.

Support for New and Existing Incubators: • to help develop new incubators in regions or sectors with high potential for success in international trade, and • to boost the effectiveness of high performing incubators, including funding support to expand their services and/or develop the innovation ecosystem.

Support for Expert-in-Residence: • to provide access to top quality research, managerial and technical talent through secondments of national or international expert advisers who will improve their chance of commercial success in international markets.

Every business has different needs.

www.amtil.com.au

1302AMTILEP05

To find out what the Entrepreneurs’ Programme can do for you, call 13 28 46 or visit www.business.gov.au or contact Greg Chalker 03 9800 3666 or email gchalker@amtil.com.au

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voice box Opinions from across the manufacturing industry

Seven strategies to help your business succeed in exporting

As businesses consider their opportunities for future growth and expansion, an important channel for growth for many manufacturers is exporting. The opportunity to showcase quality Australian products and services overseas and compete internationally can be both exciting and rewarding. By Andrew White. such as control rooms, switch rooms, substations, diesel generator sets, fuel polishing systems and grid connection solutions for thermal power, solar and wind projects.

For manufacturers, establishing an export operation can be challenging and there are many factors to consider before making the plunge. We suggest the following steps for any aspiring exporter looking to grow overseas in the next 12 months.

As part of its work in the Asia-Pacific, RJE Global secured two export contracts that would provide significant improvements to the power facilities of Indonesia and the Federated States of Micronesia. The business was contracted to assist with the delivery of more than 35GW of additional power across Indonesia by 2019 to address the significant impact of electricity shortages. RJE was contracted by a global energy techniques company to provide 12 prefabricated fuel processing and storage units destined for eight power generation sites across Indonesia.

1. Develop a robust export strategy, and stick to it When you start exporting, there are many different factors you may need to consider that weren’t part of your initial plan, from potential markets to buyers and developing the right networks. It can be easy to get sidetracked, and while it’s important to consider your options carefully, stay focused and stick closely to your export strategy.

2. Consider the positioning of your product or service in a ew market When considering if your product or service will succeed overseas, you need to think about how you will market and promote your product or service to a new and different customer base. This may include looking at price points, quality and competition, among other things. Understanding who your customer will be is critical.

3. Build an experienced and flexible team You need to know you have the expertise and resources to support you when you win a big export contract, but remember, in the early years of exporting, the flow of work may fluctuate. Getting the right team, with the ability to be flexible, will be key.

4. Identify strong local partners In the export game, relationships are everything: finding and working with great local partners will set your exporting business up for success.

5. Test, test, and test again Don’t make the mistake of launching your product or service too early without testing whether it works and how it is received in the local market. Just because a product is well-received in your domestic market, this may not be the case in another market. It is also worth considering that manufacturing capabilities and standards in different countries can vary significantly.

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6. Explore your finance options One of the most common problems for small businesses is funding growth. Once export comes into the equation, financing requirements become even more important and many businesses need support to enable them to fulfil their export and exportrelated contracts.

Speak to your business banker who can assess your situation and advise you on your best course of action. Your bank may be able to offer you a secured loan or commercial bill facility to help you with financing your export growth. If your bank is unable to help, there are alternative sources of export funding which may apply to your business. Efic, Australia’s export credit agency, is one option for accessing export finance.

7. Learn from the experiences of your peers One Australian manufacturer that has been through this export journey is RJE Global, a South Australian engineering, construction and project management company. RJE Global provides a full-service range of solutions for the electrical engineering and construction of projects in the energy, renewables and mining, and infrastructure sectors. The company specialises in prefabricating electrical infrastructure,

RJE Global was also successful in securing a contract that involves the installation of two 1.8MW medium speed diesel fuelled electricity generators as part of a power station upgrade in Chuuk State, Micronesia.

The Chuuk electricity grid only serves around 80% of the island’s population.

This project would see the power supply reach up to 95% of the island’s population, equating to approximately 14,000 people.

The business was contracted to design, construct and commission a diesel fuel power station, with design and fabrication taking place in Adelaide.

While the company’s bank was supportive of the two large contracts, it was unable to provide the requested financial support without Efic’s help. Efic was able to step in and provide a $3m Export Working Capital Guarantee and a US$6.27m Bonding Facility, allowing the company to meet the equipment delivery costs and supporting bonding requirements associated with the contracts.

As the case of RJE Global shows, determining if export is right for your business will require detailed research and careful consideration. Following this guide is a step in the right direction, and will help build a strong foundation for export success.

Andrew Watson is the Executive Director of Efic, the Federal Government’s export credit agency. www.efic.gov.au

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voice box Opinions from across the manufacturing industry

Servitisation: Preparing the manufacturing industry for what’s next Servitisation is not a particularly new phenomenon. Yet despite being around for 50 years, it has only relatively recently become a talking point, especially in the manufacturing industry. By Antony Bourne.

The term ‘servitisation’ was defined in the late 1980s in the European Management Journal, but the concept of bundling service packages with products to add value goes back to the 1960s and the innovative ‘power-by-the-hour’ concept of Bristol Siddeley, a British aero-engine manufacturer later acquired by RollsRoyce. It offered a complete engine and accessory service that enabled operators to forecast service and replacement costs more accurately and eliminated the need for stocks of engines and spares.

Drivers behind servitisation’s curent revival include growing local and global competition and the commoditisation of products. Instead of accepting the received wisdom that competitiveness can only be achieved by offering cheaper, faster or better products, manufacturers are increasingly seeing themselves as service providers, offering total solutions rather than just products. For example, instead of asking its customers what they want (aero engines), Rolls-Royce asks what they want to achieve (maximise flying time). So RollsRoyce offers TotalCare, enabling customers to purchase the power of an engine while Rolls-Royce delivers the support that ensures the engines deliver power. A major factor driving servitisation is new technologies and capabilities that enable more advanced, complete service options.

The Internet of Things (IoT); advances in sensor and beacon technologies; the ability to quickly convert operational data into real business intelligence through advanced analytics; the ubiquity and range of mobile technologies and devices – innovations like these are ushering in a totally different take on the role of the manufacturer.

What’s required of manufacturers who want to servitise their business? Like any other major innovation, enterprises will need to confront change to grasp the opportunities servitisation presents. A study from the Cambridge Service Alliance in 2015 found consensus among capital equipment manufacturers on five key technology requirements: predictive analytics; remote communications; consumption monitoring; pushing information to employees/ customers via mobile platforms; and mobile platforms to access software remotely.

Manufacturers will need to assess the value of these, and other, technologies to ensure

medium-term service competitiveness.

Servitisation also brings organisational challenges. Will it be necessary to invest in new equipment? Do staff have the required skill sets to deliver on service promises?

What will adding service entail in terms of regulations and compliance issues?

Enterprises must also learn that, to win new customers by adding service, sales cycles will be longer. Instead of wares, they will be selling value, such as lower costs or higher revenue, which often requires more persuasion. Among other things, they will need the right enterprise software.

However, companies need to overcome these challenges if they are to remain competitive –for some, it will be a matter of survival. Nonetheless, manufacturers are already reaping the benefits in a wide array of sectors.

Dutch technology firm Philips provides one of the world’s busiest airports, AmsterdamSchiphol, with ‘lighting as a service’.

Because efficient LED lamps are expensive, the airport authority opted for a servitisation package from Philips to provide lighting. In line with its eco-friendly policies, Schiphol has reduced electricity consumption by 50% without buying a single lamp.

Servitisation approaches also brought environmental benefits at MAN Truck and Bus UK, who cut customers’ fuel consumption by at least 10% and reduced CO2 emissions by up to 15%.

While known for products such as photocopying machines, Xerox has made a significant shift to a service-centred business model, focusing on business outsourcing, document and digital printing, and software solutions. Using these solutions, enterprises such as Reuters report a 19% reduction in total cost of ownership, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is 100% compliant with security requirements, and the UK Department of Work and Pensions has cut electricity consumption by 36%.

Beijer Electronics, a Swedish producer of electronics hardware, is another case.

Forecasts showed that within six years, the automation industry’s hardware focus will be transformed and sales growth rate will decline. The survival path Beijer chose was to add software that helps customers control and manage hardware. And that’s where the company sees future revenue

growth and new business opportunities.

One tool Beijer uses is a CRM solution from IFS that is integrated with its business software. Among other things, it puts accurate customer information directly into the hands of sales staff, enabling them to tailor offerings to different customer categories. Beijer is also looking at mobile CRM to speed up information flows and access sound business intelligence in the field. One effect of this is that Beijer’s customers get through-life service that enables them, in turn, to resolve their customers’ problems and create the feeling that they and Beijer are ‘in this together’, enhancing customer loyalty.

Companies like these, who have added advanced services to increase the value of their offering, tend to use some or all of the technologies underlined in the Cambridge Service Alliance study. In adapting their organisations and acquiring the requisite technology, they have confronted the question ‘What’s next?’ – and reaped significant benefits. Indeed, adding service contributes to the very essence of good business: actively looking to the future and seeking to shape it, to create opportunities rather than merely grasp those that arise.

Benefits reported include: revenue growth between 2x and 4x; margin increases of 3%-10%; sustainable business growth, with increases of 5%-10%; greater customer satisfaction; more repeat business, greater market share, and a better reputation; and predictable income streams.

For decades, IFS has worked with manufacturers to help them design, make and sell their products. Now, it is taking the next step and enabling them to efficiently add service to their offering. Combining a comprehensive suite of enterprise software, IFS enables manufacturers to actively particpate in the transformation process, giving them the capabilities and insights to make decisions based on real-time statuses to not only meet customer needs but also anticipate them. Being able to handle today’s business challenges is important; shaping what’s next is crucial to growth and continued success.

Antony Bourne is Global Industry Director of Industrial and Hightech Manufacturing for enterprise applications company IFS. www.ifsworld.com/au

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

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voice box Opinions from across the manufacturing industry

Creating something new from the same stuff Have you ever known you needed to do something different, but struggled with it because you don’t know how? It’s logical to go back to what you do know and do well, but it doesn’t really create the outcome you were looking for.

Getting a fresh pair of eyes on an existing problem can get you thinking in different ways. By Lisa Renn.

Call it innovation, call it redeployment, there is no doubt that creating something new from the same stuff is the current challenge facing the Australian manufacturing industry – looking for new markets, new opportunities, new products, new uses for old equipment. If you listen to predictions of the future of work you’d be forgiven for being a bit anxious; the majority of the jobs that our young kids will do have not even been ‘invented’ yet.

The focus for manufacturing has always been technical skills. Your teams and managers are great at production. The issue is that management skills are very different to technical skills.

One thing is certain, continuing to do things the same way and having the same expectations of your workforce will mean you keep getting the same results and the same frustrations. Unfortunately, you can’t innovate when you do things the same way, and you won’t get anything different from your workforce if you keep treating them the same way – whether that has been extremely well or mediocre doesn’t matter. You don’t get fresh eyes without changing something.

The focus for manufacturing has always been technical skills. Your teams and managers are great at production. This is why managers become managers. They were great technicians, and the standard (albeit flawed) logic suggests that if they are good at “doing” then they should be good at “managing” too. The issue is that management skills are very different to technical skills. Research looking at the management capability of the manufacturing sector in Australia sees us coming up short on the skills needed to ‘instil a talent mindset’, which has been interpreted as a proxy for innovation capability.

Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, in their book ‘First, Break All the Rules – What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently’, concluded that people join an organisation but leave a manager.

Getting the opportunity to do things you are good at every day and having someone who cares about you at work are important to employees. The relationship that people have with their direct manager directly impacts the contribution they make.

Do your current managers have the softer, people skills needed to tap into the potential that your existing workforce has?

There is a depth of skill and experience in your current work force that has likely gone untapped. People are pigeonholed by their job description and not asked to think of opportunities beyond that. In a recent global survey of jobseekers conducted by LinkedIn, 37% of respondents said their current job does not fully utilise their skills or provide enough challenge.

profits. Just like charity, collaboration can begin at home – who knows your business better than those people that work in it every day?

Management 2.0 skills place a critical emphasis on three key factors: purpose; significance; and influence.

• Purpose: Management 2.0 is not only needed for innovation to occur; it’s also required to retain the talent of the future.

Generation Y wants to work for companies that have a purpose they believe in. The LinkedIn survey identified that 50% of respondents wanted to know about the mission of the organisation and 66% wanted to know about the culture.

People care about how and why you do business as much as what they will be doing.

• Significance: How do you demonstrate that individuals matter in your organisation? Do they feel a sense of inclusion as they understand they have a role to play in its future? How do you create this, particularly in large organisations where the ‘boss’ is so far removed from the workforce? How do you provide opportunities for people to demonstrate their competence within and beyond their job description?

Manufacturing great products has been the goal in the past – the future markets that define the next era of manufacturing require new thinking and new ways of doing things. To achieve this, managers need people skills to be able to create a culture of contribution, where it is the norm and an expectation that everyone contribute to the future of the organisation. Let’s call this Management 2.0.

• Influence: Once you have systems in place that provide the opportunity for your workforce to contribute ideas, you can start to align their desires for skill and career development with the organisation’s goals. When this occurs, you increase employee engagement, which benefits the business and its people. The individual influences the business and, in turn, the business positively influences their career.

This is not about making people work harder – it’s about getting them to contribute their expertise for the advancement of the business. People want to demonstrate they are capable, and if you are only allowing people to work within their allotted job role you are cutting your business opportunities and their career opportunities short.

Have you ever felt too close to a problem to find the solution?

Looking to create new things from old stuff using only technical expertise could see you only ever achieving half of your potential.

Upskilling your managers with people skills to increase the diversity of ideas and the productivity within your workforce is the key to tapping the full innovation potential in your business.

Management 2.0 skills and the culture it creates mean the business is utilising the talent and knowledge currently within its walls, not only for gains in innovation, but also improvements in employee engagement, which has been shown to increase productivity and

Lisa Renn consults to the manufacturing industry on making more from what you already have. For a free copy of the ‘Future Proofing Manufacturing’ whitepaper go to: www.LisaRenn.com/MakingMore

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Tech News

Hong Kong: New steel beats the strength-ductility trade-off A Super Steel has been developed called D&P Steel because it adopts a new deformed and partitioned (D&P) strategy - which addresses strength-ductility trade-off. Its material cost is just one-fifth of that of the steel used in current aerospace and defence applications.

This is a successful attempt in realising the dream of achieving a high ductility above the yield strength of 2 GPa. In addition to the substantial improvement of tensile properties, this breakthrough steel has achieved the unprecedented yield strength of 2.2 GPa and uniform elongation of 16%. Additionally, this breakthrough steel has two advantages: Low raw-materials cost - only 20% of the maraging steel used in aerospace and defence applications and no expensive alloying elements have been used exhaustively. The second benefit is that simple industrial processing can be used – including warm rolling, cold rolling and annealing.

The University of Hong Kong

Israel: New 3D technique for object-reconstruction Researchers have developed a technique that results in more accurate 3D scanning for reconstructing complex objects. The innovative method combines robotics and water. By using a robotic arm to immerse an object at various angles, and measuring the volume displacement of each dip, each sequence is combined to create a volumetric shape representation of an object: employing fluid displacements as the shape sensor. Unlike optical sensors, the liquid has no line-of-sight requirements. It penetrates cavities and hidden parts of the object, as well as transparent and glossy materials, thus bypassing all visibility and optical limitations of conventional scanning devices. This method is both safe and inexpensive.

American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

clay or plastic). The system uses a small, rubbery robotic device which can be inserted into the water system through a fire hydrant.

It then moves passively with the flow, logging its position as it goes, detecting even small pressure variations. The device is then retrieved and its data uploaded. Water service is uninterrupted. The robot found a leak that was about one gallon per minute, which is one-tenth the minimum size that conventional detection methods can find on average. The team is planning to make a more flexible, collapsible version that can quickly adapt itself to pipes of different diameters.

MIT

USA: Flame-resistant, highstrength graphene Graphene usually degrades under high heat, but this composite made with nano-layers of a ceramic has flame-resistant properties.

The featherweight, multifunctional, super-elastic ceramic-graphene “metamaterial� combines high strength with electrical conductivity and thermal insulation, suggesting potential applications from buildings to aerospace. The composite combines nanolayers of a ceramic - aluminium oxide - with graphene. Although both the ceramic and graphene are brittle, the new metamaterial has a honeycomb microstructure that provides super-elasticity and structural robustness. Its uses could include a flame retardant (eg heat shield for aircraft), and devices that convert heat into electricity.

It may be scaled up for industrial manufacturing Purdue University

USA: Preventing back stress with just a tap A team has combined biomechanics and advances in wearable tech to create a smart, mechanised undergarment which offloads stress on the lower back. The device consists of light, comfortable fabric sections for the chest and legs which are connected by sturdy straps across the middle back, with natural rubber pieces at the lower back. When activated by a double-tap, some of the forces travel through the elastic bands instead of back muscles. When the task is done, another double tap releases the straps. The device reduced activity in the lower back extensor muscles by an average of 15 to 45% for the task of lifting 11kg and 25kg weights. This device is not for treating those with existing back pain but focuses on prevention.

Vanderbilt University

The object is dipped in a bath of water by a robotic arm. The quality of the reconstruction improves as the number of dipping orientations is increased.

USA: Finding leaks in pipes easily Water pipes lose an average of 20% of their supply through leaks.

A new system (PipeGuard) to inspect water or gas pipes, could provide a fast, inexpensive solution that can find even tiny leaks with pinpoint precision, no matter what the pipes are made of (wood,

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Tech Heading News

Australia: One of the world’s longest EV highways The Qld. Government officially kick-started the EV revolution in Qld. with the launch last July of the Queensland Electric Super-Highway – the world’s longest in one state. It will be a series of 18 fast-charging electric vehicle stations which will be rolled out at locations along the Queensland coast from the Gold Coast to Cairns to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles in Qld. The charging stations will be available for use at no cost for the initial phase of the super-highway.

To combat this, materials called ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are needed. But even conventional UHTCs can’t address the problems. Researchers have now designed and fabricated a new carbide coating that is 12 times better at withstanding temperatures up to 3000deg.C. What makes this coating unique, is its structural makeup and that it has been made using a process called reactive melt infiltration (RMI), which dramatically reduces the time needed to make such materials. The material has been reinforced with carbon– carbon composite, this makes it not only strong but extremely resistant to the usual surface degradation.

Qld Govt.

University of Manchester

Singapore: Police robocar with facial recognition

Australia: Cleaning huge volumes of wastewater Researchers have developed a way to modify the atomic structure of iron to create a metal that can strip impurities from water in just a few minutes. This was done by changing the atomic structure of iron to form metallic glass. A thin strip of this material can remove impurities such as dyes or heavy metals from even highly polluted water in just minutes -offering benefits compared to the current method of using iron powder. Iron powder leaves a large amount of iron sludge that must be stored and it is expensive to produce and can only be used once. In contrast, the iron-based metallic glass can be reused up to 20 times, produces no waste and can be produced as cheaply a few dollars per kilogram. The breakthrough offers new applications in the mining, textile and other industries which produce large amounts of wastewater.

Edith Cowan University

USA: Tough, self-healing rubber Researchers have developed a new type of rubber that is as tough as natural rubber but can also self-heal. In order to make a rubber self-healable, the team needed to make the bonds connecting the polymers reversible, so that the bonds could break and reform.

To achieve this. a hybrid rubber with both covalent and reversible bonds was developed. These two bonds don’t like to mix, so the researchers developed a molecular “rope” (randomly branched polymers) to tie these two types of bonds together - creating a transparent, tough, self-healing rubber. When stretched, hybrid rubber develops “crazes” throughout the material, (similar to cracks but connected by fibrous strands). These crazes redistribute the stress, so there is no localized point of stress. When the stress is released, the material snaps back to its original form and the crazes heal.

Harvard - John A. Paulson School of Engineering & Applied Sciences

UK/China: Carbide ceramic coating withstands 3000deg.

Researchers at the Uni. of Manchester in collaboration with Central South Uni in China have created a new kind of ceramic coating that could revolutionise hypersonic travel. At hypersonic speeds the temperatures hitting the aircraft can result in oxidation and ablation.

Mini autonomous police cars paired with companion drones and facial recognition technology will begin patrolling the streets of Dubai by the end of the year. The model O-R3 autonomous security robot is manufactured by Singaporebased Otsaw Digital. The strolling-pace robot comes with a built-in aerial drone that can survey areas that the robot can’t reach and can navigate on its own using machine-learning algorithms. Police can control the robot remotely from behind a computer dashboard. The vehicle also comes equipped with thermal imaging, and license plate readers. It is claimed the car and drone duo as the first of its kind. By 2030, Dubai plans for robots to make up 25% of its police force.

Washington Post

Australia: Lightning inside thunder In a world-first and what’s described as “lightning inside thunder”, Australian scientists at the Uni. of Sydney’s CUDOS facility have transferred digital data from light waves to sound and back again inside a computer chip. Light-based computing, which encodes data in photons rather than electrons, is a major area of research and this breakthrough could help usher in a new generation of super-fast light-based computers. The big challenge presented by photonic data is that it’s too fast for existing computer chips to read and it generates heat. This heat is a limiting factor on the development of ever more powerful computers and telecommunication systems.

This technology slows down the optical data to a velocity five orders of magnitude slower, allowing for the data to be briefly stored and managed inside the chip for processing, retrieval and further transmission as light waves.

Mixed

“I’m sick and tired of Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark being the only ones with performance-boosting supersuits. I’m not fighting crime, I’m fighting lower-back pain”. Karl Zelik Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering/Biomedical Engineering,Vanderbilt University. Zelik is Principal Investigator on a project which has developed a smart undergarment to help reduce muscle fatigue and lower back pain. It was unveiled recently at an American Society of Biomechanics conference in Colorado and at the Congress of the International Society of Biomechanics in Brisbane.Well over half of all adults will experience low back pain in their lifetimes, and the condition is estimated to cost $30bn in medical expenses and more than $100bn in lost productivity in the US alone.

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product news

ePOL – Your warehouse in the cloud ePOL is an online store that stocks and sells an extensive range of engineered plastics at discounted rates.

From its distribution hub in Melbourne, ePOL ships products nationally, free into your store. ePOL clients can log into their account online and not only see the price of each product, but also how much stock is currently held for all grades. ePOL has formed a partnership between three international companies with a combination of more than 100 years’ experience in the engineering plastic industry. The symmetry of the partnership is well rounded with all companies sharing the same philosophy of business: “Providing only the highest quality of material in the market and supporting it with service and price for quality second to none.” ePOL’s inception came about through looking at the current methods of distribution and then how to improve them for future growth. The path that ePOL has taken is a low-cost, no-frills model, with a one-off distribution hub that helps ePOL ensure it maintains a low cost-base that in turn results in better priced products. Although ePOL operates on a low-cost model, it employs a premium-service freight service, confirming orders via email and provides a live trackand-trace function for shipping. The team at ePOL regard these freight services as important as the stock that it holds.

ePOL provides the convenience of online shopping, showing live stock that is available on the shelf and prices based on account information. For those who prefer the more conventional method of speaking direct with a salesperson, the team at ePOL are happy to attend to all requirements. ePOL is your warehouse in the cloud. www.engineeringplasticsonline.com.au

German RepRap launches fourthgeneration X400 3D printer

German RepRap has introduced its innovative X400 v4 fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printer for additive manufacturing of large objects as well as for limited industrial-grade production runs.

The new printer’s high-end design and speed (depending on the specific application) are impressive, as is the printing accuracy with a layer thickness of up to 0.1mm, along with its ultra-quiet operation.

High-end components, including milled metal parts and drives with tight tolerances, provide for high repeat accuracy in an industrial-grade machine. Many new features, such as automatic bed leveling and a commercial-grade ventilation design are standard in the X400 v4.

The automatic bed-leveling feature means the print bed needs to be calibrated only once, eliminating time-consuming adjustments before each print job. The new ventilation design ensures consistent operating temperatures throughout each job, which, in turn, improves process safety. Several dedicated fans in the printer maintain temperatures in the extruder, around the printed object as well as in the print area. This also improves the processing of materials such as PVA (polyvinyl alcohol).

Another new feature is the filament tracking system, which automatically pauses the active print job when the filament runs out.

In addition, the X400 v4 senses variances in extrusion speed that are invisible to the naked eye, and it automatically reacts to secure the printing process and prevent print job cancellation.

of materials and colors as well as for the repeated positioning of different objects in the print area. In addition, separate parameters can be set for printing different parts of a single object.

The electronics used in the printer are also designed for exacting industrial users. The new X400 v4 features an integrated industrialgrade computer and can be controlled via touch screen and a USB interface (standalone printing). The printer connects to the internet via Ethernet and is controlled through a web browser.

The user-friendly DD3 dual extruder technology with a full metal hot end tops off the printer’s features. The extruder can be fitted with different nozzles to adjust for various applications and materials to be used. Contact pressure is variable, as well, to facilitate the processing of softer materials.

The printer comes with a licensed copy of the Simplify3D software, which contains all the features required for manufacturing industrialgrade objects. Individual parameter settings, adjustable to object geometry, allow for full control over the printing process. The software enables the use of dual extruders for printing a variety

The new product has proven its reliability in continuous operation.

Customers can also opt for a maintenance contract and on-site service by trained technicians. The global network of German RepRap partners assures reliable service and a point of contact for each customer. www.germanreprap.com

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Product Heading news

A firm grip on progress – PrimeTurning Sandvik Coromant has unveiled a new range of CoroTurn Prime multi-task and axial type toolholders to help machine shops implement the new PrimeTurning methodology, which enables turning in all directions.

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Fiber Laser Systems Sheet/Tube/Coil Full Sheet Cutting 24/7 • Swiss Design IPG laser • 3 Year Warranty

The introductions allow users to maximise the benefits of PrimeTurning on multi-task turn-mill centres and vertical turning lathes (VTLs). Complementing the company’s existing radial toolholders, Sandvik Coromant now has a complete offer for PrimeTurning operations.

One of the highlights of the range is the CoroTurn Prime Twin toolholder for multi-task machines. Both CoroTurn Prime A- and B-type inserts can be mounted together on Twin toolholders, allowing manufacturers to undertake roughing with a B-type insert before switching to finishing with an A-type insert, for example. ”Modern multi-task machines are intended for the complete machining of components but typically have a slow tool changing time, often around 15-20 seconds,” says Håkan Ericksson, Product Manager General Turning at Sandvik Coromant. “As a result, the new Twin holder will save customers a considerable amount of time when changing tools.”

As a further advantage, B-axis machining on multitask machines permits the operator to program the angle of the tool in precise increments. When the machine cuts using its B-axis, a lot of accessibility is created using neutral holders. In combination with streamlined operations, this delivers the potential for huge time saving and productivity increases to help manufacturers reduce tooling inventories and achieve competitive gains.

Six new multi-task toolholders are being introduced, which are mounted at a 45-degree angle for B-axis machining and can be used with either CoroTurn Prime A-type or B-type inserts. Options for multi-task machines include four toolholders (one-insert only) and two Twin toolholders (two inserts). The CoroTurn Prime Twin toolholder is available for use with Coromant Capto C5 – C8 size.

A range of axial toolholders for vertical turning lathes is also part of the range, which means that Sandvik Coromant now has a complete offer for PrimeTurning: axial, radial and multi-task toolholders. In total, eight dedicated toolholders for axial mounting are being launched. This type of toolholder is compatible with most types of vertical lathes, and is available in Coromant Capto for use with either CoroTurn Prime A-type or B-type inserts.

Although PrimeTurning is applicable to the entire general turning area, machine shops with large batch sizes (automotive) are set to benefit most, as will those machining large components (aerospace), where there is a need to reduce tool changes, set-up time and production stops.

www.sandvik.coromant.com

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Ultimately, the all-directional PrimeTurning method and CoroTurn Prime tools will ensure that manufacturers can complete their turning operations in a much more efficient way. Compared with conventional turning, a 50%-80% increase in productivity, along with 1.5-2 times more tool life, can be achieved.

From $125,000 and powers to 6kW IPG 2Kw - twin table $240,000+GST

AMT OCT/NOV6/07/17 2017 5:11 PM

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product news

One cutter, many choices

A versatile new range of milling cutters and inserts form an important part of Dormer Pramet’s latest product range.

Expanding the company’s comprehensive range of milling cutters, the new addition adds an adaptable option to support a wide range of insert shapes and operations from roughing to finishing. The new SOD05 cutter, developed under the Pramet brand, reduces tool change-over time and inventory costs with its universal pocket capable of carrying octagonal, round and square inserts. It means that the user-friendly cutter, available in a wide range of diameters from 32mm to 125mm, can perform face milling, shoulder milling, slotting, plunging and ramping in steel, stainless steel, cast iron and non-ferrous materials.

To support the new cutter, Dormer Pramet has added to its range of octagonal (OD), round (RD) and square (SD) inserts. The OD insert has eight cutting edges and low cutting forces, promoting an economical option for face milling, while the RD inserts are suitable for high feed roughing, shallow profiling and ramping.

Its SD inserts have four cutting edges and offers a 90-degree option for square shoulder milling, providing high depths of cut up to 10mm. All types of inserts have the same radial and axial positions of edges – allowing for easier CNC programming and manual operations.

Meanwhile, Dormer Pramet has announced a new range of small diameter cutters (12mm to 40mm) to offer further economical milling options. The cutters, which have a high number of teeth to improve productivity, are ideally suited for turn-milling.

To support this new cutter, a range of economical SOMT 05 inserts have been developed. With four cutting edges for general machining, the single sided inserts offer depth of cut up to 4.5mm.

The inserts feature a sharp geometry with narrow positive T-land and support shoulder milling, face milling, shallow slot milling and plunging in steel, stainless steel and cast iron. www.dormerpramet.com

Kaeser’s space-saving FSD series offers power and efficiency

Kaeser Compressors’s latest generation FSD series of space-saving rotary screw compressors house a number of product refinements and enhancements, which together deliver impressive power and efficiency to the end user.

Air-cooling of rotary screw compressors can be significantly more cost-effective than water-cooling. This advantage is now available for drive powers over 250kW with the new FSD series. A radial fan draws in ambient air directly through the cooler without being prewarmed to ensure optimum cooling. FSD compressors can therefore be used in ambient temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius. All FSD models are also optionally available as water-cooled versions.

have a permanent attached sheetmetal housing, but are simply inserted into an aluminium housing. The filter cartridges themselves feature a metal-free design and are suitable for thermal disposal at the end of their service life without additional pre-treatment. As with all Kaeser compressors, the new FSD series is service friendly, with excellent accessibility to maintenance components, reduced operating costs and increased availability.

In every model, the thermostat-controlled radial fan for fluid cooling helps achieve further energy savings. It is integrated into Kaeser’s Electronic Thermo Management (ETM) system, another significant innovation in the new FSD series. ETM regulates oil temperature to ensure a safe and consistent differential from the dew point temperature, thereby avoiding unnecessarily high compressed air discharge temperatures and leading to additional energy savings.

With the heat recovery option, a second ETM system assures optimised and even more efficient usage of the available heat energy.

This optimised efficiency stems from newly refined screw compressor blocks equipped with high efficiency and flow optimised Sigma Profile rotors. Developed by Kaeser and continuously enhanced ever since, the Kaeser Sigma Profile achieves power savings of up to 15% compared with conventional screw compressor block rotor profiles. Furthermore, the screw compressor block is directly driven by an energy-saving IE4 super premium efficiency motor that operates at a low speed of 1,490rpm. Direct drive not only eliminates the transmission losses associated with gear drive, but also reduces energy consumption, maintenance requirement and sounds levels.

The Sigma Control 2 compressor controller provides additional energy savings, reduced maintenance requirement, as well as improved operational reliability and compressor availability by dynamically adjusting the flow rate to match actual compressed air demand. The large display makes it easy to view key information. Including RFID technology assures safety of data and login, so service work and system changes can only be performed by authorised personnel.

Energy saving control modes, variable interfaces for communication with centralised control systems, and an SD card for update and backup are just some features available on the Sigma Control 2.

The unit interior also reflects Kaeser’s commitment to resource conservation: environmentally friendly fluid filter cartridges no longer

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

In addition, the Sigma Control 2 communicates seamlessly with the Sigma Air Manager 4.0 master controller and management system, which also features adaptive 3-D Control. Depending on the version, this powerful controller can simultaneously monitor and co-ordinate operation of up to 16 compressors and treatment components with optimum efficiency. The FSD.3 series rotary screw compressors are available air- or water- cooled, with drive power 250kW and 315kW, working pressures of 7-15 bar and free air deliveries from 29.2 to 58 cubic metres/min. They are available as a standard machine fixed speed machine or with Sigma Frequency Control. www.kaeser.com.au

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Medical

The flourishing Australian life sciences industry is a major contributor to this country’s economic growth. According to an article in the July edition of the ‘Australasian Biotechnology’ from AusBiotech, the industry generates around $4.4bn in gross economic valueadd, and employs more than 48,000 people at medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. By Carole Goldsmith.

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Medical Heading

The article – entitled ‘Attracting Investors To Realise Australian Life Sciences Full Potential’ – also reveals that investment in life sciences is increasing, with the sector raising $1.384bn in capital in 2016, and with Federal Government programs like the Biomedical Translation Fund (BTF), stimulating private sector investment. The BTF comprises of $250m in Commonwealth funding, matched by private sector investors contrubutions, and will be used to invest in promising biomedical discoveries.

MTP Connect – Accelerating growth in life sciences MTPConnect (The MedTech and Pharma Growth Centre) is one of the Federal Government’s six Industry Growth Centres. The Department of Industry, Innovation and Sciences states that the Industry Growth Centre Initiative enables national action on key issues such as collaboration, commercialisation, international engagement, skills and regulation reform. The Federal Government has allocated $250m for the Growth Centre Initiative over four years from 2017/18 to 2020/21. Alongside medical technologies and pharmaceuticals (MTP), the other five industry growth centres operated in: advanced manufacturing; cyber security; food and agribusiness; mining equipment, technology and services; and oil, gas and energy resources.

MTPConnect’s CEO and Managing Director Sue MacLeman is excited about Australia’s innovative MTP industry and the work of MTPConnect and its partners. She explains: “MTPConnect is a notfor-profit organisation which aims to accelerate the growth of the Australian medical technology, biotechnology and pharma sector to achieve greater commercialisation. We also want to establish Australia as an Asia-Pacific hub for MTP companies.”

MacLeman is also busy planning international projects. This November, she is speaking at the APAC MedTech forum in Singapore and leading a healthcare mission to South Korea. She will also lead a MedTech mission to Israel in May next year.

MTPConnect is based at Monash University in Melbourne’s east, with hubs at Sydney University’s Engineering Department and at South Australia’s Flinders University’s Tonsley site. MacLeman explains: “Flinders at Tonsley is the old Mitsubishi auto manufacturing plant which has been converted to house a Medical Devices Research Institute, the Centre for NanoScale Science and Technology, and a number of other faculties.”

She adds that MTPConnect collaborates closely with CSIRO, university research centres, other Growth Centres, and with professional bodies such as AusBiotech, Medicines Australia and the Medical Technology Association of Australia (MTAA).

MTPConnect’s CEO and Managing Director Sue MacLeman.

The MTPConnect’s Project Fund of $15.6m awarded grants to 14 initial projects in 2016. These projects received a total of $7.4m over the following two years, with matched sector funding of around $32m. The projects funded in 2016 are exciting collaborative efforts in which universities, hospitals, research organisations, businesses and industry bodies are working together for successful outcomes.

Among the projects funded were: • $1.1m in support (with a $1.1m partner contribution) for BioFab3D@ACMD, a robotics and biomedical engineering centre at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne (lead applicant), with other participants including Stryker Australia and the Universities of Melbourne, Wollongong, RMIT and Swinburne.

• $150,000 in funding support (with a $150,000 partner contribution) for initial scoping of the National Medical Device Partnering Program (NMDPP), to bring together research, clinical and industry partners for collaboration and product development. The lead applicant is Flinders University with participation from CSIRO, STC Australia and MTAA. • A $100,000 Fund contribution (with $300,000 in partner support) for a Biofabrication Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology (lead applicant). This Centre will utilise 3D digital scanning, modelling and advanced manufacturing technologies to develop ears for children with microtia. Hear and Say, Metro North Hospital and Health Service are the project partners.

MacLeman advises that MTPConnect is currently reviewing the second round of expressions of interest for collaborative, industryled projects through the dollar-for-dollar matched Project Fund Program, with recipients to be announced at the AusBiotech Conference in Adelaide in late October. Further details on the life sciences sector, funding, events and workshops, can be found on the MTPConnect website.

On the Australian MTP industry, MacLeman says proudly: “Australia has a wonderful world class infrastructure and we are very good at knowledge generation. What we need to do is transfer this knowledge to product commercialisation.”

Two Victorian life sciences’ companies, MDI and Taylor Surgical Instruments are just two examples of businesses that are successfully transferring knowledge to product commercialisation.

Continued next page

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MDI opened a new state-of-the-art manufacturing site in Scoresby,Vic, in August.

Continued from previous page

Medical Developments International – Taking on the world Victorian pharmaceutical and medical devices manufacturer Medical Developments International (MDI) is already taking the world by storm, selling its products in 30 countries.

“We are in the process of getting EU approval (expected first quarter of next year) and that will bring us an additional 37 countries to sell our products to,” says MDI’s CEO, John Sharman.

“MDI is one of Australia’s leading pharmaceutical and medical devices companies specialising in emergency medicine solutions.”

The ASX-listed healthcare company manufactures a leading range of Medical Developments products for pain management, International CEO, John Sharman. asthma and resuscitation, plus veterinary equipment. Sharman reports that the company’s bestsellers worldwide are its emergency pain relief device Penthrox and a range of respiratory devices for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). Penthrox, a methoxyflurane inhalation device, is commonly known as ‘the green whistle’, for its whistle-like shape, with a hole near the mouthpiece.

Sharman explains how Penthrox works: “It will take you from your worst pain to a pain-free existence within 10 breaths, and will keep you in a pain-free state for up to two hours. Penthrox, available only by prescription, is a non-opiate, non-addictive and does not depress the airways. You can’t overdose on it and there is no drug to drug interaction. Also, it does not trigger the dopamine receptor (prominent in the vertebrate central nervous system), so there is no accumulate high.”

MDI now operates two manufacturing sites. Its new $5m stateof the art manufacturing site in Scoresby, in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, was completed this August, and the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved the facility in September. The company’s first manufacturing site nearby in Springvale continues full production. MDI employs around 80 people across Australia, Dubai and London.

“We have taken on 26 new employees in the last 12 to 18 months to work in the new plant,” says Sharman. “Another 20 people will be engaged in the next 12 months and will include 12 process chemists, regulatory and factory staff.”

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MDI’s emergency pain relief device Penthrox is one of its bestsellers worldwide.

Part of the new plant’s medical manufacturing process was developed jointly with CSIRO’s researchers and MDI’s R&D team.

“Our Process Development Project (PDP) conducted over the past five years with CSIRO’s Biotech and Healthcare division, was validated by the TGA in May this year,” adds Sharman. “We have developed new manufacturing technologies that deliver cost saving, improved quality, consistency and safety standards for existing and new small molecule pharmaceuticals. MDI has spent around $5m on this project to develop innovative ways to invent pharmaceuticals.”

He explains that the project has successfully completed ‘desktop’ scientific due diligence on three molecules and is expecting positive results in the coming year.

Following the company’s recent annual report release, Sharman and his investment team went on an investor roadshow presenting MDI’s latest global successes and sales figures. For the 2016-17 financial year, the company’s gross sales were $18.9m, up 22%, and net profit after tax was $1.82m, up by 16%. Sharman says: “During the six-day Australia roadshow in August, we presented our slide show to 40 organisations including institutions and shareholder groups. In September, we also addressed our global investors in London, Hong Kong and New Zealand.”

MDI has established a network of manufacturers and distributors worldwide, to ensure both quality assurance and supply chain solutions are maintained, for servicing and delivering to the local and international sectors. Sharman explains that some components are imported from global suppliers, with all MDI products manufactured in Australia.

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Taylor Surgical uses a range of state-of-the-art manufaturing technology at its Knoxfield factory.

“Globally we have distributors covering 50 countries but we are not big yet, we are just starting,” he reveals. “The trick is to get all these companies to sell our products.”

Sharman says that the cost of doing business in Australia is very expensive, especially if you are operating a global business: “If we manufactured in Asia, it would be one-third of the costs that we’re spending now. We want to continue manufacturing in Australia. Our plans are to be a billion-dollar global company.”

Taylor Surgical Instruments – Providing innovative solutions When AMT magazine caught up with Taylor Surgical Instrument’s Managing Director Paul McKay, he was beaming with pride and enthusiasm for the medical devices business he founded 31 years ago. Meeting at the company’s Knoxfield factory, east of Melbourne, he explains that Taylor Surgical specialises in producing quality, innovative electro-surgical instruments for local markets and internationally (currently New Zealand and Italy). The company also custom-manufactures operating table accessories for Australian hospitals and surgeries.

In partnership with a major USA instrument repair organisation Medical Optics - Taylor Surgical also provides an endoscope and instrument repair service for Australian and international hospitals.

“We do direct product sales of our instruments to hospitals,” says McKay. “As the instrument manufacturer, and to keep our customers happy and returning, we need to offer a repair service.”

McKay proudly explains that his business has four employees: himself, sister Caroline, their father William, and son-in-law Tim. According to Caroline, her brother is very customer-focussed and the repair work sometimes leads to custom-manufacturing projects.

“We try to provide a solution for the surgeon or theatre staff, when they ask us for a custom-designed and manufactured instrument,” says McKay. He discusses the electro-surgical handpieces that his company custom-manufactures. Among these are the monopolar and bipolar forceps, monopolar electrodes and cords, mainly used for cutting and coagulation during electro-surgery.

On a factory walkthrough, Tim is custom-manufacturing steel and aluminium operating table components using an Okuma ACE

Centre MB56VA vertical machining centre. McKay says: “We invested in the Okuma machine around five years ago at a cost of around $320,000. The machine’s capabilities and Okuma’s aftersales service are excellent.”

The business uses a range of other advanced manufacturing systems, including tooling from Sandvik Coromant, software from SolidWorks and Esprit CAM, and 3D printing technology for prototyping.

“Investment in the state-of-the-art CNC milling lathes further enhances Taylor Surgical’s capabilities to manufacture a wide variety of highly specialised components and equipment with precision accuracy,” adds McKay. “With prototype and instrument development, we continue to analyse ways to improve our products, to better fit our customer’s ever-changing medical instrument needs. Among these are patient-positioning systems, clamping devices and electro surgical instrumentation.

“Recently we modified a major Melbourne based hospital’s robotic trolleys, to enhance the functionality of the system. Melbourne medical devices company Anatomics also asked us to custom manufacture a set of spinal tubes and forceps for spinal procedures.”

Running a medical devices business is expensive. McKay explains that the company went through a TGA audit this March and it’s an expensive process for a small business.

“It cost us $24,000 for the two-day audit and $23,000 for the consultant to prepare the audit report. You have the audit, and pass, or you run the risk of losing your certification and ultimately are unable to manufacture medical devices. We are very proud of our 100%-perfect record – 31 years of manufacturing and not one TGA recall or adverse event.”

On the company’s plans, McKay says: “Firstly we want to increase international sales and open distribution channels for our existing range of products, particularly theatre table products. Secondly, we hope to expand and service the non-healthcare businesses, especially those that have highly specified, quality short-run products and prototypes.” www.innovation.gov.au/page/biomedical-translation-fund www.mtpconnect.org.au www.medicaldev.com www.taylorsurgical.com.au

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Advancing healthcare with 3D printing The benefits of 3D printing within the medical industry include better clinical outcomes for patients as well as improved economics.

Additive manufacturing applications within the medical industry are diverse. The technology enables quick, cost-effective development of new devices, and customised end-use products that improve the delivery and results of patient care. This article examines medical applications using Stratasys FDM and PolyJet technology.

Rapid prototyping and product development The ability to quickly create new products and speed the development cycle is a hallmark of 3D printing, achieved by replacing, where appropriate, time-consuming and costly traditional manufacturing methods. It gives designers and engineers tools to quickly create and iterate designs and reduce time to market.

Functional prototypes using high-performance materials allow designers to test designs in verification and validation protocols earlier in the design process. Gaining feedback early helps designers identify areas for improvement, resulting in devices that can better contribute to positive outcomes. Biorep, a manufacturer of devices aimed at finding a cure for diabetes, had traditionally used machine shops or service bureaus to quickly prototype small parts. However, an increase in manufacturing volume created the need to bring this capability in-house. Part accuracy and surface finish were key design parameters, leading Biorep to choose a mid-sized PolyJet model, which enabled in-house prototyping in an easy-to-use 3D printer with a small footprint. Quickly creating low-cost prototypes helped Biorep engineers gain management support for a novel pinch valve design, and to thoroughly test it, avoiding costly delays.

Rapid prototyping also lets designers quickly gather physician feedback on part design. Within hours, the designer can digitally iterate the design based on physician input and print the revised part for evaluation. The fast feedback loop accelerates development.

Anatomical models Historically, clinical training, education and device testing have relied on animal models, human cadavers or mannequins for hands-on experience in a clinical simulation – all options with various deficiencies. When it comes to individual patient care, presurgical analysis and planning using computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans remain limited to 2D screen images. The advent of 3D printing — especially in multiple materials, colours and textures — offers new possibilities in training, device testing and execution of surgical procedures. 3D-printed models made with different materials representing bone, organs and soft tissue are produced in a single print procedure. They can be designed based on actual patient anatomy to capture the complexity and realism of treating the human body.

The ability to model a patient’s anatomy and pathology for analysis and practice prior to an operation also offers clinical benefits, like anticipation of complications and reduced surgery time, enhancing the likelihood of favourable results and faster patient recovery.

Models can be stored digitally to allow production as needed, and can be used in an office without special environmental controls.

Researchers at The Jacobs Institute use this vascular model to develop and test the next generation of neurovascular devices.

mark them as needed to plan procedures, slashing operating time.

The models provide clearer perspectives and better visualisation, allowing more accurate treatment.

A desire to use bio-models for training led the University of Malaya’s Centre for Biomedical and Technology Integration (CBMTI) to use 3D printing. CBMTI chose PolyJet for its speed, ease of use, and its ability to print in multiple materials. This allows technicians to make more and better models, scaling them down to save material when full size isn’t necessary.

CBMTI printed a human skull section that replicated bone and tissues encountered during a brain tumour operation, which entails cutting the skin, opening the bone, cutting the brain lining and removing the tumour. This technology lets CBMTI provide researchers and medical instructors training models with accuracy, realism and tactile feedback consistent with human physiology.

Realistic texture and form also make 3D printed anatomical models effective tools for testing medical devices. Researchers used a model to validate the Covidien Solitaire Flow Restoration stent retriever, comparing its performance with conventional catheters, and ultimately demonstrating its higher success rate of neurovascular recanalisation. The model’s realism also let researchers note the specific anatomical location of blood clot loss during the tests.

Patient-specific surgical guides When it comes to the precision needed during joint replacement or to repair bone deformities, scanning technology has limitations.

Doctors must still rely on scan images and experience, as well as generic surgical guides, to accurately place hardware for bone repair.

The use of 3D printed surgical guides refines the traditional means of orthopaedic care by allowing doctors to shape them to the patient’s unique anatomy, accurately locating drills or other instruments used during surgery. This makes placement of restorative treatments more precise, improving post-operative results.

Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan uses PolyJet multi-material technology to produce anatomical models for surgical preparation and medical training. While CT and MRI offer some visualisation of a patient’s status, they may not reveal conditions that could cause complications. The university’s large, colour 3D printer lets doctors create full-size models of a patient’s organs.

According to Dr Maki Sugimoto, associated professor at Kobe, multicolour, multi-material bio-models help surgeons uncover tissues and blood vessels that may be blocked by larger organs in the 2D scans.

Surgeons can examine models from different perspectives and

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This multi-material model allows physicians to train on neurosurgery procedures.

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Personalised prosthetics, bionics and orthotics Additive manufacturing is well suited for individualised healthcare, enabling creation of prosthetic and orthotic devices tailored to a patient’s specific anatomy and needs. In addition, the economics of 3D printing are ideal for low-volume and custom production, meaning cost often drops even while effectiveness increases.

Alex Pring tries out his 3D printed bionic arm.

The Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong uses FDM to make surgical guides and tools along with bone models. The printed models are used to plan and test locations for stabilising screws or plates that conform to the patient’s bone surface. The outcome is reduced risk of post-surgical complications like bleeding and infection.

According to Professor Kwok-sui Leung of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 3D printing allows in-depth assessment and presurgical rehearsal, resulting in implants fitted more accurately to the curvature of the bone. On average, operation time was reduced by an hour when incorporating 3D printed parts in the pre-surgical process.

FDM also benefits this application with materials such as PC-ISO, a biocompatible thermoplastic in its raw state that can be sterilised using ethylene oxide (EtO) or gamma radiation. Surgical guides, derived from patient scans to precisely match their anatomy and made from PC-ISO, are compatible with human tissue for shortterm contact. This allows them to be placed against the patient’s anatomy for a more precise cut or drill hole.

End-use parts for clinical trials Reducing the time to bring a medical device concept to the clinical trial stage has positive ramifications throughout the medical supply chain. Producers reduce cost and get products to market faster, and patients benefit from new devices sooner. One obstacle is the time and cost to manufacture the product and revise it sufficiently to reach the right design. Lead times to create tooling, whether inhouse or outsourced, can be lengthy and expensive.

Additive manufacturing can drastically shorten development.

Concepts can be produced overnight, validated or quickly revised as needed, and be ready for clinical use without the need to implement the full design and manufacturing process. Manufacturers can use additively manufactured parts to support clinical trials or early commercialisation while the final design is still in flux.

Ivivi Health Sciences in San Francisco, US, develops non-invasive, electrotherapy devices to accelerate patient recovery, and needed consistent production of devices in small quantities for clinical trials.

However, the necessary planning and product development typically took months. Ivivi also outsourced manufacturing, and design adjustments were common prior to finalising the design.

To streamline the development cycle, Ivivi turned to 3D printing, choosing a PolyJet system to satisfy the need for parts with a very smooth surface finish and sufficient durability. Using this technology, Ivivi could quickly create devices and deliver them to trial participants.

The adoption of 3D printing provided Ivivi with a return on investment in less than one year, and enhanced its capacity to develop new prototypes and quickly modify devices.

Albert Manero is a PhD student in mechanical engineering at the University of Central Florida and Executive Director of Limbitless Solutions, an organisation with the goal of developing bionic replacement limbs for a lower cost. One beneficiary of its efforts was six-year-old Alex Pring, a boy born without a lower right arm.

Limbitless Solutions designed and produced a low-cost bionic lower arm and hand for Alex. It uses electromyography sensors and a microcontroller in combination with Alex’s bicep to operate the hand. His new arm was made via FDM, using ABSplus material to keep it strong but lightweight. The total cost was $350, compared with $40,000 for conventional medical solutions. As Alex grows, new arms can be made without the normal financial burden for this type of ongoing care.

FDM also helped Emma Lavelle, who was born with arthrogryposis multiplex congenital (AMC), a joint condition that limits her ability to move her arms. Experts at the Nemours/Alfred I DuPont Hospital for Children developed the Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX), a device made from metal and resistance bands, that lets people with AMC move and control their limbs. WREX devices attached to a wheelchair had been made for children as young as six, but Emma was only two and able to walk. The Nemours team developed a scaled-down, lighter WREX, using an FDM printer to make parts customised for Emma’s size – too small and detailed to be produced on a CNC machine. Emma’s customised WREX lets her do things she couldn’t before, and a new WREX can easily be made as she grows.

Laboratory and manufacturing tools A more conventional application of 3D printing involves the creation of tooling, fixtures and other equipment that lets labs and medical device manufacturers work faster and reduce costs. Tools specific to a lab or process can be created quickly and revised as needed for little cost, simply by changing the tool’s CAD file and reprinting it. They can also be stored digitally, eliminating the need for physical storage.

Hospitals and clinics benefit by making custom surgical trays for specific needs, and with FDM materials such as ULTEM 1010 resin, these can be sterilised using a steam autoclave process. A 3D printer is indispensable for the DeRisi Lab of the University of California San Francisco, which makes custom pipet racks, gel combs and other small parts. The lab even benefits from printing parts already available from medical suppliers. For example, the lab printed its own small centrifuge at a total cost of $25, less than 10% of the supplier’s price of $350.

Conclusion Additive manufacturing offers new possibilities for both medical device developers and health care providers by circumventing traditional manufacturing methods, replacing them with faster, less costly technology, suitable for customisation. Stratasys FDM and PolyJet technologies from Objective3D give medical device developers the tools to reduce product development costs and time to market. They give physicians the capability to model a patient’s anatomy using realistic materials for better planning that shortens surgical procedures. This is not technology to come; it has already been adopted in the medical industry as an essential means of improving the economics and outcomes of healthcare. www.objective3d.com.au www.direct3dprinting.com.au

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TIBO Tiefbohrtechnik – High-precision deep-drilling for bone screws The state of Baden-Württemberg in south-west Germany has established itself as a leading location for high-quality machine tools, while also establishing an impressive reputation in the area of medical instruments.

The town of Tuttlingen in particular continues to enjoy respect as a global centre for medical instruments, making a name for itself in the production of medical devices as early as the 19th century. Several hundred companies work in Europe’s largest medical instrument cluster on innovative products for the medical industry.

One category of such instruments deals with traumatology – specifically, products for the treatment of bone fractures such as bone nails and screws. When fractures occur in hip joints and in the upper and lower extremities, bone screws may be used to compress the fragments and lock implanted intramedullary nails.

These nails usually have two transverse bores, via which the nail is secured against dislocation with two screws.

Why do bone screws require deep drilling? When a bone fracture has to be fixed with plates, nails, or screws, a so-called guide wire is positioned in the bone at the point in question. This wire is used to push the bone screw with the deep bore, guiding it safely to the bone so that orientation of the fracture compression can be precisely ensured by screwing in the screws.

TIBO Tiefbohrtechnik, based in the nearby town of Pfullingen, established itself in the high-precision deep-drilling machine market years ago and is familiar with the high standards of quality in the medical instruments industry.

“We know all about the requirements of quality and precision in medical instruments and have no problem meeting our clients’ demands because we use precision parts in our deep-drilling machines,” says Benjamin Röcker, TIBO’s Sales Manager. “We simply do not have any oversized machines – they are expensive, and their performance potential is far above what is necessary. At TIBO, the modular design essentially means that each deep-drilling machine is tailor-made, just like a tailored suit.”

One leading manufacturer of bone nails and screws from the Tuttlingen cluster has partnered with TIBO for designing its process. Because TIBO has delivered deep-drilling machines for other applications for this client in the past, it was clear TIBO would be a competent partner for the bone screws that were to be planned, offering a packaged solution with machines that could fit into compact on-site spaces. In addition, the client expressed the desire for workpieces to be loaded and unloaded automatically so the system could be operated unmanned.

The framework conditions were a bore diameter of 2.5mm-5.0mm with a drill path of 0.06mm for up to 160mm drill depth in titanium alloys (Ti6Al4V) and implant steel 1.4441. Solid carbide drills were used, in which the drill head and drill shaft are manufactured from a carbide blank. This increases the tool’s rigidity and reduces the drill centring and any torsion fluctuation. The clamping sleeves that are soldered to the drill shaft transfer the torque from the machine to the tool. A high concentricity between the drill shaft and the clamping sleeve reduces additional vibrations and improves cutting capacity and process safety.

Deep drilling is the last machining level in the manufacturing process so the bone screws already have their outer geometry.

Consequently, workpiece machining and sealing of filigree screw threads and screw heads that have already been slitted are given special attention. The process therefore returns reliable results with steplessly variable tensioning forces, coolant pressures of more than 160 bar, and solid carbide tools.

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“Thoroughgoing solutions that put the process within our sphere of responsibility are part of the standard at TIBO,” says Röcker.

As early as the bidding phase, TIBO designers came up with a compelling tensioning concept. Because the wall thicknesses between the bores and the outer contour were as small as 2mm in places and the screw thread and screw-in geometries differed greatly, special clamping sleeves were constructed that could be easily inserted into the deep-drilling machine’s basic universal holders.

The E10 series deep-drilling machine selected from TIBO’s modular system was able to fulfil these requirements, with a vertical supply magazine for a total of 80 workpieces and a gantry gripper for loading and unloading the deep-drilling stations. Intensive communication with the customer and detailed analysis of the numerous workpiece drawings were extremely important for the design of loading and unloading automation processes, and for the necessary clamping equipment in the deep-drilling stations. The process data storage devices integrated into the series’s control units facilitated customer set-up of the wide variety of parts. A single tap on the machine control unit’s touch panel allows the necessary cutting data to be loaded for every workpiece, including defined parameter monitoring.

“That has been our standard for a long time,” says Röcker.

“Ultimately, it is our own desire to continuously reduce set-up time, both for mechanical components and for machine control units, so as to remain the leading provider of deep-drilling machines.” www.tibo.com www.teco.net.au

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M2 facility to boost Australian medtech

Australia’s breakthroughs in life-changing medicine including medical devices, vaccines and cell therapies are set to accelerate with a new facility that combines technology, research and medical science.

M2 has been created by CSIRO, Monash University and Monash Health Translation Precinct (MHTP). The new ‘one stop shop’ will bring the best minds and technology together to turn great ideas into a reality for Australia’s flourishing medtech industry and benefit millions of patients as a result of the breakthroughs expected.

Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Senator Arthur Sinodinos, officially launched the M2 precinct on 31 August, at CSIRO’s new Biomedical Materials Translation Facility (BMTF) in Clayton, Victoria.

“From life-changing cochlear implants, to life-saving vaccines, world-first 3D printed bone and tissue replacements, Australia has an incredible track record when it comes to medical technologies and pharmaceuticals,” Senator Sinodinos said. “M2 will help to accelerate development of technology like this, not only vital for the improvement of the lives of Australians facing medial challenges, but also leading to job and economic growth for Australia.”

Australia is home to more than 500 companies working in the medical technologies and pharmaceuticals (MTP) sector. Many of these are small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which can struggle to make the expensive, time consuming transition from prototype to clinically tested product.

M2 aims to close this gap for Australian businesses, providing a research ecosystem to transition new discoveries from the bench to prototyping, pre-clinical testing, industry evaluation and commercialisation.

“M2 leverages some of Australia’s best medtech expertise, experience and equipment,” said Dr Keith McLean, CSIRO Director of Manufacturing. “When a company comes to us we can use CSIRO and MHTP facilities to develop and analyse productionscale prototypes, whilst the Monash Biomedical Imaging facility can provide advanced pre-clinical and clinical testing and imaging.”

With global populations ageing and emerging markets seeking better health care, there’s huge growth underway in the MTP sector.

It’s expected to be worth almost $3 trillion by 2025, while $18bn and 28,000 new jobs could be added to the Australian economy over the next eight years.

“Monash is determined to help build a new, globally competitive biomedical industry with our partners,” Monash University Provost and Senior Vice-President Professor Marc Parlange said. “This initiative will deliver real health benefits to all Australians. Our healthcare spending is expected to almost double to 16% of GDP by 2040. Cheaper and more effective medical solutions are better for our health and Australia’s financial future.” www.csiro.au www.monash.edu www.mhtp.org.au

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UoS engineer awarded for diabetes monitor innovation

Engineers Australia has named Professor Xiaoke Yi as one of Australia’s most innovative engineers in the Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers 2017 awards.

Professor Yi from the faculty’s School of Electrical and Information Engineering was one of three Australian engineers recognised in the ‘Manufacturing and Automation’ category for her new painfree, low-cost method to help people with diabetes monitor their ketone levels. She will continue to develop this project as one of the first cohort of fellows of the University’s new Sydney Research Accelerator (SOAR) program.

Professor Xiaoke Yi. Image courtesy: Engineers Australia.

“I feel greatly honoured to join this list of Australia’s most innovative leading engineers,” said Professor Yi. Professor Yi led the development team that created the device, which measures ketones – chemicals produced in our liver when other forms of energy called energy substrates are not available, such as glucose. For type 1 diabetes patients, elevated ketone levels can be life-threatening.

As well as making society healthier through her biomedical research, Professor Yi is working to make Australia a safer place to live through innovative engineering work with the Department of Defence. She is also championing a multidisciplinary approach to research and innovation in nanotechnology through her work as ‘Computing, Communication and Security’ theme leader in the Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

“I believe that innovation can bridge the gaps between research, industry and end-users,” Professor Yi said. “My vision is to deliver

major breakthroughs that will bring about positive changes in fields such as healthcare and defence, and help build a healthier, safer and better society.”

The annual Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers awards are open to all engineers working in Australia and are designed to recognise outstanding individuals who have made noteworthy contributions to the community, the industry and the profession. This year, the list comprised 30 Australian engineers. www.sydney.edu.au

New class of medical robotics to make keyhole surgery safer

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is spearheading the development of a new class of medical robotics that can see soft tissue, to make keyhole surgeries simpler, safer and cheaper.

The university is leading an international collaboration that has received a $996,000 Australia-India Strategic Research Fund grant from the Australian Government.

Project leader and renowned orthopaedic surgeon Professor Ross Crawford said the new robotic imaging system will allow surgeons for the first time to track the position of soft tissue in real time and in 3D.

Prof Ross Crawford, Dr Anjali Jaiprakash, Prof Jonathan Roberts from QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation.

“Patients recover from keyhole surgeries more quickly than open surgeries because the surgery is minimally invasive,” said Professor Crawford, from QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation and the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision. “However, keyhole surgeries are very complex for surgeons to learn and perform due to the sheer difficultly in seeing into and navigating their instruments through the tiny spaces inside the body.

“The robotic imaging system we’re building will vastly improve both visualisation and access issues, making keyhole surgery more accurate than ever before. We expect the rate of unintended injury during surgery will drop significantly and the training process for surgeons to be faster and safer.”

Professor Crawford said, unlike current medical imaging tools that can only track the position of bone and medical tools, the

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new system will combine state-of-the-art miniaturised stereo cameras, 4D ultrasound sensing and artificial intelligence. This will give the surgeon an accurate, real-time 3D model of the surgical site, and one that tracks the position of soft tissue like tendons and ligaments as well as bone and medical tools.

“Combining vision and ultrasound can provide us with vastly more information that we can use to identify and differentiate the objects within the surgical site,” Professor Crawford said. “Working with a dynamic 3D model rather than a flat image on a screen is also a real game changer in terms of accuracy in keyhole surgeries – it will give the surgeon precise knowledge of how deep the objects in the surgical site really are. We’re building the system for knee arthroscopy surgeries first but we’re confident this is a system that can be easily adapted for other surgeries – hip, shoulder, abdominal, heart.”

QUT will partner with researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, All India Institute of Medical Sciences-Delhi, University of Adelaide and Perfint Healthcare, in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur and Manipal University, to develop the robotic medical imaging system. www.qut.edu.au

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Medical

Medical devices give hope to traditional manufacturers

Manufacturing companies in Australia are finding niches in the medical technologies sector as their traditional markets diminish, and South Australia is rapidly emerging as a key hub.

With the exit of mining and automotive component manufacturers from Australia, industry and government support have helped some firms evolve their advanced manufacturing skills and enter the medical technology market. Medical device production in Australia has grown by 1.3% annually since 2012 and is now valued at $3bn a year according to IBISWorld.

South Australia is emerging as a hub for the medical devices industry and is home to the Tonsley Innovation Hub and the Adelaide BioMed City precinct, a $3bn tripartite health hub comprising a major hospital, research centres and educational institutions. The Tonsley hub is located on the site of a former Mitsubishi car manufacturing plant in Adelaide, and major tenants include medical device manufacturer Micro-X, Siemens and ZEN Energy.

From automotive into medical The downturn in world commodity prices has forced South Australian company Plastico and Hackett Engineering to shift its focus from mineral analysis equipment development to components for orthopaedic implants. The company first dabbled in medical devices in 2014 but has now decided to make it a major focus following collaboration with another Adelaide-based firm, Austofix.

Plastico and Hackett Managing Director David Schiller said 20 years’ experience making mining components had it well

The Tonsley Innovation Hub in Adelaide.

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placed to succeed in the medical field: “The decline of the mining industry in Australia has forced us to look at other things. China seems to be commanding a large chunk of the mining components manufacturing and we have seen our business move there recently, which is hard. There is a large push for South Australia to transform itself into a medical device hub and there is an opportunity for us to do well here.”

Austofix has developed innovative orthopaedic trauma devices for more than 25 years including a device that allows surgeons to accurately insert an implant inside a bone without the use of x-rays. The Ezy-Aim Electronic Digital Targeting System and associated nails are used to repair fractures of the femur, tibia and humerus bones. Plastico and Hackett received a $47,500 grant from the South Australian Government to help it transition.

South Australia-based SMR Technologies is an independent division of SMR Automotive Australia focused on the design, manufacture and distribution of high-quality products for a broad range of industries. SMR Automotive is a leading car sensor manufacturer and developed the world’s first plastic automotive mirrors, earning it more than $160m in exports.

However, the exit of the automotive industry from Australia also has it looking to medical devices.

SMR is working on a number of products including take-home tests for bladder cancer patients. The non-invasive devices

use biosensors to test urine and aim to help people avoid uncomfortable follow up tests where tubes are inserted into the urethra to access the bladder.

In an industry-university collaboration in Adelaide, researchers from the University of South Australia and Flinders Medical Centre are preparing the device for a 1000-patient hospital trial. An SMR spokesman said the company was very interested in exploring more opportunities in the area of cancer research.

“Cancer is a global issue and we hope that these sensors will play a key role in the fight against the deadly disease,” he said.

The spokesman said preliminary results suggested it was a superior method to common cancer detections methods such as cytology and endoscopy.

Injectable medicine factory to set up in Tonsley A groundbreaking ‘fill-and-finish’ injectable medicines factory will soon be opeining in Tonsley Innovation Hub, after securing crucial set-up funds in an investment round.

As reported in InDaily, biopharmaceutical company GEN1 last year revealed its aim to create up to 200 new jobs and inject around $650m into the state economy over a decade with its new operation pending the establishment of a suitable site and international investment. These caveats have now been met, after a funding round raised $8m through Australian private equity investors, local banks and the South

Medical Micro-X staff working on the DRX Revolution Nano at their Tonsley headquarters in South Australia.

production of its lightweight machines. It has since manufactured a small number of pre-production carts, which have been through a detailed validation process.

Micro-X Managing Director Peter Rowland said the product would use Carestream’s DRX digital detector and the company’s global marketing and distribution reach.

“We are pleased and proud to have achieved this highly significant milestone in the Nano’s commercialisation program,” he said. “Our focus now is on supporting Carestream’s upcoming trade trials and preparations for volume production at Tonsley with our supply chain partners.”

About half of Micro-X’s staff previously worked at General Motors’ Holden car assembly plant in Adelaide, allowing Rowland to use their production line expertise to streamline his own manufacturing process.

University of South Australia surface and material engineers Professor Krasimir Vasilev who is working with SMR on the Bladder cancer test.

“So much of it is about the supply chain,” he said. “We can build one of these things in four hours so we can be very flexible to respond to market demand but it comes down to how many parts are on our shelves. Therefore managing the supply chain is a big part of what we’re doing.”

Australian Government’s Health Industries Fund. GEN1 Chief Financial Officer Kishen Vijayadass said the initial investment round “will support the company’s delivery of a factory in Adelaide that will benefit all Australians”.

“Adelaide has a vibrant, fast-growing life sciences community and the South Australian Government, through Health Industries SA, was very responsive to GEN1 and provided invaluable support,” he said.

The company says its planned 15,000sqm factory, which would formulate base compounds into medicines to fill syringes, vials and cartridges as ready-to-use injectables, will be the first of its kind and scale in the country. Australia currently imports injectable medicines for chronic conditions such as cancer, hypertension and diabetes. The national market for injectable medication exceeds $10bn annually and is growing by 15%-20% cent a year, according to IMS Health.

Health Industries SA CEO Marco Baccanti said GEN1 would be a boon for the state’s health system, with “the potential to save SA up to $70m a year in medication spending”.

“GEN1 will be in a great position to provide high-quality cost-effective products, and it will be doing so locally, right here in Adelaide,” he said.

Lightweight X-ray machine gains FDA approval AN Australian-made lightweight x-ray machine set to revolutionise mobile radiography has been given approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. Micro-X recently announced to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) that the FDA had determined the “substantial equivalence” of its DRX Revolution Nano, meaning it can now market the product in the US. The 510 (k) approval is the first regulatory approval for a carbon nanotube powered x-ray product following a collaboration between the South Australian company and US-based Carestream Health, a global leader in medical film and digital imaging solutions. To be sold in up to 130 countries, the DRX Revolution Nano uses carbon nanotube technology to dramatically reduce weight and increase portability.

Micro-X established its headquarters at the Tonsley Innovation Hub in Adelaide, in January 2016 in preparation for the

The machine’s sleek and compact design, coupled with the carbon nanotube technology and an advanced lithium iron phosphate battery helps it achieve a weight of about 93kg. Carestream’s previous model weighs in at 567kg. The lighter weight also means the machine does not need a motor to move around, making it easy to transport and position in cramped critical care areas.

Micro-X has capacity to build four machines a day on a single shift but its facility can be extended to meet demand.

The carbon nanotube technology that makes the lightweight machines possible was developed at the University of North Carolina and partially at Duke University in the US. Micro-X has the sole rights to apply the technology in the field of mobile medical. Micro-X has a contract with the Australian Department of Defence to develop and demonstrate the technology of an ultra-lightweight, digital mobile x-ray, which is optimised for use in military deployed medical facilities. It also has a contract to develop a small, lightweight, Mobile Backscatter Imager (MBI) system for stand-off imaging of Improvised Explosive Devices. www.tonsley.com.au www. plasticohackett.com.au www.austofix.com.au www.smrtechnologies.com www.micro-x.com

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one-on-one

Kate Carnell AO is the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman for the Federal Government. She spoke to William Poole.

AMT: Tell us about the role of Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and its broad objectives.

AMT: What sort of issues do you see coming up regularly for SMEs at the moment?

Kate Carnell: Sure, well, the legislation was passed through Parliament the year before last – with support from all sides, both major parties and all across benches – that produces an independent office to work for small business. The role is appointed by the Governor General, so it does not report to the government of the day.

KC: The major issue right now is energy, by a country mile! Twelve months ago the price of power and of gas would have come up very occasionally . Now it’s front and centre. It’s the major issue that’s on the minds of lots of businesses. Their power prices have gone up significantly and it looks like continuing to go up, and for many businesses – particularly in the manufacturing space but also in the agricultural space as well – this is the difference between a viable business and a business that’s not viable. We’re seeing increases of 100% or 200%, in prices of energy – of gas and electricity. And for many small businesses, that’s the difference between whether they can continue in Australia.

Small business is defined as businesses under 100 employees, so it’s really small-to-medium business. The legislation sets up two particular roles. One is an advocacy role, and under the advocacy part of what we do, we have input into Government regulation and legislation to ensure it’s small business-friendly. I give advice to the Minister or Ministers on small business issues, and we can hold enquiries: both self-generated enquiries, and also the government can ask us to do particular enquiries into small business issues. The legislation gives us what are pretty much Royal Commission powers.

We can seek documents from Government, from big business; we can require people to turn up; we can subpoena documents if people don’t want to give them to us. So the advocacy role is quite strong, and that is to ensure that the approach of Government and of big business is more small business-friendly.

The second bit is the more traditional Ombudsman function. We handle issues and complaints that small businesses might have against Government or large business, and we attempt to get solutions via mediation rather than the court system.

AMT: What might an ordinary day in the job entail?

KC: We have an advocacy team and an assistance team, which both sit underneath me. Today I’m speaking at a small business development conference in Townsville attended by a range of people who give advice to small businesses, people who educate small businesses, and also innovation centres and so on. We’re talking about what we do, what we can do for them, trying to get feedback from them on what the major issues are out there so that we can address them. I spend a lot of time working with Government on proposals and on legislation generally. And I suppose it involves also just getting feedback from small business and the SME sector on issues they would like addressed.

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I was talking to a business this morning, a small-ish manufacturing business, but they export a lot – a good percentage of what they do is exported. But they’re now seriously looking at going offshore, which will lose 50 jobs in that particular business, in a regional centre. And we hear those sorts of stories all the time.

The other issue that is always front and centre is payment times.

And that is small businesses being paid slowly by big business and Government. In the speech I just gave, one of the questions was from somebody who said one of their clients has just been moved onto a new contract with a big multi-national where standard payment time is 150 days. No small business can last that long.

They have to pay their staff and their suppliers and so on. And that’s becoming unfortunately a really common situation or a common story. It appears that more large businesses are using their small business suppliers as cheap banks.

Cashflow is obviously fundamental to small business. The cost of operation like power and so on, is always a major issue. And interestingly, Australia has always been expensive from a wages perspective, but the thing we were competitive on was the price of power. That was the thing we were actually cheaper on than many of our competitors. That’s obviously changed, and it’s a real problem. It’s about being competitive against imported products, or competitive in the export market. If they’re not competitive, they will close.

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AMT: How is the Ombudsman assisting SMEs in dealing with these issues?

KC: Where it’s an individual problem like a big business not complying with contract or not paying on time, we work directly with the big company, and I approach it at CEO level, looking for resolution. We use mediation approaches, we can require businesses to attend mediation if it gets to that – you always hope it doesn’t and that people see the light early. So we act on behalf of small businesses on those one-on-one situations where they have a problem.

In the advocacy space we might hold an enquiry, as we did into payment times. We’ll possibly put some recommendations to Government and more broadly. So with payment times we found that large multi-nationals were paying slower and slower so we’ve been working with the Business Council of Australia. They’ve established a payment time register and a code of conduct to encourage their members to pay in 30 days, and they’re encouraging their large members to sign the code and move their payment times to something more reasonable. We’ve made the point that we’re willing to give out 12 months to see if it works. If it doesn’t work we’ll be urging Government to regulate in this space. And I have to say Government is fairly positive about that, if a voluntary register doesn’t work.

So we work at a policy level with Federal Government. If it’s a State Government issue, we work with our colleagues at state level, the small business commissioners, which exist in most states in Australia. We work with them as a team to get policy change.

AMT: With regard to manufacturing in particular, Australian manufacturing is often described as an industry of SMEs. Why do you think that is and what is impeding our manufacturers from making the transition into larger businesses?

KC: I think we regularly find with successful Australian small manufacturers that they’re bought by big guys because they’re good companies and are seen as a good investment, so that’s one of the issues.

But the other issue we think is a large problem in Australia is access to capital. People talk about the valley of death. There is start-up capital available, there’s angel capital, there’s Government help with start-ups and so on. But once you’ve established your small manufacturing business and it’s innovative and you’ve got some tax breaks and so on, you’re at the next phase where you need to move from a small successful business into a bigger business, you need access to capital. And often it’s not little bits of capital then, it’s big bits of capital, for major factory upgrades and so on. That capital is difficult to get in Australia, particularly if you’re not interested in going to the private equity space. If you’re looking at growing your business over the longer term, private equity on the whole won’t be interested, because their view is they want to buy a chunk of the business and they want you to double your profit or double your turnover in three to five years, and then sell.

Continued next page

AMT: Is that often a lengthy process?

KC: It’s sometimes slow. But for example, in our banking enquiry where we looked at small business loans and we came up with a range of recommendations, that particular piece of work was tabled – the Government asked us to do that in February. We’ve now got the banks to agree to a range of our recommendations, which will be put into place in the next few weeks, and the majority of the recommendations will be in place before the end of the year. Some things take a long time, some things don’t. You can put pressure in the right places and get movement.

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One-On-One Contined from previous page

That’s their model. If that model isn’t the sort of model you’re interested in, and you don’t have significant bricks and mortar – or you don’t want to risk that bricks and mortar like your house – access to capital is an issue in Australia.

Some of the other issues are obviously the Australian market is little and often heavily controlled by very few players. If you think about supermarket space: Aldi is making a bit of a dent at the moment and Coles and Woolworths have traditionally controlled the access to market for food manufacturers. If you didn’t have your product on the shelves of Coles or Woolworths, you didn’t have access to market. So you couldn’t grow your product at all. There’s been some issues with various markets in Australia. Food manufacturing is an obvious one. We have some hugely innovative manufacturers in that space but access to market is a real issue.

And we’re seeing more of those companies looking at the export market as not a secondary market but almost as their primary market, which gives them more of a chance to grow. And of course from a positive perspective, many of our markets – China and Japan and so on – like the fact that Australia is seen as safe, clean, and you can be confident that products manufactured in Australia will have in them what they say is in them and will be safe, healthy and other things we say we are. That’s helping in that space, but we’ve only got 24m people, so that limits growth and the control of market by very few players can limit growth as well.

So it’s good to see more companies look to offshore markets as almost a first step, not something secondary to what they do.

AMT: I saw an article you wrote recently promoting Efic (the Federal Government’s export credit agency). Would you say that’s a key part of your work, channelling small businesses to other bodies who can offer assistance?

KC: Absolutely! It’s surprising to me that a large number of businesses didn’t know that Efic was there and was able to provide capital for a range of things, like stock to underpin export orders.

Many small businesses just didn’t know that it was there. And as I say, more of those small manufacturers are needing to see export markets as a really important prime part of their business. So they’ve got to have access to those sort of stock guarantees, capacity to underwrite large orders, all those sorts of things. It’s important that businesses understand what’s available to them now, and also it’s important to us to make sure that Government is aware of some of the challenges to small business in terms of access to capital. You often hear there’s plenty of money around – well there is, but it’s just really hard for small businesses that don’t have bricks and mortar to guarantee their loans to get that money.

AMT: It’s interesting what you say about the number of small businesses who just don’t realise what help is out there. Can you shed some light on any other programs available for manufacturers, either that the Ombudsman is involved in or that you’re partners to.

KC: Efic is obviously one of them. We only started last March, so that’s been the only project we’ve been heavily involved with, along with some of the start-up grants, at this stage. But what we’re seeing more and more is small manufacturers who are in that area between start-up and up-and-running or growing that business strongly, with real cash problems. So that’s something we’re focussing on with Government at the moment. It does seem that there’s a gap between start-up grants to help getting your business up and running, and then what happens when you need the next bit of capital to grow your business. Where does that come from?

That seems to be a gap.

There particularly seems to be a gap in the manufacturing space.

It’s not such a problem for the IT start-ups, the digital companies – for a whole range of reasons and possibly because they don’t need so much capital to get into a growth space, but they’re also

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probably seen as “trendier” for business angels for private investors than traditional manufacturers. I’m reticent in saying manufacturing isn’t trendy; it’s obviously something that’s really important to Australia. There’s been a view that Australia can’t compete in the manufacturing space, when of course we can. We can compete and we do a whole range of things really well, but manufacturing is probably not an area that lots of private capital has looked at.

That’s possibly also because of timelines… manufacturers often take a bit of time to get the business firing on all cylinders. There’s no fast buck, as there is in the areas of the digital economy.

There seems to be quite a bit of private equity capital around for companies that want to take 50% equity with a view that a business should double its turnover within three years and sell it. Those sort of short timeframes are more difficult in the manufacturing space where you’ve got to ramp up, get your product to market, and so on. It’s often a longer timeline to get where you want to be before selling the business. Assuming you want to sell at all and not continue to grow your business.

I think there’s one other thing to focus on from a manufacturing perspective and that’s the problem we still have in Australia with government procurement, particularly from smaller businesses. If we think about the defence area, where we’ve got a whole lot of very high-tech, smart manufacturers in the defence space. It’s still incredibly difficult for Australian manufacturers to get Australian Governments to take what they seem to perceive to be a risk on a smaller Australian company rather than continuing with large multinationals. The dilemma for Australian companies is that they end up being sub-contractors to Prime contractors, where the big multi-nationals have got the prime contract with the Federal Government, and there’s lots of challenges down the supply chain: issues are around payment times, with big multinationals paying slowly; problems with IP being under pressure when you’re a subcontractor; in high-tech spaces there’s the dilemma of having prices squeezed significantly. Government still hasn’t really nailed how they use procurement to grow Australian manufacturing businesses and Australian technology generally. Governments talk about it, but they haven’t nailed it yet.

AMT: Tell me about your professional background.

KC: I’m a pharmacist. I ran my own chain of pharmacies for 15 years, in various parts of Australia. So I ran my own small business for a long time, so that gave me the real-life experience of my house being on the line. And through that I ended up in politics, and I was Chief Minister of the ACT for two terms, which I suppose gave me a solid view of how Government works. After leaving politics I then ran a number of national membership-based associations including the Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Food & Grocery Council. I ran a number of those sorts of organisations, working with other small businesses. So hopefully those things comes together to give me a reasonable background for what this role should look like.

AMT: And what’s the most satisfying aspect of the job?

KC: Oh this is a fantastic job. I’m independent, so my role is to work with all sides of politics on behalf of small businesses. I can focus on what SMEs need. We have a budget, not huge but a $6m budget, I’ve got a great staff. We can focus on actually making a difference for small businesses. Unlike my work in national associations, where we had a membership base and you work on behalf of your members, in this case we can really focus on small business broadly and where we can we make the most difference, either individually through assistance through our Ombudsman function or more broadly through our advocacy function.

And we have the power to be able to deliver on some of these things. So how lucky am I? www.asbfeo.gov.au

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additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing in finished part quality With its LASERTEC 65 3D, DMG MORI presents a hybrid machine that is currently unique on the market, which incorporates additive laser deposition welding in a fully-fledged five-axis milling machine.

DMG MORI has integrated the additive laser deposition process in a fully-fledged five-axis milling machine. This intelligent hybrid solution combines the flexibility of additive component manufacturing with the precision of machining, thus enabling the additive manufacture of complete components in finished-part quality. This procedure uses a deposition process by means of a metal powder nozzle, which enables complete machining without the need of a process chamber and is up to ten times faster than generation in a powder bed. It also makes it possible to produce overhanging contours without a supporting geometry.

The combination of laser deposition welding and machining on one machine opens up completely new possibilities in terms of applications and geometries.

In particular large components can be produced cost-effectively with this hybrid solution. In addition the flexible changeover from laser processing to milling makes it possible to machine component segments directly that would otherwise be impossible to reach on the finished part. The market for additive processes has grown at a rapid rate in the recent past. Until now such processes were limited to the production of prototypes and small parts that could

not be manufactured with any other traditional methods. The combining of both processes – additive as well as metal cutting on one machine – has resulted in additive technology complementing and expanding traditional machining methods.

The LASERTEC 65 3D for additive manufacturing is equipped with a 2.5kW diode laser for laser deposition welding, whereby the fully-fledged five-axis milling machine from DECKEL MAHO with its sturdy monoBLOCK design also enables high-precision milling operations.

“With its fully automatic changeover between milling and laser operation, the LASERTEC 65 3D is ideally suited for the complete machining of complex components with undercut as well as for repair work and the application of partial or complete coatings for mould making, mechanical engineering and medical technology”, explains Richard Kellett, Product Manager Additive Manufacturing at Sauer Lasertec.

Producing large parts generatively In contrast to laser melting in a bed, laser deposition welding large parts to be manufactured metal powder nozzle. With an

powder enables using a average

build-up rate of 750 grams per hour this process is up to ten times faster than the laser generation of parts in a powder bed.

The combination with milling enables a variety of completely new applications. The component can be built up in several steps, whereby milling can be interspersed with deposition welding in order to allow areas to be machined to final accuracy that the cutter would no longer be able to reach when the component is finished due to the component geometry.

The hybrid machine combines the advantages of milling, such as high precision and surface quality, with the flexibility and high build-up rate of powder deposition welding.

“In the case of integral components, where today 95 % of the material is removed by milling, with additive processes, material is only built up where it is needed,” explains Kellett.

The machine is controlled via a 21.5” ERGOline with Operate 4.5 on SIEMENS 840D solutionline. The control for the laser process is housed in a separate control cabinet, which makes it far easier to integrate this system in other DMG MORI machines.

Production of 3D contours Using a laser diode, the metal powder is deposited in layers onto a base material and fuses with it without pores or cracks; the metal powder forms a high-strength

With the LASERTEC 65 3D, DMG MORI has integrated the additive laser deposition process in a fully-fledged 5-axis milling machine.

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additive Manufacturing

3D Printing High Strength Composite Carbon Fibre The combination of laser deposition welding with machining on one machine opens up completely new possibilities in terms of applications and geometries.

welded bond with the surface. A coaxial inert gas prevents oxidation during the build-up process. After cooling, a layer of metal forms, which can then be machined mechanically.

As laser deposition welding has long been established as a standalone technology, it is ideal for incorporating into DMG MORI’s high-quality CNC machines.

“The combination of chip removal and additive processes will become more important in future, as it opens up many new options and advantages for the user,” says Kellet.

One strength of this process is the option of gradually building up layers of different materials. Two optics are used currently with track widths of 1.6mm or 3mm. Even complex 3D contours can be generated without any supporting geometry.

The individual layers can then be accurately machined before the areas become inaccessible to a cutter or other tools due to the component geometry. The combination of the two processes is an expedient choice for repair work and the production of tools and moulds. However, it also offers many interesting options for lightweight components, prototypes or small series production – particularly in the large-part manufacturing sector where other additive manufacturing processes cannot be used due to limited space.

Economical solution Large machines, such as those used for machining bulky components in the energy or aerospace industries, tend to be expensive. So reducing roughing, deposition and finishing to a single machine therefore represents a financially advantageous solution for the customer.

What is new here is the generative buildup of two materials in a single component.

This entails alternating between powders with the specific aim of uniting different material properties in one component.

Combinations of hard and soft materials can be produced in this way, for example.

Enhanced component properties and more cost-efficient use of the expensive material are the result.

What is more, component properties can be programmed in advance and generatively and reproducibly manufactured thanks to the CNC-controlled changeover of the powders. This is an advantage for the production of cutting blades in the toolmaking branch. A cheap ductile material can be used for the base body, for example, and an ultra-hard material, such as high-speed steel with hardnesses of around 62 HRC, for the blades themselves.

First tests indicate a longer service life for the generatively manufactured component due to the clever combination of a tough base body and an ultra-hard blade.

In the energy and oil industry, components very often have to be coated with corrosionresistant alloys to protect them against wear.

Deposition welding provides protection for products such as pipes, fittings, flanges and special constructions intended for use in aggressive environments. With a hybrid solution, machining of the base material, coating and finishing can all be carried out on one machine. This results in cost savings and a reduction in throughput times.

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The laser deposition process using a metal powder nozzle enables the combination of different materials.

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additive Manufacturing

Is welding the Trojan horse of metal additive manufacturing?

Metal additive manufacturing regularly generates headlines focused on in its capabilities in the production of new parts, but its applications in the modification or repair of existing components is often overlooked – not least in the field of welding. By Kenneth Vartanin and Pascal Pierra of Optomec.

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) technology is gaining momentum, but the level of adoption is still quite low compared with traditional subtractive metalworking methods. In 2016, only 957 metal AM machines were sold worldwide, compared with hundreds of thousands of CNC subtractive machine tools.

Part of the reason for the low adoption level may be the misconception that metal AM technology can only be used to 3D print new parts, which limits its potential use. This may be due to the fact that the most commonly used metal AM technology, powder bed fusion (PBF), can only 3D print new parts built-up on flat two-dimensional plates. However, metal AM technologies, such as powder-fed directed energy deposition (DED), can not only 3D print new metal parts, but can also add materials to existing components, enabling a broader range of applications such as repair, surface modification, and hybrid manufacturing (which combines traditional processes together with AM).

In essence DED is an automated precision welding process for building or repairing parts. With the global shortage of skilled welders, industry must find new methods to make their current workforce more productive. Could welding be the Trojan horse to accelerate industrial adoption of metal AM? In this article, we present new DED applications that can make it easier to justify and deploy metal AM applications.

Technological background Laser-based AM technology was invented in the 1980s, and the two most commonly known methods available for commercial use today are PBF and powder fed DED systems. PBF systems use a laser to selectively melt a bed of metallic powder layer by layer to build up the physical part. After the first layer is spread and sintered, the bed is filled again with a second layer of powder and selectively sintered. This process is repeated until the part is fully formed. The end result is buried in a cake of powder and is not visible until the excess powder is removed.

Powder-fed DED systems continuously blow powder through nozzles directed at the focal point of a high-powered laser. The resultant molten pool of metal (sometimes referred to as a weld pool) is then moved using a motion control system and the part is built up in free space. The entire process is visible as the part is grown layer by layer.

A laser fuses metal powder to form one of many successive layers that will form the final part.

Courtesy: GE Oil & Gas.

Metal powder is blown through nozzles to the focal point of a laser, forming the part layer by layer. Courtesy: Balmar.

Each process has its advantages. The PBF method is better at building smaller, more complex-shaped parts, and produces a better surface finish. The powder fed DED method is faster and better at adding material to existing parts (as in repair or hybrid manufacturing). In general, powder-fed DED technology produces fully-dense material that has excellent mechanical and fatigue properties. For building small metal components, PBF machines can be used in many cases, except if a functionally graded material is required, or if the desired material is one not commonly processed

by PBF systems. For building large parts or repairing worn or defective metal components, powder-fed DED machines, such as the LENS machines offered by Optomec, are stronger candidates.

LENS DED – An automated precision welding process The size of the weld bead produced with the LENS DED process can be as small 200 microns or as large as 6mm in diameter. This flexibility enables a range of applications from building thin wall structures to precision repair to adding wear resistant coatings to components. Unlike MIG or TIG welding, the highly targeted nature of the LENS DED process enables addition of materials to metal components with minimal heat affect to the surrounding area.

For companies that work exclusively with materials such as stainless and tool steels, Inconel, and other non-reactive metals, open atmosphere LENS systems are available. Just like in welding, an argon shield gas is used to protect the weld pool from contamination. For processing titanium, aluminium, refractories, and other reactive materials, LENS systems can be equipped with an atmosphere controlled hermetically sealed chamber that maintains oxygen and moisture levels below ten parts per million.

The LENS DED process also includes closed loop feedback controls that automatically adjust laser power to maintain a constant heat input to the melt pool and cooling rate during the deposition process. A constant cooling rate is essential to quality metal deposition. Because of these process attributes and controls, materials produced with the LENS process have excellent mechanical properties equal to or better than cast and in many cases similar to forged materials.

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additive Manufacturing LENS DED has been used successfully to extend product life and to repair damaged components.

Courtesy: Optomec.

A metal satellite housing built with hybrid process.

The base was machined from billet stock and thin wall structures were added with the LENS DED process. Courtesy: Optomec.

According to the American Welding Society (AWS), the US fabrication industry is now on course to have a shortage of 290,000 skilled welders by 2020. And this skilled workforce shortfall is not just a US problem. The average age of welders in Australia and the UK has now surpassed 55. The age profile of skilled welders has been skewed to the extent that shortages of welders is now an inevitable global problem. Experts in the field believe industry can’t train new welders fast enough to make-up for the shortfall.

So why is a shortage of skilled welders an important factor in driving adoption of DED AM technology? In an environment where there are not enough welding craftsmen, the only answer is to augment the skills of current and apprentice workforce with automated technology that make them more productive.

LENS DED welding applications General Electric’s use of AM to print fuel nozzles for their LEAP engine is well known. The investment in engineering, process development, and equipment to achieve these results would be beyond the reach of most smaller companies. In the long run, General Electric’s investment will provide an ROI through savings across the product lifecycle. However, less well known are equally compelling applications where AM is used to repair components.

For example, the US Army Anniston depot utilised LENS technology to repair engine components for the Abrams M1 tank.

Operating in a desert environment, M1 tank engines such as the Honeywell AGT1500 were experiencing extreme amounts of wear, requiring shorter interval maintenance cycles. The AGT1500 engine components are difficult to repair with traditional methods due to distortion effects caused by the high-heat welding process. With LENS, a highly focused laser beam delivered energy exactly to the repair area, reducing the heat affected zone (HAZ) enabling repair of these engine components. The LENS process allowed Anniston to repair worn engine components instead of replacing them, saving more than $5m per year.

provide a faster ROI, and also provide a pathway for organisations to develop more advanced AM applications for new product designs.

Breaking through the barriers There have been many lessons learned in Optomec’s 20-year journey to commercialisation of AM technology. One of the biggest is that any new technology, especially a disruptive manufacturing technology such as AM, takes time to gain acceptance. This acceptance must be earned by finding cost effective applications that provide clear advantage over existing methods.

To enable a more compelling economic justification, LENS technology recently was integrated into lower-cost CNC platforms, making LENS metal AM much more affordable – as well as more familiar and intuitive to shopfloor operators. With entry level pricing below $250,000, LENS DED systems offer more capability at less than half the cost of competitive 3D metal printers and are even less expensive than many automated welding systems.

The risks are high for a manufacturer to implement any disruptive technology, so methods to mitigate risk can help accelerate deployment. Finding applications such as repair to extend product life or improve production yield are great examples. And the funny thing is, if you’re working with metal parts today, your organisation already utilises crude AM technology in your welding department.

LENS DED technology enables your organisation to cost effectively advance your capability with precision welding while also providing a pathway to full 3D printing of new product designs. www.optomec.com www.emona.com.au

Another example is an electronic satellite housing where a hybrid process was used to reduce manufacturing costs and time to market. In this example, the disk base of the housing was machined from a billet and the thin wall structures were built up using LENS DED. The hybrid process reduced lead time by six months while also eliminating the need for specialized tooling.

Even small organisations can benefit from LENS repair capabilities, such as a food factory based in Albuquerque in the US. Last December, 505 Southwestern’s salsa production line was shut down due to a broken helical gear. With no spare gears in stock and an eight-week lead time to deliver a replacement gear, 505 faced a significant loss in production capacity during the busy holiday season. Using LENS, the Inconel helical gear was repaired and the 505-production line was back in operation in one day.

These examples may be less exciting than printing a unitised jet engine fuel nozzle, but these applications are easier to deploy,

A LENS atmosphere controlled hybrid system combining additive manufacturing and machining in one system.

Courtesy: Optomec.

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State Spotlight

Queensland – Manufacturing in the Sunshine State

Despite a few hard years and an ever-changing market, manufacturers in Queensland are still managing to thrive and grow their businesses. William Poole met up with three of them.

Kilner’s Engineering – Delivering quality Once dominated by shipbuilding and associated industries, Bulimba – in Brisbane’s inner-eastern suburbs – has changed significantly over the years, to the point where today where most local manufacturers have moved on. The last in the area is Kilner’s Engineering, a fixture since 1974. Barney Kilner founded the business in the mid-1940s with his two brothers at Salisbury under the name ‘Kilner Brothers’.

In the early 1970s the brothers split the business and Barney’s son Geoff came on-board as the business moved to Bulimba. He is now stepping back and handing over to a third generation, with his sons Scott and Brad Kilner taking over the running of the business. Scott explains how Kilner’s has changed since the early days, when it was a full repetition workshop with punches, presses and furnaces producing items such as blades for the agricultural industry and truck components.

“We used to do that in a lot of volume,” he said. “I think we had ten milling machines set up with jigs, and it was continual production.

But we’ve kept adopting new technologies, and as the agricultural industries got hit with droughts, and then tariffs changed in the mid-1980s, it reached a point where it was more economical to do jobbing work. So now we’re a full jobbing, contract-based business – no products.”

In making this shift, Kilner’s has also moved away from focusing on a small number of sectors, to the point where Scott says it would be misleading to cite any specific industry as a key market.

The company’s customer list is extensive and ranges across architectural, construction, trucking and marine clients, to high-tech industries such as defence and medical.

“We also do integrated systems,” Scott adds. “We try to produce the finished product in house, looking after all of the cutting, fabrication, machining and assembly. A finished part, ready to go.

That’s where we’re moving to, and we’ve been doing that for a number of customers for several years now.”

In servicing such a diverse client base, Kilner’s has differentiated itself by taking on challenging products and delivering to a high level of quality.

“Our customer base is moving towards the more complex and better-quality end of things,” says Brad. “They’re not hitting things with hammers, they’re expecting things to be folded perfectly the first time, not knocked into place. Near enough is not good enough. Which is why the diverse equipment we’ve got works so well, because we control the quality from raw material through to finished product.”

The combination of laser cutting, abrasive waterjet cutting, CNC machining, CNC mill-turn lathes, metal folding and fabrication equipment is unrivalled in Brisbane, and the ability to combine these with 3D Modelling and Design provides a true one-stop shop.

The adoption of 3D modelling and design has pushed this forward further. To meet the demands of the complex projects it engages in, Kilner’s maintains a highly skilled workforce. The company employs 14 staff, most with trade or university degrees and over 10 years’ experience. With its focus on investing in technology, delivering high-quality work and exceeding customer expectations, Kilner’s has maintained a steady flow of projects throughout the recent downturns in Queensland manufacturing.

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Kilner’s Engineering owners Brad and Scott Kilner.

Over the next 18 months Kilner’s is looking to relocate to larger premises somewhere nearby to allow for increased production and capacity. The additional floor space will help improve efficiency, and also provide operating room for a new 200-tonne, 4-metre LVD Press Brake, which has just been ordered.

Camtech Engineering – Moulding a niche Based in Labrador on the Gold Coast, Camtech Engineering is gearing up to celebrate three decades in business. The company was established in March 1988, with six partners forming the core expertise. Camtech has flourished and 30 years later now has around 40 staff, and specialises in toolmaking and precision engineering. Camtech’s core business is in plastic packaging.

“We produce the metal moulds that your plastic items are formed in,” explains Managing Director Gary Roche. “We produce precision blow moulds, producing plastic bottles, precision injection moulds, producing everything from co-moulded baby’s teats to plastic crates. Our precision manufacturing and quality has produced items for the defense industry. We are the major manufacturer in the country of the moulds that produce your milk bottles and their caps and our years of experience in this field has us at the forefront of innovative design and manufacture.”

The plastics industry in Australia has struggled in recent years among growing competition from overseas. However, Camtech has carved out a niche for itself through its ability to take on higher-value work and through its investment in state-of-the-art technology.

“We have full five-axis machining capabilities on both mill and lathe, precision CNC cylindrical grinders, we literally do everything in house. We are toolmakers with NC machines that simply help with our precision and quality” says Roche.

Queensland Heading

Camtech Engineering’s workshop in Labrador.

Mastercut Technologies’ owners Bill Dennis and Jim Cove.

That high level of capability also means Camtech is able to supplement its core market in plastics with work in other areas.

This has included everything from gun-drilling to producing special curved doorframes for a shop fitting company.

supplying acid-etching work for what was then quite a strong electronics industry in Australia, it has diversified considerably since, specialising within the twin fields of acid etching and laser cutting. The electronics sector remains important, but only accounts for about 25% of the business, with a broad church of clients encompassing jewellery at one end, up to large building facades at the other extreme. Mining, oil & gas are also significant clients, for which Mastercut produces a range of precision-cut stainless steel shims.

“We honestly have the capability to do anything. We specialise in premium quality products. We believe that to support Australian manufacturing it should be Australian made.”

Camtech has managed to hold off the threat of competition from overseas so far, opportunities are emerging allowing them to diversify into other areas – the company has been doing work in press tools and customised engineering solutions. Meanwhile, changes in the Australian plastics industry have resulted in Camtech taking a much larger role as a provider of services to its clients, rather than just delivering a physical product.

“We provide a vast range of services to our clients” says Roche. “A lot of manufacturing companies have down sized their capabilities for leaner operation, meaning they no longer have the staff or resources to maintain their equipment. We travel to every state in Australia commissioning the equipment that we supply. A number of issues with installing new moulds in the machines, are to do with the lack of quality maintenance on the machines and they need recalibrating. We’re getting tied in more because of the technical support service that we provide.

“We find ourselves working more closely with our clients in the initial design stages of their products, because of our experience, knowledge and innovative approach to thinking outside the box.”

Mastercut Technologies – Overcoming crisis Buying into a business can be nervewracking at the best of times, so doing so just before the biggest collapse in the global economy in decades must redefine the word ‘stressful’. Founded 28 years ago, Mastercut Technologies had been operating from its base in Burleigh Heads for around two decades when it caught the eye of Jim Cove and Bill Dennis, and the two men bought the company.

And then the global financial crisis (GFC) hit.

“That was a baptism of fire,” recalls Dennis. “Many of our customers at that time decided it was too hard to manufacture in Australia, so we lost several major clients to overseas, which resulted in a significant reduction in turnover. Here we were, three months into ownership and suddenly wondering if there was any light on the other side.”

The company has built something of a reputation for itself throught its ability to assist clients with the development of a product, looking for better ways to make it.

“We’re a niche manufacturer, so we respond to our customers, typically business-to-business customers, coming to us with their projects and us helping them through,” says Dennis. “Just yesterday we had a visitor from Sydney University who came to us with a problem. We were able to have a good roundtable discussion and brainstorm a solution, and from that we were able to come up with a plan of attack and go forward.”

The company is exploring opportunities to expand overseas, particularly in North America, where its expertise in working with thin materials and various metals sets it apart from other etchers and laser cutters. Moreover, a recent grant from the Queensland State Government under its Made in Queensland program will see Mastercut expand into its capabilities via the acquisition of two new machines: a standard brake press purchased locally; and a desktop forming machine from Germany designed to do micro-forming.

“We want to be able to form the parts we manufature, which is invariably a downstream process not done by us,” Dennis explains.

“We can now bring that in-house and provide customers with an end product that can go straight into their assembly line, rather than just a blank that they then have to send out again to have formed up.”

The new machines will also result in the equivalent of one and a half full-time jobs. Mastercut’s owners seem justifiably proud that the Made in Queensland grant will help their business to grow while also benefiting the state and its manufacturing industry.

Inevitably, retrenchments had to be made, but Dennis and Cove nonetheless managed to tighten their belts and keep the venture afloat: “We made a point of maintaining profitability, albeit small initially, to make sure we remained financially in a good position moving forward.”

“It’s no secret that manufacturing in Queensland is difficult,” Dennis concludes. “I feel proud that we’ve managed to maintain a manufacturing business, maintained solid employment. We’ve got long-term employees here, in fact most of our employees have been here longer than Jim and I, and developing the skills within the workforce has been important to us. I feel we’re lucky in that we’ve got quite a few good analytical brains so we can actually solve our problems before going outside for help. That’s been powerful for us.”

Today, Masterut has a turnover of about $2m annually, with around 11 employees. While the business initially established itself

www.kilner.com.au www.camtecheng.com.au www.mastercut.com.au

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State Spotlight

Queensland

Aqualuma – Australian-made LED lighting beats the imports

LED lighting manufacturer Aqualuma is no stranger in moving quickly to meet the market and seize opportunities.

This privately owned business, based on the Gold Coast has its heritage in the glamorous world of designing and manufacturing efficient underwater lighting for luxury motor yachts and cruisers. Whilst a desirable product, underwater lighting became very much a luxury rather than a necessity for owners of motor yachts in 2007-08 as the global financial crisis (GFC) hit, and the market contracted globally at a remarkable pace.

Dusting themselves off very quickly, Aqualuma’s owners recognised an opportunity in the less volatile market of commercial lighting to build on their expertise and relationships with LED chip and optics manufacturers.

Commercial highbay lighting products in the market at that time were of questionable quality inefficient and environmentally unfriendly.

The Aqualuma team spent a considerable time in the R&D lab, designing and testing to develop a world-leading LED highbay light. The result was a new LED high-bay luminaire that achieved high levels of energy efficiency while also proving environmentally friendly in that they were both recyclable and upgradable as technology improved. A warranty of seven years helped to overcome any scepticism the market held for the new technology The current Aqualuma range of premium LED high-bay lights ranges from 90w to 250w and includes a number of variants and optical options, ideally suited to manufacturers, engineering companies, logistics centres, freight companies, warehouses, storage faculties, vehicle showrooms, big-box retail stores and outdoor use. There is a pipeline of new products due to come out of the R&D centre later this year, targeting a number of new sectors in mining and food preparation/handling.

The company is proudly Australian and prides itself on manufacturing the entire range from its purpose-built facility on the Gold Coast using local labour and sourcing 90% of its components from local suppliers.

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The company’s heritage in the marine sector shows through in the quality of the Aqualuma product, with an aluminium marine-grade heat sink and body cast in Victoria, and plastics from a local supplier in Queensland. The Aqualuma range is a premium product with world-leading energy efficiency, optical capability and the ability to be controlled by sophisticated software.

Typical clients are blue chip companies with an eye on whole-of-life costing, payback and minimal maintenance costs.

The market for LED commercial lighting has been flooded over the past few years with imported product, inevitably driving quality down. Aqualuma has been nimble to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions and access new clients, responding to the challenge from imports by launching a new product: the ‘Lite-bay’, which complements its existing premium quality LED Highbay lights. The Lite-bay aims to compete with imported LED High-bay lights, with competitive pricing and superior performance.

The Lite-bay is a premium-quality product, with 130w output, IP66 water ingress rating, and a marine-grade epoxy powdercoated aluminium housing and heat sink.

The Lite-bay is a straightforward luminaire, designed for the business that needs a simple lighting solution to either replace existing metal halide lighting or to fit out new premises without complex controls

or optics. It uses many components and casting from the existing range of High-bay luminaires, ensuring that the unit is still of the highest quality and will outlast any of the competition.

Owing to its superior energy efficiency and reliability, the Aqualuma range is ideally suited to the demanding requirements of manufacturing, engineering and storage and warehouse facilities, where minimising running costs and maintenance are key. The Lite-bay is 130w and generally replaces an existing 400w metal halide commercial light. Its efficiency is a class leading 127 lumens/watt and it is water ingress rated to IP66, meaning that it can be used externally and hosed off for washing if required. Typically, energy savings of over 75% will be realised, making for quick payback. Across New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia there are energy rebates available making the changeover even more affordable and in some cases, making it cash-flow positive from day one when coupled to one of Aqualuma’s range of financing options.

Aqualuma carries out all its R&D, testing and manufacturing from its new purposebuilt facility at Helensvale. The owners are still actively involved in the business and it is usual to see them involved on-site working on clients’ projects. Aqualuma has remained the world leader in underwater marine lighting and has continued to innovate over the past 10 years to stay ahead of the competition and increase options for clients; it even markets a video camera that can film the fish that the lights attract and display it on on-board display screens.

The Aqualuma range for both marine and industrial/commercial is available across all states via a team of national distributors and direct sales. The company exports its products across the globe, and has received numerous awards for innovation and marketing – most recently winning the Premier’s Export Award for a second time in 2016. www.aqualuma.com

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State Spotlight

Investment and strong technical support key to success for Queensland manufacturers

Three Queensland manufacturers have made significant investment in the future with the latest hi-tech CNC machines and have found that even the remote locations of some are no barrier to high levels of technical support and training from Okuma, both on-site and via remote control.

Tuff Manufacturing After 40 years in engineering, Charlie Quagliata of Tuff Manufacturing established a new business in North Queensland and at the same time initiated a relationship with leading CNC machine supplier Okuma Australia for the first time. Tuff Manufacturing produces high-quality hydraulic cylinders for a range of applications including components for concrete trucks and agitators, and with a strong emphasis in the supply of components to original equipment manufacturers including steel and nylon rollers and chute cylinders.

“Operating a precision manufacturing operation approximately one hour’s drive south of Townsville meant that quality, reliability and back-up service on the machine was essential and Okuma had what I wanted in a large machine,” said Charlie. “Whilst I have an experienced team of skilled engineers, the high-level training aspect was also what we were looking for and the Okuma technicians didn’t leave until we were happy and they have bent over backwards with any early issue we experienced.”

What has impressed Charlie and his team is the versatility of its new 14-ton Okuma LB35IIISBBCx1500 lathe. The machine was

commissioned to do large work, but is now also efficiently producing parts of 100 grams in weight. The versatility of the machine is opening up new business opportunities for Tuff nationwide and allowing improvements to be introduced to existing components through a redesign process that is ongoing throughout the range. According to Charlie the new machine is making his company more competitive on larger jobs by up to 25% with perfect, consistent accuracy.

Whilst the skilled workforce at Tuff Manufacturing have been used to other equipment, operators have been quick to adapt to the new controller with its ease of programming and are keen to work on the new machine. Charlie commented that as a result of this experience he would have no hesitation in buying more Okuma machines.

Hodge Industries One of the world’s leading specialists in the manufacture and supply of machinery to the sugar cane industr, Hodge Industries has also invested in the latest high-tech Okuma LB3000EXIIBMYCx950 CNC lathe, building on a relationship with the machinery supplier of more than 20 years.

The new Okuma LB35IIISBBCx1500 lathe in Tuff Manufacturing’s workshop

Hodge Industries’ remote manufacturing location in Mackay, North Queensland, is 1,100km or 12 hours drive from Brisbane, meaning that precision, reliability and fast technical back-up were all essential elements. The new machine offers all of this and more, according to Managing Director Wayne Willis.

Founded in 1914, Hodge Industries is a fourth-generation family business that has been servicing the sugar cane industry in Australia since that date. It has also been exporting its advanced machinery and expertise to major sugar cane growing areas around the world such as Asia, Africa and South America since 1974.

The company manufactures a diversified range of agricultural equipment to meet the needs of the general farming community, manufacturing and fabricating products from raw materials to finished painted machinery in-house.

The company has been operating a 23-year-old Okuma CNC machine without experiencing any issues and was able to keep all the old tooling and the old programs. According to Wayne, training provided by Okuma on the new machine has been outstanding, extending the knowledge of the operators. The new machine also has many more safety features and benefits built in, resulting in a seamless changeover.

“The new machine has an impressive range of functions that completely meet our requirements,” said Wayne. “It has more facilities and is easier to program, it is userfriendly and the remote service functionality that allows a technician at Okuma to take over the machine and provide direct assistance to an operator on the job is just exceptional.

“Importantly the machine has saved us time from day one in operation. We are achieving reductions from four different operational stages to one on many jobs, with time savings of at least 50%, with one set-up with hubs, grease nipple holes, key ways, threading and soon all in one operation.”

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Queensland

Ray and John Hillier of Hillier Engineering.

“Okuma Australia’s high levels of service and back-up, supported by highly qualified technical personnel and the ability to remotely trouble shoot via ‘Team Viewer’ whilst an operator is on a job, is something that we value in our relationship with Okuma,” said John. “All our programs feed into the machines, and although we have very experienced operators on-site we received customised training whilst we were still producing so there was no time lost.”

Hodge Industries’ new Okuma LB3000EXIIBMYCx950 CNC lathe.

The investment in this new technology is showing many advantages. Set-up times are dramatically reduced with jobs now up and running within 30 minutes. This allows cost-effective short runs and reductions in inventory to be achieved plus a highquality finished product outcome. The new machine is opening up opportunities to enhance existing products through redesign, plus increased business potential with new customers such as methane gas testing cylinders for mine sites.

According to Wayne, the Queensland economy is turning around after its slump at the end of the mining boom, with coal prices recovering and with the agricultural business good over the last two years.

This 103-year-old company is looking forward to continuing growth in both its Queensland and export markets using the latest investment in technology to its full advantage.

Hillier Engineering Services Having purchased its first Okuma machine in 1992, Hillier Engineering Services is a longstanding customer of the precision machine supplier. The first machine still in operation and it remains as accurate today according to Managing Director John Hillier.

Hillier Engineering is a family-owned and operated CNC machining specialist and fabrication shop located at Acacia Ridge in Brisbane, established in 1988 by Ray and John Hillier. The company offers precision CNC turning, milling, and EDM wire cutting, CMM inspection, manual milling and turning for its Australian and international clients. The company uses the latest machining technology and has developed its own computer manufacturing database ‘Tracking Manufacturing’ to ensure clients requirements and delivery times are achieved at all times.

Hillier Engineering specialises in CNC machining of castings, forgings, fabrications and bar stock in all metals for a broad range of industries such as agriculture, construction, earthmoving, mining, mineral processing, refineries, railways, transportation, water treatment, equipment manufacturers, food & beverages, and marine.

The purchase of the latest Okuma MA650VB machining centre, with an OSPP300MA control, builds up the company’s extensive line-up of Okuma precision CNC machines, with a Robocut CNC EDM Wire Cutting machine also already installed in Hillier Engineering’s advanced manufacturing facility.

Having experienced first-hand the quality and standards to which the Okuma machines are built during a recent visit to the Okuma manufacturing plant in Japan, the management at Hilliers Engineering has a high level of confidence in the Okuma machines.

“The components we are producing on the Okuma machines are up to one ton in weight with fine tolerances of around 0.01mm, with a high surface finish,” John commented. “And the fourth axis set-up time is very quick for lower volume work.

The fourth-axis option is a big advantage along with the higher spindle speed of this high-speed machine.”

The new machine is opening up new opportunities for Hillier Engineering in both the Australia-wide domestic and international markets with an emphasis on defence and aerospace contracts, new clients and diversification into R & D electric charging stations. The company has a close relationship with Queensland University, producing components for the Scramjet engine development and intricate parts for R&D projects.

“Our skilled workforce are all enjoying the benefits of the latest technology with its functionality and standardised easy to operate programming,” said John. “Which gives us great confidence in producing large and small high-quality fine-tolerance components.” www.okumaaustralia.com.au www.tuffmanufacturing.com.au www.hodge.com.au www.hes.net.au

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Company Focus

Engineered Components – Meeting the challenges Like many Australian manufacturing companies, Engineered Components has seen some tough times in the last few years, but this Queensland-based outfit has the experience and capabilitities to see it overcome the setbacks and win some exciting projects.

Today Engineered Components employs five personnel at its workshop in Loganholme, a half-hour drive south of Brisbane. Its founder and director Adrian De Villiers remembers clearly the day he first set up the business.

“The tenth of October 1981 – I bought my first centre lathe,” he recalls. “I worked by myself for something like six years, then I employed somebody to assist me; he came in afternoons and we’d stay till about 10 oclock at night. I bought my first CNC lathe – a second-hand machine – and had that for about six years, then I bought another CNC lathe. The problem is every time you buy a machine you’ve got to employ another person. But we went on from there and kept on buying machines, expanding the customer base.”

The company started off mainly producing earthmoving components. It also worked with a local firm that made overhead cranes, with Engineered Components making all the machined components for them.

“We did that for a long long time, till they decided to shut up shop,” says De Villiers. “I think they sold to Monocrane, who had their own suppliers, so we missed out on that. But we continued with the earthmoving work. We did a lot of rebuilds on earthmoving gear, like the CAT front-end loaders and so on – we did complete rebuilds.

We built a line-boring machine, so we used to go out and do lineboring. We even got enquiries from as far away as Innamincka.”

From there the company moved into general engineering, taking on a variety of projects in collaboration with local companies Techniplan and A&S Steel. This in turn led to a significant involvement in the rail industry.

“We would do the machining, which we specialise in, and A&S Steel would do the fabrication and assembly, so we would have a complete package. For Techniplan we would supply the railways.

We did that for many years. It’s sort of died down now, but we made a lot of components for that.”

The years that followed saw a steady flow of work across a wide array of sectors, from the construction industry – making parts for concrete mixers – through to transport and logistics, with the company making container straddle carriers for the ports.

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“We built about 80 of those,” adds De Villiers. “We used to build them six at a time, and we’d also build parts for them. So we were very busy from that.”

While much of that work from the early years has gone overseas, Engineered Components has still continued to pick up work for the earthmoving & construction industry. Moreover De Villiers is happy to take on any challenge that comes through the door: “If people want a prototype we’ll make them a prototype.”

On top of this the company has developed a specialism in directional drilling, manufacturing a comprehensive range of crossover subsavers and other components and accessories for the drilling industry.

“It so happens that someone drove up the road here and went to see someone down the road and said ‘Can you make this?’” De Villiers recounts. “He said ‘No, go to Adrian. He’ll do it for you.’ And I’ve been doing it ever since then, since about 1998-99. We do that for all the different types of machines.”

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three weeks, and out of the 26 about ten were competent candidates. But now, I’ve had this ad for about four months and I’ve had four.

Testing times According to De Villiers, the first year after the global financial crisis (GFC) was the company’s best ever, in terms of both profits and turnover. However, as has been the case throughout the Australian manufacturing industry, the years following the crisis have been a difficult time for Engineered Components, with market conditions fluctuating drastically.

“After the GFC it slowly died down, and it got to the stage where the last three to four years have been very tough,” he says. “It showed signs of picking a few months ago. It actually picked up a bit just before last Christmas, then in April it started dying down again, and then about two months ago it started picking up again. But after the financial year-end it just died.”

Like many Queensland manufacturers, Engineered Components is also heavily engaged in the resources sector, and the downturn in mining over the last two or three years has also had an impact on the company.

“Mining has affected us. We do a lot of components for people that supply to the mines. There’s not much of that going on at the moment. Everyone is waiting on the Adani mine to happen, but I think everything there is going to be brought in from India. I don’t think we’re going to benefit from that much.”

De Villiers cites cashflow and rising costs as some of the biggest challenges facing his business, while the unpredicatable flow of incoming work is a problem that needs constant managing.

“Cashflow and continuation of orders from established customers are the big challenges,” he says. “With established customers, some of them give you the overflow of work, some just don’t have the work to give you. The other problem is everyone wants everything and they want it now. Mainly because people don’t keep stock any longer, and people don’t do scheduled maintenance. So when something breaks down, they need it fixed now. And it just throws the whole schedule into disarray.

“There’s also been a sudden spike in the recruitment agencies getting into it as well. I’ve had a couple of recruitment agencies take my ad and they bumped it up, and people reply to them. So they send you the résumé of this particular candidate, you agree to it, and they want 10% of the annual wage. If you’re paying someone $60k a year, they want $6,000 plus GST. I’ve actually got two people here that I got from recruitment agencies because I couldn’t find anyone else.

It’s a matter of having to do it.”

Once staff have been taken on, there’s also the issue of retraining them to meet the company’s specific needs: “You get somebody – and I mean , nobody’s perfect – but to get them to do it your way, it takes you about six months to train that person. And then in the ninth month they leave you.”

De Villiers believes improving the supply of skilled personnel is the key area where the Government can help manufacturers such as Engineered Components.

“I think they should reopen those TAFE colleges,” he says.

“Apprentice training is what is required desperately. I’m originally from South Africa. I was talking to someone there the other day, and they’re actually starting up an apprentice training centre on CNC machines. They take them in, and train them. You can either pay for your own training, or your boss can send you in for training. But when you leave you’ll have a pretty good idea of what it’s all about, and you’ll be able to go onto the machine and do it.

“You can’t let somebody loose on a $500,000 machine who might smash the thing. It’s always been a problem that you get a new employee and you stand there and watch him, walk past all the time to see what he’s doing, mainly to see that what he’s doing is not going to be detrimental to the machine. I mean, machines cost a lot of money to replace.”

Signs of recovery De Villiers believes the current state of manufacturing in Australia could be better, citing the situation in Queensland in particular as “fair to middling”. However, he sees signs of recovery on the horizon.

“Running costs have all increased, so what you do is try and work more productively. Some people put a robot on instead of putting a man on the machine, because robots don’t take sick days or holidays. But you’ve got to invest in that, and you’ve got to have the type of work to do it. We’re a general jobbing engineering shop, so every job is different.

“It’s not great. It’s not depressed, but it could be better,” he explains. “I think it’ll take another year for things to improve. On the current trend, which is very, very slow growth. We’ve gone through everything to cut costs left, right and centre, to improve the margin.

Even things like hand towels, you ring around to try and save a few dollars here and there.”

“Another thing is insurance on machinery, breakdown insurance.

That’s just skyrocketed. There’s not too many companies willing to take it on, and those that do want a premium. And that’s another cost.”

Nonetheless, while De Villiers acknowledges that times have been tough, his company is still managing to win some interesting jobs.

One notable recent contract has been in the defence sector, producing machines for the US Navy.

The dificulty in finding skilled staff is also a big issue, which De Villiers believes has worsened recently.

“We’ve built 12 of those machines so far, and there’s another four machines to go on that contract,” says De Villiers. “And they’re talking about extending that contract to 2027. We’re building two machines on average every 13-14 months. That’s a good little moneyspinner because it keeps us busy for three to four months at a time.” www.engcomp.com.au

“I’ve had an ad on SEEK for probably close to four months, and I’ve done countless interviews,” he remarks. “People just don’t have that skillset like they used to have. For example, a year and a half ago I had an ad on SEEK and I got 26 people applying within about

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Forming & Fabrication

The phoenix of the Gold Coast

A disastrous fire could have spelled the end for Australian gearbox manufacturer Digga. Instead, thanks to good management and a shrewd investment in Bystronic laser cutters and press brakes, the firm has gone from strength to strength. By Garry Barker.

Like a phoenix risen from the ashes, Digga, an Australian company renowned worldwide for their high-precision manufacturing of planetary gearboxes and many other engineering components, not only survived a disastrous fire in its factory, but, with the co-operation of Bystronic, used the recovery from the blaze to boost productivity, production and sales.

Digga’s origins are unusual. Founder and principal owner Stewart Wright began in 1981, living in a trailer park in Brisbane, selling wear parts for big augers for the construction industry, contacting customers on the park’s public telephone box.

“He is a very clever man, full of ideas,” says Marketing Manager Lionel Smitka. “Most of our success is due to him and his vision.”

Customers began asking him to handle repairs and provide equipment, so he began making augers, then drive units to power them, then attachments for loaders.Today it makes more than 70 different types.

“We got into planetary gearboxes in 1984, buying in gearsets. But supply was a problem; wait times were up to eight weeks. So we set up to make our own and still do. Gearboxes are our mainstay. We are renowned for them and their quality.

We have supplied thousands to a very large US organisation and many other users worldwide. Most gearboxes of this kind carry a one-year warranty. Ours is five years. Some have never been serviced and are still running after ten years.”

The company is also unusual in its industry in having a woman as its Managing Director and Chief Executive. Suzie Wright has been in the post since 2004, during which time Digga has grown into an internationally significant company.

The fire on 2 March 2016 destroyed or terminally damaged every machine in the company’s main factory at Yatala, 40km south of Brisbane, and gutted the entire 12,500sqm facility. Concrete walls survived, though they were covered in toxic soot from burned tires, solvents and paint; everything else was a ruin.

“Other owners might have grabbed the insurance money and closed down,” says Smitka. “Ours supported our recovery.”

“The fire has literally breathed new life into Digga,” adds Wright. “We were being forced to look to outsourcing some manufacturing offshore due to the heavy cost of new machinery investment and rising labor costs.”

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Digga Managing Director and Chief Executive Suzie Wright

However, the rejuvenation of the factory, the surge of loyalty and energy in the workforce as every aspect of production was renewed and reorganised, changed everything, she says.

No orders lost Within a week of the fire, Digga was back in limited production in rented premises and cutting steel, painting and powder-coating at five contractor sites around Brisbane.

“We moved some of our export production to our facilities in the USA and the UK,” says Production Manager Peter Moody.

“It was a really big challenge, but we never lost an order and every order was delivered on time.” Another critical factor was the response from the workforce on the factory floor. Led by Moody they worked very long hours, recovering production and maintaining quality at remarkable speed.

“And we are continuing to reduce setup and processing times, which in turn reduces costs and allows us to stay highly competitive in both local and export markets,” Wright says.

Meanwhile, supported by their insurers in the multimilliondollar cleanup, Digga’s management decided to replace every machine.

“Gear cutters, welders, press brakes, laser cutters – the lot,” says Smitka. “And that’s how we came to know and appreciate Bystronic.”

New, world-class machines Competition from low-cost competitors in China, India, Vietnam and Thailand has sent many Australian manufacturers to the wall. Ford, General Motors Holden and Toyota have closed their Australian plants, costing 50,000 jobs directly and indirectly at hundreds of local component and accessory makers and suppliers.

In this gloom, Digga is a shining light. By investing in the world’s best equipment – in Digga’s case Bystronic’s laser cutters and press brakes – and by clever management it is competitive on price and ahead on quality and productivity. Digga pays close attention to precision, clever design, streamlined work practices and workforce morale.

“The way our people responded to the huge job of recovery was terrific,” says Moody.

“The immediate aftermath was logistically a nightmare: using five different facilities and getting everything back to a central point to maintain customer service. But now we have new, world-class machines and a whole new way of working – more efficiency, less wasted time and a logical workflow.

Forming & Fabrication

A worker operating the Xact Smart 160.

“With the three new Bystronic machines (and other new equipment) we now have a world-class manufacturing set-up. Labour is expensive in Australia so we run a lean shop. There’s more still to do but our procedures and efficiencies are now really good.”

Operators were moved to take better advantage of their individual skills and, at the core, the new, faster and more efficient Bystronic machines.

“We chose the Bystronic BySprint Fiber 6-kilowatt fiber laser, and two press brakes, the Bystronic Xact Smart 160 tons and the Bystronic Xpert 320 tons,” Moody adds.

“They are the world’s best, with the most up-to-date technology, easy to operate, producing quality products with great accuracy. With the use of BySoft 7, we have integrated our engineering department and production. We do a lot of machinery attachments and loaders. Material ranges from 1.6mm up to 20mm. By using BySoft 7, engineering now can profit from the advantages of easy design and costeffective manufacturing.”

Xtremely accurate press brakes

In the welding bays the different processes are mainly robotic.

same kind of graphical symbols for bending and laser cutting.” The smaller of the two press brakes, the Xact Smart 160 tons, has the ability to process simple parts with complex angles. Moody explains: “That allows flexibility and fast job changes, delivering accurate bends. The Xact Smart is used for all our subcomponents on both low- and high-volume production runs.”

The Xpert 320 tons is the most advanced machine of its type in the world, and the one at Digga is among the first to be installed in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Its advanced features, such as its independent six-axis back gauge, dynamic hydraulic crowning, intelligent safety system, and optical bend guiding system, were crucial in our choice of Bystronic as our preferred supplier,” says Moody. “The advanced control system monitors side frame deflection and system temperatures allowing automatic compensation during each bend. The comprehensive database of bend allowances, tooling shapes and material types allows for quick and precise bends with extremely high repetition accuracy.”

Tough equipment for tough conditions Today, Digga has a worldwide reputation and a multimillion-dollar international market.

The company employs 200 people around the world, with subsidiary manufacturing facilities in Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand, the USA and the UK. “The biggest advantage we have is that Australians are so hard on their gear,” says Smitka. “Our equipment will stand up to the demands of Australian users and withstand Australia’s harsh conditions, so it will stand up to conditions anywhere in the world.”

The last word comes from Moody, the man at the sharp end of Digga’s production: “Manufacturing in Australia is tough, but if you run your operation efficiently and optimise the machinery and the hours you have, you can be competitive worldwide.

We buy good tools. That’s why we went for Bystronic. They are the world leaders in laser cutting and bending and that fitted the Digga way.” www.bystronic.net.au www.digga.com

Digga now has two press brakes in a line extending from the big BySprint Fiber 6-kilowatt fiber laser, all linked by the BySoft 7 program, which tells the press brakes what needs to be done with components as they come from the laser cutter. Both press brakes and the BySprint Fiber are controlled through the user-friendly ByVision graphical user interface.

“Our benefits from having this flexible high-performance controller are the tools for troubleshooting and maintenance information,” says Production Manager Peter Moody. “It provides ease of use for lower-skilled operators and adds additional skills to our staff. Hence, we can teach our staff more easily on both technologies, bending and laser cutting, because the ByVision controller works with nearly the

A pallet of drill heads awaits shipping to a customer.

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Forming & Fabrication

Integra’s boost by fibre laser

On 15 April 2016, Integra Systems in Broadmeadows, Victoria, welcomed manufacturing industry and government representatives for the unveiling of a newly installed fibre-optic laser cutter – one of the few of its kind in Australia.

Twelve months down the track, AMT Magazine spoke to Paul Minty, Manufacturing Integration Manager at Integra Systems, about the company’s motivations for acquiring the new machine – a Salvagnini L5 fibre laser cutter installed by Machinery Forum – and how it has impacted operations.

AMT: What was the motivation for purchasing a fibre laser cutter?

Paul Minty: Our business was getting more and more focused on industrial designed products so we had a greater need to create interesting shapes with our metal cutting that went beyond our standard library of turret punches. This meant we were sending out more and more projects to surrounding laser cutters. While they were doing a good job, no one was using a fibre laser, so they weren’t quick enough for our prototyping cycle, which we could do within an hour if we were cutting out of the metal with our punching technology. We had really become addicted to that speed and agility.

Every time we would send something to an external cutter, the sample would take four or five days, and we’d lose all the momentum and excitement of the design that we had built up with our customer. It made sense to bring it in-house if we could find the right laser cutter because we were already spending on laser cutting, yet we weren’t getting the speed and turnaround we wanted.

AMT: So, is the appeal of a fibre laser in the speed?

PM: Yes, that’s the major benefit, and that it can produce complex designs. Our particular fibre laser cutter has got a unique laser source that moves the beam around the top of the sheets – a compass head – which allows it to do very fast circular motions so it can create really small holes, almost as fast as you can punch the holes into a sheet of metal.

When you’re punching, you go straight through and you force the hole. The hole is the same shape as your tool. With laser cutting, you’ve got to pierce a tiny little hole and then go the whole way around the perimeter of the shape. So a normal laser cutter is very slow compared to punching holes. But, this fibre laser cutter – with its unique laser source and its compass head – is almost as quick as a turret punch so suddenly we could get the performance we wanted and we could control it in-house.

AMT: Apart from the laser source, are there any other notable features?

PM: One side of the machine opens up, like a huge six-foot roller door. As soon as we cut something, we can walk inside the machine, inspect it, pull it out and actually use it. That’s just so much faster than other conventional laser cutters where you’ve got no access to the cutting bed, and you have to change materials back and forward. We’ve always done a lot of aluminium and steels but now we can cut copper and brass, which has opened up some opportunities for us.

When a customer comes to visit us, they’re not necessarily as technically proficient in the same way as us, so we have to make the design and prototyping collaboration as accessible and as immediate as possible to keep them actively engaged. Being able to walk inside the laser cutter and – a couple of seconds later – grab the actual part is really exciting for both us and the customer.

AMT: Has bringing the laser cutting in-house met your expectations?

PM: It has exceeded them. We got rid of one turret punching machine so we could accommodate the laser cutter. It has has

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Cutting operations in progress on the Salvagnini L5 fibre laser cutter.

done all of the external laser cutting we were doing, plus the work of the older turret punch, and it has been more versatile than we initially thought. It’s even doing some of the work we thought we’d keep on the punching machines. So, yeah, it’s exceeded our initial expectations.

Most importantly for us, our prototyping cycles have come down considerably in time. We’re probably prototyping three times as much every month. We’ve been getting such a great knock-on effect to our sales – the more we prototype, the more likely we are to land high-value jobs, and the more likely we are to be considered for things people may have thought were too hard. At the very least, customers will now let us have a go at making those ‘too hard’ projects real.

AMT: Are there any project examples in particular that you can talk about in more detail?

PM: Well, we couldn’t have created our Integra TransFrom BioSmart units or our TouchSmart kiosk collection if we didn’t have the laser cutter in-house. These products demand quite intricate geometries that the laser cutter was able to do quickly. And, because we could control it in-house, we could try out our ideas on the laser without any fuss or extra cost, and validate whether we were going in the right direction. As you can imagine, prototyping results in a lot of messing around and you really need to be able to actively experiment, which the laser cutter allows us to do.

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The machine was unveiled by Frank McGuire MP, Local Member for Broadmeadows.

AMT: What about external project examples?

PM: We manufacture a point-of-sale system that is used in big hardware retail stores. With this particular job, we inherited the design, which used a very heavy plate of steel – not our preferred design because it was a slow and expensive procedure for us to work with. But when we started using our fibre laser cutter, we were able to bring a whole new manufacturing technology to this project.

Frank McGuire MP (right) with Paul Hughes, Managing Director of Integra Systems.

The heavy steel plate had a very intricate cut-out to it. We could redesign the cut-out to be produced a lot quicker, and we could do that because we’d learnt the intricacies of laser cutting by having our own machine in-house. The fibre laser is a very clean cut so it has enabled us to do small, curved cuts through thick steel at high speed. When they come to be needed, they’re needed in the thousands, so to cut them quicker and cut them with a better finish really adds up in cost and time-savings.

We had not expected to do heavy steels when we started doing our own laser cutting, but when we realised we could so effectively, it opened up opportunities to manufacture an existing product much cheaper than our competitors were doing.

AMT: What can you tell us about Integra Systems’ future plans for laser cutting?

PM: Because our prototyping cycle has got so quick, our next investment is in an upgraded quality management system and upgraded design information system. Our CAD software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and document controls are all being integrated at the moment, which is a hefty investment but we need to keep the data flowing down to the production tools as accurately and quickly as possible. We hadn’t expected that – we thought we’d finally allowed the factory to catch up with the design team’s thinking, but now the design team has to get their designs together a lot quicker and to manage a heap more data because of all the opportunities we’ve opened up in terms of design for clients. www.machineryforum.com.au

Scan this code to see footage of Integra’s first cut on the fibre laser cutter.

www.integrasystems.com.au

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Cutting Tools

Passive/dynamic vibration control technology boosts metalcutting productivity Uncontrolled vibration creates multiple problems in metalcutting operations. Varying forces in the cutting process cause vibration and tool chatter that degrade part surface quality, quickly wear or break cutting tools and damage machine tool components. By Pierre Zunino, Product Manager, and Yannick Groll, R&D Engineer, at Seco Tools.

Trends in product design can also incite vibration. To enhance product strength and reduce assembly costs, manufacturers increasingly machine parts from monolithic workpieces. Producing internal features of the parts requires tools to reach into deep cavities, and the extended tool length exaggerates vibration.

Attempting to minimise vibration by reducing cutting parameters decreases productivity and increases manufacturing cost. Prime among the various approaches to vibration control are passive/dynamic systems that utilise tuned-mass damper concepts to absorb vibration before it progresses and disrupts the machining process.

Vibration – A common issue All sectors of industry recognise excessive vibration as a destructive condition.

Repetitive operating and/or external forces generate sympathetic motion that can resonate within a machine, building, or bridge and grow to a dangerous magnitude. Manufacturers and builders often apply tuned mass damper concepts to overcome vibration. A tuned mass damper is a component that is suspended within a machine or structure and is designed to resonate out of phase with the unwanted vibration, absorb its energy, and minimise the vibratory motion.

In metalcutting, vibration is generated by the changing forces that occur when making chips. The intermittent forces are apparent in the interrupted cutting process of milling and also appear in turning operations when the toolholder bar is periodically loaded and unloaded as chips form and break.

A passive approach to vibration control in metalcutting involves maximising the rigidity of the elements of the machining system. To restrict unwanted movement, a machine tool can be built with rigid structural elements, made larger and heavier, and filled with concrete or other vibration-absorbing material. From a workpiece perspective, thin-walled parts and those with unsupported sections are prone to vibration when machined. To a limited degree, parts can be redesigned to improve rigidity. However, such design changes can add weight and compromise product performance.

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For cutting tools, a passive approach to vibration control includes use of short, rigid tools and replacement of steel toolholders with those made of stiff tungsten carbide.

Figure 1: With conventional tools, the vibration spreads towards the machine spindle.

A passive/dynamic approach to vibration control for tools involves application of the tuned mass damper concept. The Steadyline system from Seco features a pre-tuned vibration damper consisting of a damper mass made of high-density material (to minimise its overall dimensions) suspended inside the toolholder bar via radial absorbing elements. The damper mass absorbs vibration immediately when it is transmitted by the cutting tool to the body of the bar.

Figure 2: With passive/dynamic vibration damping tools, the vibration damper absords the vibration before it spreads.

The Steadyline system can enable typical long-overhang operations to be performed at least twice as fast as with non-damped tools while enhancing part surface finish, extending tool life, and reducing stress on the machine tool. Passive/dynamic vibration damping technology can make it possible to accomplish certain applications, such as some uses of tool lengths of up to ten times bar diameter, that would not otherwise be possible even at minimal machining parameters.

Passive/dynamic operating principles Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the operating principles of the Steadyline dynamic/ passive vibration control system.

In Figure 1, the vibration-related properties of a conventional monoblock toolholder are its mass (M1), its rigidity (K1) and its inherent damping characteristic (K1). The properties are grouped together as a MKK’system. In operation a cutting force Fe induces motion (vibration) in the holder.

Implementation of the Steadyline system (Figure 2) adds the properties of a second MKK´ system, namely mass M2, rigidity K12, and density K´12. MKK´ system S2 is engineered to possess the same natural frequency as the original MKK´ system and resonate out of phase with the unwanted vibration, thereby absorbing its energy and damping the vibrating motion.

In the Steadyline system the vibrationabsorbing mass is positioned at the front of the bar, where potential for deflection is highest and the mass can damp vibration immediately when it is transmitted from the cutting edge to the body of the bar.

The Steadyline system also includes short, compact GL cutting tool heads that place the cutting edge close to the damping mass to maximise the vibration-absorption effect. The system is adaptable to a wide range of applications and is most useful in milling (contouring, pocketing and slotting), turning and both rough and fine boring operations.

Application comparisons A good example of the Steadyline system’s effectiveness involved a difficult boring operation in 42CrMo4 steel where a cylindrical 105.8mm bore was enlarged

Cutting Heading Tools

to a conical 129mm bore in five roughing passes at a 3mm depth of cut decreasing to 0mm depth. With an 80mm diameter bar, the initial cutting length was 600mm, representing an extended tool lengthto-diameter ratio of 7.5. Roughing was accomplished at a feed rate of 0.3mm per revolution and cutting speed of 157m per minute. Pre-finishing to a final 130mm diameter took place at 0.5mm depth of cut, 0.2mm per revolution feed rate, and a cutting speed of 200m per minute. Even though the bulk of the workpiece prevented use of the full rotational speed capability of the Steadyline bar, machining time in the operation was reduced from 12 hours to two hours (more than 80%) with use of

the Steadyline passive/dynamic vibrationcontrol system.

Demonstrating the Steadyline system’s benefits in a side milling operation, a Combimaster milling cutter holder without passive/dynamic vibration control was applied with a 20mm diameter cutter at 312m per minute and 0.3mm/tooth feed rate at a cutting depth of 0.9mm in 1.1206 CK50 steel. When a version of the same tool employing the Steadyline system was applied at the same cutting speed and feed as the undamped version, it was possible to increase cutting depth to 2.2mm (an increase of 2.3 times) without unwanted vibration. Producers of equipment for oil and gas, power generation and aerospace

customers are prime candidates for use of passive/dynamic vibration control systems because each of these industry segments regularly deals with large, complex parts with features that require the use of extended-length tools. Additionally, such parts usually are made from tough alloys that are difficult to machine and thereby produce high, vibration-generating cutting forces. However, it is clear that nearly every manufacturer faces applications where the vibration-absorbing properties of Steadyline tooling can expand their capabilities, improve their productivity and reduce their costs. www.secotools.com

Steadyline – Hardware, mounting, and application considerations The Steadyline passive/dynamic vibration control system includes a comprehensive selection of hardware for milling, turning and boring applications that can be assembled to meet widely varying manufacturing requirements.

The turning tool system can be used for turning and boring, with seven shank diameters, including 32mm, 40mm, 50mm, 60mm and 80mm, as well as 2.5” and 3.0” sizes. Three tool lengths – 6xD, 8xD, and 10xD – are available for each diameter with a variety of machine-side connections. These include cylindrical shanks for 32mm to 80mm metric and 1.25” to 3” imperial, as well as SecoCapto and HSK-T/A. Bars with diameters of 50mm or less directly accept compact GL cutting tool heads with accurate polylobe-based connections that are secured via a fast and convenient nut system. Bars with diameters of 60mm or larger feature BA connections that are locked by four Graflex screws and allow 0˚/180˚ positioning. These larger bars can be used for turning with BA-to-GL adapters and compact GL50 cutting tool heads, as well as for boring with BA boring heads available as custom tooling.

GL heads exist for rough and fine boring applications, as well as for turning applications with right-hand and lefthand cutting versions. Negative inserts are offered for roughing and positive inserts for finishing, as are inserts for threading, grooving and parting-off. In addition to a wide selection of standard

tools, Seco also provides custom problemsolving solutions such as bars with multiple cutting edges and very long bars (more than 2m) for special applications.

For milling, Steadyline vibrationcontrol configurations are available with Combimaster replaceable head milling cutters for diameters from 20mm to 40mm and shell-mill holders for cutters from 40mm to 160mm in diameter. Both the Combimaster and shell-mill versions are suited for square shoulder, copy, end, face,

plunge and disc milling with many insert styles, as well as contouring and helical interpolation ramping. The tool bodies’ conical-reinforced cylindrical shapes achieve high static and dynamic stability in heavy milling applications. Seco-Capto, HSK-A, BT, CAT and DIN (including a taper face version) machine-side connections are available for milling holders.

Custom tooling for milling applications can also include special components such as

Shrinkfit clamping and special collets.

Steadyline tools are essentially “plug-andplay” – the built-in damping system is ready to use without further preparation.

To achieve best results, the bars must be mounted directly on the machine without intermediary extensions or reductions.

When mounting the tools on a machine, the Seco-Capto system is recommended due to its rigid, simultaneous face and taper contact and high bending resistance that maximise accurate positioning of the cutting edge. When Seco-Capto is not an option, cylindrical bars should be clamped in a split boring bar holder and inserted to 4xD, which is marked by the second line on the bar.

Special application considerations exist for Steadyline tooling. When directly replacing a conventional bar with a passive/dynamic Steadyline unit, it may be necessary to increase cutting conditions to generate vibrations sufficient to fully trigger the system’s damping response. In addition, at long overhangs the bar may bend but not vibrate and create a smaller diameter than programmed. Breaking the operation up into three lighter cuts should eliminate the bending and produce the programmed diameter. It is essential to note that the minimum machining diameter must be large enough relative to the bar diameter to allow for correct evacuation of chips. Taking chip evacuation into account is vital, especially in small and deep holes. The use of coolant is recommended to aid with chip evacuation and minimise heat transference to the bar, which is temperature sensitive.

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Cutting Tools

New heights for aerospace industry productivity Sutton Tools has never been hesitant about expansion of its global markets. The Melbourne-based company’s latest success in delivering significant productivity gains for a European aerospace customer is further hard evidence of the company’s commitment to continual investment in the latest, state-of-the-art manufacturing technology.

“Our business has been built on tackling the most challenging demands for tools, and the aerospace sector is a prime example of an industry that constantly demands sophisticated solutions,” says Jeff Boyd, Export Manager at Sutton. “However, it’s a tough market where there is a lot of competition and success is based on the ability to prove productivity gains.”

Sutton Tools endmills for machining titanium and other hard metals.

Several aerospace component producers in France had been buying a competitor’s brand, leading Sutton Tools’s European office to identify an opportunity to manufacture a superior performing solution, and in doing so, win some new business by delivering a productivity gain of 20% for the customer.

The continual demand to reduce costs by increasing productivity is a key issue for the aviation and aerospace industries, with customers emphasising the need for reliance on tool stability so that they can confidently forecast their production schedules and reduce machine downtime.

parameters in order to determine the best finish. After studying surface roughness of the tools, it was discovered that the output from a linear motion grinder could achieve a higher accuracy of surface finish than the ball-screw machines. To validate the grinding methods, Sutton Tools used an optical 3D scanning technique to measure the surface area roughness at a magnification of 100 to one on the rake face and the cutting edge on the tools. This 3D scanning technique enabled the quality levels to be managed to an accuracy that is ranked as industry world-class. “The intensive engineering approach by our team produced a successful outcome for the customer by improving their productivity,”says Boyd. “The process has also demonstrated we have the capability of being a first-class aerospace industry supplier.”

“We recognised that development of specific aviation industry cutting tools is critical,” adds Boyd. “These tools need a longer life and faster cycle-times when working with high-strength materials such as titanium and inconel.

While Sutton operates advanced manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands and India, it was its Melbourne factory that carried out the whole evaluation process and produced the application-specific end mills for the French aerospace market.

“The customer’s needs focused on solid carbide milling cutters between 12mm and 20mm that could deliver stable performance across a range of applications. We commenced the search for a solution, knowing the demands of the industry meant we had to really push the boundaries of our design and manufacturing technologies across our whole knowledgebase of microgeometry, materials, coatings and micro-finishing of surfaces.”

www.suttontools.com

The engineering team at Sutton Tools focused on the need for a smoother, high-precision surface finish that would also strengthen the adhesion of the tool coating. To achieve the high finish that was needed, test results were compared from grinding tools using Sutton’s traditional ANCA ball-screw movement machines with those from an ANCA linear motion tool grinder. The team also experimented with different grinding wheel grades and grinding

Sutton Tools – aiming for the aerospace market. Photo: Ausvex.

Improving surface finish using ANCA’s linear technology

Sutton Tools gained market share in the highly competitive aerospace industry by producing superior tools using the linear motor technology on ANCA’s MX7.

“By really focusing on how we could improve the surface finish, and with the added capabilities of the linear motor, we created a product that is delivering significant productivity gains for our customers,” says Jeff Boyd, Export Manager at Sutton. “The team are now consistently achieving a longer tool life and faster cycle times in some of the higher strength materials such as titanium, which is a great result.”

ANCA is well known in the industry for its rigid grinding machines and has combined this with its sister company, ANCA Motion’s, LinX linear motor technology. Tools ground using the linear motor have a consistently high-quality cutting edge and surface

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

finish. The LinX cylindrical linear motors ensure there is no loss of preload or rigidity when grinding tools and reversal errors are eliminated and higher contouring accuracy can be maintained due to a control algorithm we use which is unique to ANCA. “With our new MX Linear machine, we have seen dramatic improvements in the surface finish of the cutting tools, adds Boyd. “A better surface finish has also meant we get better adhesion of the coating and stable performance to the cutting tool which is important for our customers.” www.anca.com

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078

Cutting Tools

Paving the way for the Smart Factory Walter is using digitalisation to create added value for its customers at every stage of the process chain The Factory of the Future is networked, organised, and can self-optimise over long distances – provided, of course, that the machines, tools and systems supply the necessary data. To begin with, however, the data collected is not much more than “raw material”. Using it to create the kind of added value that goes above and beyond optimising a customer’s production process is the job of a team of digitalisation experts working at the Walter Technology Center in Tübingen, Germany.

“The work our technology experts are doing is increasingly reaping rewards,” explains Florian Böpple, a digital manufacturing expert at Walter.

The Walter Technology Center officially opened its doors in October 2016 and, just a few weeks later, Walter joined forces with its software partner Comara – both with the mutually agreed aim of making digital transformation central to the company.

Mirko Merlo, President of Walter, describes the company’s longstanding relationship with Comara as “an important strategic step in expanding our digital portfolio and further developing our company with Industry 4.0 in mind.”

Walter has now acquired 100% of Comara, thus underpinning its evolution from a simple tool manufacturer to a provider of an extensive range of both traditional and digital manufacturing solutions.

Real-time data – the raw material for greater efficiency Comara specialises in collecting, analysing and utilising real-time data. The company works in collaboration with the machining experts at Walter to develop software solutions for efficiently networking machines and tools while optimising processes on the basis of real-time data. Using digital tools helps the company to develop new apps and services for tools, machines and machining concepts that enable customers to maximise efficiency in their production environment. The intimate knowledge of machining data possessed by Walter experts plays a pivotal role in providing customers with solutions that have been carefully tailored to their machining process.

One of the first applications of this kind is Walter Tool ID, which customers have already been using for many years now. Tool ID makes it possible to clearly identify all the tools used in a production process and monitor them continuously. Tool life is checked and tools are always replaced at exactly the right time. Tool data is transferred from the pre-setting device straight to the machine and the parameters running on the machine are analysed directly.

The tool notifies the machine An identifier, such as a laser-generated data matrix code on the tool, contains information about the manufacturer and the user.

This means that the tool provides information on how to use it in a form that can be read by a machine. The data is retrieved from the server by a scanner, transferred automatically to the machine’s control system and written into the tool magazine. This eliminates the need to enter information by hand, which is time-consuming and prone to error.

The Tool ID also acts as a key means of communication between the tool and the machine, since the data stored in it, for example on tool life or presetting, enables the individual production steps to be controlled. Potential problems can be detected early and resolved thanks to the comprehensive view.

“Tool ID saves users valuable time,” explains Holger Langhans, Manager of the Technology Center. “They are also ensured greater

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

The Walter Technology Center in Tübingen, Germany.

process reliability and they get an insight into the way tools are really used in their production processes.”

As an example of the time savings available, with Walter Tool ID it takes just seconds to prepare a tool for a cutting machine – whereas doing this manually normally takes several minutes on average.

Yet Tool ID is just the first step on the way to developing smart tools and building the Factory of the Future. Comara and Walter provide the requisite apps together via Walter appCom, a proprietary platform that enables machine manufacturers and industrial enterprises to use various different tools and apps tailored specifically to their needs, and to optimise their manufacturing environment.

Practical solutions with great potential To take their work seamlessly from theory to practice, the digitalisation experts at the Walter Technology Center have five cutting machines at their disposal.

“Each and every service app is thoroughly tested on these machines,” explains Böpple. “We also work very closely with users.

This ensures we create practical solutions that meet their efficiency potential right from their first day in use.

“Walter appCom collects vast quantities of data. Our job is to interpret and visualise this data in order to generate added value from it.”

This starts with status information, which tells the Production Manager, for example, what every single machine is currently doing in real time. This includes which tool is being used and how, what cutting parameters are being applied, and how long the tool has been in use that day (to name but a few examples). Users can access the latest live data, as well as analyses and data from thirdparty systems.

“Networking offers endless possibilities,” says Böpple.

And it is precisely these possibilities that Walter specialists are exploring, identifying the potential for optimisation that lies both in the data and in the processes that users themselves employ. They then use this to develop specific applications in the Technology Center.

In focus: A wealth of opportunities “Shortly after the Walter Technology Center opened, word spread round our customers that it’s worth taking a closer look at our work,” remarks Böpple. “If for no other reason than to get a feel for everything that digital information makes possible and to understand the wide range of options that digital transformation through Walter can open up.”

Cutting Tools Every service app at Walter is tested on machines in the Walter Technology Center, and the team works closely with users to ensure practical solutions that meet their efficiency potential right from their first day in use.

One of the things that users in the Technology Center can do is see and learn about the optimisations that Walter has already developed and implemented for its customers’ machining processes.

Langhans explains: “We’ve had customers in the Far East looking at solutions via live streaming – with images from the camera and the data associated with them in real time. This saves them time and travel costs – and these factors alone make it a highly efficient method.”

The experts in the Technology Center also offer their customers the opportunity to develop solutions to specific problems together.

“When a customer outlines what they require, we think about which tool and which machining concept could be used for the job. It goes without saying that, when doing this, we also take into consideration how their processes can be optimised using the data available. We can demonstrate this online too, where appropriate, and discuss it with the customer via live streaming.”

Complete machining processes documented in detail This technology allows entire machining processes to be broken down in minute detail: Which tool was being used and for how long? Under what kind of conditions? What was the ratio of nonproductive time to productive time? All these things and more are documented by a specially developed app.

“No-one needs to sit there with a stopwatch any more,” says Böpple happily. “Instead, users can view precisely the information they need in any given moment on the app.”

per operator, this can add up to as many as three programs with 30 tools each – and that takes time!”

The app developed by Walter lists the tools required for each program at a glance and also knows which ones are already on the machine and which ones need to be fitted. As a next step, the Presetting Department could obtain this information straight from the app and use it to optimise their commissioning process.

Eyes on data “But development doesn’t stop there,” explains Böpple. “We’re currently working on loading the data from our apps into a kind of HoloLens. These networked virtual 3D glasses enable operators, production managers and maintenance personnel to see immediately what’s going on when they stand in front of a machine.”

It doesn’t matter whether the data comes from a standard app or an application that has been specially tailored to a particular customer, as Langhans explains: “In future, the status of a machine, tool and process will be fully transparent – in real time.”

Tool management specialists at Walter are building on this too – their job is to exploit the untapped technological optimisation potential in their customers’ processes using digital means. To do this, they take an in-depth look at these processes and develop optimisation solutions tailored meticulously to meet their customers’ precise requirements, both in the machining process and the tool logistics process. www.walter-tools.com

The benefits this offers customers are obvious: whereas before they often had to base their calculations on planning data, now the app can give them hard facts about the actual costs per tool.

Optimisation potential can be identified considerably faster and more clearly than before – and even broken down into the potential of each individual tool. The extent of the ‘leverage’ obtained from the optimisation in question can be calculated exactly. The efficient process analysis results in higher machine availability, making the availability of each and every machine transparent. This knowledge can be used to control and improve processes with much greater efficiency.

“This becomes clear right from setting up the machine every day,” explains Böpple. “In conventional production environments, which are still commonplace at many companies, machine operators come on shift and look at which components they’ll be machining that day using which programs. They look at which tools they need to do this, go to their machine, tick which ones they already have off the list and equip themselves with any they don’t have. Per shift and

Tool ID makes it possible to clearly identify and continuously monitor all the tools used in a production process.

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Cutting Tools

Competing with the unbeatable – Titanium milling with Iscar tools

The remarkable strength-to-weight ratio and high corrosion-resistant properties of titanium have resulted in the ever-growing use of this engineering material in many demanding sectors, not least the global aerospace industry.

The production of critical structural parts from titanium ensures their required performance and reliability while significantly reducing components’ mass. Although relevant to all users of titanium, the enhanced strength and reductions in weight that the material delivers are of particular importance to the aerospace industry, as these advantages improve the aircraft’s performance and increase fuel economy.

The negative trade-offs produced by the use of titanium are the many problems uncounted for when machining this difficultto-cut material. When used in metalworking industries, the word “titanium” normally relates not only to pure titanium but also to titanium alloys. In accordance with metallurgical properties, which depend on the present elements, there are several groups of titanium: commercially pure titanium (unalloyed), α-, β-, α-β- and other alloys. It is sometimes stated that titanium machinability is similar to that of austenitic stainless steel. This proposition is more or less true if it relates to commercially pure titanium, though it is totally wrong with respect to treated α-β- and especially β-titanium alloys.

Machinability ratings depend heavily on the type of titanium and its treatment. The machinability of the widely used annealed titanium TiAl6V4 is approximately 35%40% less than annealed stainless steel AISI 304. However, if we take the machinability of the aforementioned titanium grade as 100%, the so-called “triple 5”, titanium 5-5-5-3, represents a major manufacturing headache for many machine shops, featuring machinability characteristics that are twice as difficult .

Machine tool manufacturers continue to introduce innovations and developments that make the cutting of titanium more effective. Modern machine tools allow operators to apply advanced machining strategies and to employ one-hit production methods. However, the typically low cutting speeds used in the machining of titanium severely limit machine tools’ efficiency potential and results in the cutting tool becoming the weakest element of the whole technical production system. In short, the cutting tool determines the productivity boundaries when machining titanium, and as such, has become a major factor in the quest for a radical improvement of this situation.

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Due to the low thermal conductivity of titanium, the main problem in cutting this material is the generation of heat. Poor heat transfer leads to considerable thermal loads being directly transferred to the tool’s cutting edge. Also, while it is less of a problem when machining steel, titanium’s modulus of elasticity contributes to vibration during cutting, and as a result, surface finish and accuracy problems can be encountered.

Cutting tool producers continue to place a greater emphasis on developing progressive tools for the efficient machining of titanium. Manufacturing titanium parts is a process with a significant buy-to-fly ratio, when a large amount of metal needs to be removed. The eventual weight of a finished titanium part may be only 10% or less of the original weight of a workpiece. Frequently, these parts will have cavities, pockets and ribs that dictate milling as the main method for manufacturing. As a consequence, every new tool that is intended for the milling of titanium creates intense interest among the global technical community.

Therefore, the latest products from Iscar, an acknowledged innovator in the field, always attract the attention of the world’s manufacturers involved in machining titanium.

Tool material is of fundamental importance in the success of cutting tools, especially for use when indexable milling difficult-to-cut aerospace materials, in particular titanium.

Within this challenging field, Iscar has developed a new carbide grade, IC840. The word “new” relates to all grade elements: IC840 is characterised by a newly cemented carbide substrate and an innovative hard PVD coating. The grade substrate is highly resistant to thermal cracks, the bronzecoloured “chocolate” coating boasts high oxidation and chipping resistance, while an advanced post-coating treatment improves overall toughness. The advantageous

combination of the above IC840 provides users with great opportunities in milling titanium. Iscar believes that the new “chocolate” will definitely suit the taste of the manufacturer of titanium components and increase the performance of indexable cutters.

As previously mentioned, milling titanium usually involves removing considerable stock. True “workhorses” in this field are extended flute indexable tools (porcupines) that are intended for the rough cutting of deep pockets, cavities and wide edges. For these operations, Iscar has developed the HeliTang H490, a family of advanced milling tools with tangentially clamped inserts, and also the MillShred P290, a range of milling tools carrying serrated inserts that provide an efficient chip splitting (even chip chopping) effect. In addition, the company offers HeliTang FIN, a family of tangential porcupines that was designed especially for semi-finish milling.

Iscar has recently introduced a new group of extended flute shell mills related to the proven and popular HeliQuad family. These mills carry one-sided square inserts, which are clamped radially. Why has the company, so well known for its commitment to innovative advantageous cutting geometries, equipped the new mills with “traditional” simple square inserts?

The new, deceptively simple extended flute tools feature a well-designed structure resulting in significantly improved dynamic rigidity and anti-vibration strength. In addition, radial insert clamping enables the inclusion of a chip gullet with a generous volume that answers the requirements of free chip flow when milling at high metal removal rates (MRR). Also, the tools with more popular diameters have internal channels that are specially designed for machining with a high-pressure coolant (HPC) supply. Even these “simple” square

Cutting Heading Tools

inserts are characterised by a progressive cutting geometry that provides effective titanium milling.

Hence, if HeliTang H490 and MillShred P290 are intended for productive roughing, and HeliTang FIN for qualitative semi-finishing of titanium workpieces, from an application point of view the new HeliQuad (real HeliQuad) extended flute shell mills provide high-efficiency milling with resulting surface conditions close to semi-finish conditions.

Iscar recently introduced the Ti-Turbo family of solid carbide endmills in a diameter range of 6mm to 20mm. The new family was designed for finishing operations and also for high-speed machining (HSM) of mainly slots, with the use of the trochoidal technique. Trochoidal milling features a small width and significant depth of cut, combined with a tool path dictated by a trochoid curve. Under such conditions the tool “slices” metal up at a high rate.

An engagement angle here is small and produced chips are very thin. This results in dramatically decreasing the thermal load on the tool. Ti-Turbo endmills, of unique patent design, have seven or nine variable flutes with variable angular pitch (similar to the beneficial ChatterFree solid carbide

tools) that ensures powerful resistance to vibration. Iscar’s versatile Multi-Master line of assembled tools with replaceable solid carbide cutting heads, has been recently enhanced by the introduction of new, sixflute, fast feed milling heads with central coolant holes. The ultra-fine grain carbide substrate of the heads, protected by the advanced AL-TEC coating technology, provides outstanding wear resistance and toughness. The heads are used in productive high feed milling (HFM), resulting

in significant reductions in the cycle times of roughing operations. Manufacturers of titanium parts are constantly placing new demands on cutting tool producers. In order to meet these challenges, cutting tool producers are forced to think out of the box on a regular basis. Iscar’s prolific R&D team continues to cooperate with many of the world’s leading manufacturers of titanium parts to ensure that the company retains its lead within this challenging sector. www.iscar.com.au

DCNT: New SumoCham pre-thread hole drills As pre-thread hole drilling is very popular in many industrial tapping applications, Iscar is upgrading the DCT ChamDrill family to include similar drills that carry the more advanced SumoCham drilling heads.

The new DCNT drills have been designed for M8 to M24 ISO M standard pre-thread holes and carry two standard chamfering inserts designated AOMT 060204-45DT IC908, symmetrically mounted so that the cutting forces are balanced for optimal performance. The AOMT 060204-45DT IC908 chamfering inserts were developed for chamfering on a wide range of materials with optimal chip formation, particularly low carbon steel and soft materials. They can be used for blind as well as through-hole applications, with no vibrations during chamfering due to a balanced drill construction. SumoCham is capable of using a range of drilling heads on each drill body, which facilitates

diametric versatility and offers a substantial advantage for users who change drills for the same tap operation, as the same DCNT

drill can be applied for ISO “M” (coarse pitch thread) and for ISO “MF” (fine pitch thread).

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Construction & Infrastructure

3D printing offers new approach to making buildings

Technology developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US could enable faster, cheaper, more adaptable building construction.

The list of materials that can be produced by 3D printing has grown to include not just plastics but also metal, glass, and even food. Now, MIT researchers are expanding the list further, with the design of a system that can 3D print the basic structure of an entire building.

Structures built with this system could be produced faster and less expensively than traditional construction methods allow, the researchers say. A building could also be completely customised to the needs of a particular site and the desires of its maker.

Even the internal structure could be modified in new ways; different materials could be incorporated as the process goes along, and material density could be varied to provide optimum combinations of strength, insulation, or other properties.

Ultimately, the researchers say, this approach could enable the design and construction of new kinds of buildings that would not be feasible with traditional building methods.

The robotic system was described in April in the journal Science Robotics, in a paper

by Steven Keating PhD, a mechanical engineering graduate and former research affiliate in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab; Julian Leland and Levi Cai, research assistants in the Mediated Matter group; and Neri Oxman, Group Director and Associate Professor of Media arts And Sciences.

The system consists of a tracked vehicle that carries a large, industrial robotic arm, which has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end. This highly controllable arm can then be used to direct any conventional (or unconventional) construction nozzle, such as those used for pouring concrete or spraying insulation material, as well as additional digital fabrication end effectors, such as a milling head.

Unlike typical 3D printing systems, most of which use some kind of an enclosed, fixed structure to support their nozzles and are limited to building objects that can fit within their overall enclosure, this free-moving system can construct an object of any size. As a proof of concept, the researchers used a prototype to build the basic structure of the walls of a dome 3.7m high with a diameter of 15.2m— a project that was completed in less than 14 hours of “printing” time.

For these initial tests, the system fabricated the foam-insulation framework used to form a finished concrete structure. This construction method, in which polyurethane foam moulds are filled with concrete, is similar to traditional commercial insulatedconcrete formwork techniques. Following this approach for their initial work, the researchers showed that the system can be easily adapted to existing building sites and equipment, and that it will fit existing building codes without requiring whole new evaluations, Keating explains.

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MIT researchers have designed a system that can 3D print the basic structure of an entire building. The system consists of a tracked vehicle that carries a large industrial robotic arm, which has a smaller, precision-motion robotic arm at its end. Photo: Steven Keating, Julian Leland, Levi Cai, and Neri Oxman/Mediated Matter Group.

Ultimately, the system is intended to be self-sufficient. It is equipped with a scoop that could be used to both prepare the building surface and acquire local materials, such as dirt for a rammed-earth building, for the construction itself. The whole system could be operated electrically, even powered by solar panels. The idea is that such systems could be deployed to remote regions, for example in the developing world, or to areas for disaster relief after a major storm or earthquake, to provide durable shelter rapidly.

According to Keating, who led the development of the system as his doctoral thesis work, the ultimate vision is “in the future, to have something totally autonomous, that you could send to the Moon or Mars or Antarctica, and it would just go out and make these buildings for years”.

In the meantime, however, he says: “We also wanted to show that we could build something tomorrow that could be used right away.”

That’s what the team did with its initial mobile platform.

“With this process, we can replace one of the key parts of making a building, right now,” Keating explains. “It could be integrated into a building site tomorrow.”

Keating points to the construction industry, which for the most part is still doing things the way it has for hundreds of years. The buildings are rectilinear, mostly built from single materials. They are put together with saws and nails, and mostly built from standardised plans.

Construction & Infrastructure

However, Keating wondered, what if every building could be individualised and designed using on-site environmental data? In the future, the supporting pillars of such a building could be placed in optimal locations based on ground-penetrating radar analysis of the site, and walls could have varying thickness depending on their orientation. For example, a building could have thicker, more insulated walls on its north side in cold climates, or walls that taper from bottom to top as their load-bearing requirements decrease, or curves that help the structure to withstand winds.

The creation of this system, which the researchers call a Digital Construction Platform (DCP), was motivated by the Mediated Matter group’s overall vision of designing buildings without parts.

Such a vision includes, for example, combining “structure and skin” and beams and windows in a single production process, and adapting multiple design and construction processes on the fly, as the structure is being built.

From an architectural perspective, Oxman says, the project “challenges traditional building typologies such as walls, floors, or windows, and proposes that a single system could be fabricated using the DCP that can vary its properties continuously to create wall-like elements that continuously fuse into windows.”

To this end, the nozzles of the new 3D printing system can be adapted to vary the density of the material being poured, and even to mix different materials as it goes along. In the version used in the initial tests, the device created an insulating foam shell that would be left in place after the concrete is poured; interior and exterior finish materials could be applied directly to that foam surface.

lumber and other materials, the total amount of material needed could be reduced.

While the platform represents an engineering advance, Oxman notes: “Making it faster, better, and cheaper is one thing. But the ability to design and digitally fabricate multifunctional structures in a single build embodies a shift from the machine age to the biological age — from considering the building as a machine to live in, made of standardised parts, to the building as an organism, which is computationally grown, additively manufactured, and possibly biologically augmented.

“So to me it’s not merely a printer,” Oxman adds. “But an entirely new way of thinking about making, that facilitates a paradigm shift in the area of digital fabrication, but also for architectural design.

Our system points to a future vision of digital construction that enables new possibilities on our planet and beyond.” www.mit.edu

Scan this code to see a video of the MIT Digital Construction Platform (DCP) system in operation.

The system can even create complex shapes and overhangs, which the team demonstrated by including a wide, built-in bench in their prototype dome. Any wiring and plumbing that are needed can be inserted into the mould before the concrete is poured, providing a finished wall structure all at once. It can also incorporate data about the site collected during the process, using built-in sensors for temperature, light, and other parameters to make adjustments to the structure as it is built.

Keating says the team’s analysis shows that such construction methods could produce a structure faster and less expensively than present methods can, and would also be much safer. (The construction industry is one of the most dangerous occupations, and this system requires less hands-on work.) In addition, because shapes and thicknesses can be optimised for what is needed structurally, rather than having to match what’s available in premade

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Construction & Infrastructure

Hercules’ guided bearings point to maintenance-free structures

As resources and materials-handling projects expand or reopen in line with commodities prices, operators face the challenge of building new bridges, conveyor overpasses and supporting pipelines to carrying heavier throughputs – or bolstering the capacity of existing overpasses and conduits.

Supporting the fluctuating loads carried by conveyors, trucks and machinery imposes demands on the structures supporting them, which must function reliably across a spectrum of shock, impacts and widely varying thermal loads in situations varying from remote outback facilities to busy port and coal loaders.

One solution to the issues of cost-efficiently achieving reliable load-carrying capacity is provided by Hercules Engineering through its range of Herculon Type D Bearings (HLD/SG, HLD/FF & HLD/FX), which are widely proven on applications ranging from steel and concrete beam and pipeline engineering structures through to materials handling and processing facilities. Based in Yennora, NSW, Hercules has provided cost-efficient slip joints and bearings to help protect and extend the longevity of landmark buildings and major industrial structures in Australasia, the Asia-Pacific and Africa.

Compared with more sophisticated and expensive heavy alternatives, such as pot bearings and roller bearings, Hercules’s HLD bearings offer benefits such as lower initial cost, easier installation and no maintenance for periods of 30 years or more, acording to David Booty, Manager at Hercules. Available in standard configurations supporting 100kN-600kN each, the bearings can also be customengineered to configurations that best suit installations and site conditions.

Recent pipeline support structures, for example, were used in the refurbishment of existing river crossings, using highperformance combinations of engineered thermoplastics and stainless steel facing surfaces that provide the necessary slip performance but don’t break down in the way that earlier types of bearings deteriorate.

The problem with many older joints – which are intended to prevent pipelines buckling or cracking as they are subject to shock and vibration or repeatedly heat and cool over many seasons – is that many older types of grease bearings have exceeded their lifespan, corroded, lost their flexibility and bound rigid. The new bearings, by contrast, were engineered to minimise maintenance and optimise service life by flexibly accommodating the thermal issues and the vertical and horizontal stresses

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Herculon type-D sliding bearings – incorporating polymers proven globally for outstanding durability without lubrication or maintenance – were developed to fulfil the need for low-friction bearings on corbels and columns where continuous slip joints were not appropriate. Herculon HLD Bearings are part of a comprehensive range of Hercules composite slip joints and structural bearings incorporating engineered high-performance combinations of engineered thermoplastics and stainless steel facing surfaces.

No-maintenance performance

Bridge, conveyor overpass and pipeline overpass construction and maintenance can benefit from cost-efficient Herculon type D sliding bearings, in capacities up to 60 tons per bearing.

imposed by the shuddering and vibration of varying loads.

Such performance and no-maintenance advantages were built into HLD/SGU bearings designed recently for conveyor overpasses to serve new outback and heavy-duty resource and bulk-handling developments. These bearings were engineered from mild steel enclosing a sandwich of Teflon on mirror-finish stainless steel bonded to a special grade rubber substratum.

“These particular bearings were designed with built-in restraint mechanisms to ensure flexibility and excellent sliding characteristics in load carrying and thermal performance, but to prevent extreme movement that would compromise the bearing’s long-term performance,” says Booty.

The bearings contained built-in guidance and uplift restraint that: 1. Prevented excessive movement in the horizontal plane, while still allowing sufficient flexibility to tolerate side loads and the deflection needed to tolerate varying loads without breaking or buckling.

2. Prevented uplift beyond specified limits in the vertical plane, providing restraint when the structure on which they are mounted is subjected to extreme seismic and wind conditions, for example.

Type D Herculon Bearings (HLD/SG) are designed to accept a lateral load of 30% of the vertical rated load, which can be up to 600kN per bearing in stock sizes, with higher capacity available customengineered for specific applications. They are removable and replaceable, to optimise no-maintenance performance in access infrastructure and high-output plant, such as mineral processing or oil, gas & energy infrastructure, and conveyors in applications extending from ports to power plants.

Performance characteristics include: • Outstanding stick-slip performance, to provide smooth, easy movement under load.

• A friction co-efficient of 0.05-0.08 depending on stress.

• Expansion capacity up to ±40mm for standard bearings (larger movements can be accommodated upon request).

• Maximum contact stress of 10-12MPa. • Maximum rotation up to 0.02 radians.

• Maximum temperature 80 degrees Celsius (with higher temperatures accommodated by thermally insulating bearings or using high-temperature materials, both as recommended by Hercules). www.herculesengineering.com.au

One of many Hercules sliding guided bearing types, which require no maintenance beyond regalvanising over a period of decades.

Construction & Infrastructure

Peiner – Structural bolts for all industries

The quality and innovation demanded by the wind turbine industry means that wind tower bolts are superior in design and engineering. Now available in Australia, Peiner’s range of high-tensile bolts and fasteners are the only option when constructing a wind tower, and are also the best option for a wide range of structural applications, including buildings, bridges and mining equipment.

TS 16949 and ISO 9001:2008. Hot dip galvanising according to DIN EN ISO 10684 ensures efficient, high quality corrosion protection.

Peiner’s arrival on the Australian market means that industries here can now enjoy direct access to these high-quality, technologically advanced structural bolts and fasteners. Peiner HV sets are stocked at Peiner’s Australian warehouse in a standard size range from M12 bolts to M36.

With a tensile strength of 10.9, Peiner HV structural bolts are the best option for a range of industries, allowing developers to lower insurance premiums through their superior strength and quality. Industries that can benefit from this high quality range of fasteners include: commercial construction; civil construction; wind energy farms; mining; automotive and maintenance. The Peiner HV range of 10.9 galvanised structural bolts are ideally used in slip-resistant connections; flexurally rigid plate connections; shear-type connections; and ring flange connections of wind towers.

Sectors such as construction, maintenance and automotive now have the benefit of dealing with a specialist in strong, traceable structural bolts and fasteners.Through Peiner Umformtechnik, customers also have access to specially-manufactured structural bolts and fasteners made to suit their specifications.

Speciality wind turbine tower bolts are available in sizes up to M64, complying with DASt guideline 021 and the corresponding Peiner company standard. Peiner’s wind tower bolt sets for the steel construction industry comply with standards: DIN EN 14399-4 (DIN 6914 and DIN 6915); DIN EN 14399-6 (DIN 6916); and DIN EN 14399-8.

Peiner high-tensile bolts are imprinted with individual serial numbers to ensure that

the end product is completely traceable to right down to the batch of input material.

In addition, Peiner HV fasteners are manufactured to comply with the strict quality requirements mandated by ISO/

Peiner customers also have access to Peiner Umformtechnik’s technological support unit. This unit assists customers in selecting fastening elements, design of fastening points or calculation and installation of fasteners. www.peiner.com.au

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Material Removal

Case history demonstrates benefits of WTO’s Driven Broaching Unit.

As a recognised pioneer and leader in its industry, German manufacturer WTO has always set the benchmark in the design and manufacture of high-precision toolholders for CNC turning and multitasking centres. The company’s technologically superior products are known for achieving higher levels of productivity and longer tool life.

One of these products is the state-of-theart Driven Broaching Unit, which offers economic manufacturing of oriented keyways and splines with CNC turning centres. The WTO Driven Broaching Unit can be used for both internal (ID) and external (OD) broaching, simply by rotating the insert holder by 180 degrees, and offers speeds of up to 1,000 strokes per minute.

In an actual case history, a CNC machine shop based in Summerville, in the US state of South Carolina, needed to develop a process that would give the required cycle time and tool life to maintain the desired profitability. The task was to machine a high-volume component made from 8620 steel that was designed with a complex internal spline.

The job shop owner initially purchased two lathes and a standard broaching system.

Early in the project, however, it was observed that the broaching unit originally installed with the lathes was not nearly rigid enough, resulting in a substantial amount of ‘chatter’ causing premature tool wear.

WTO, along with a number of other suppliers, came together to see what could be done to solve this problem and optimise tool life, as this was essential if the project was to be economically viable. It was soon established that the broaching unit was the key problem, and accordingly the company turned to WTO’s USA Director of Operations, Allen Rupert, who in turn arranged for the customer to receive a WTO Driven Broaching Unit from WTO in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Right away it was clear that the WTO unit was substantially more rigid because the ‘chatter’ issues that had been experienced in the beginning had disappeared, and the customer immediately ordered three additional units .

The result has been a huge improvement in tool life, which in turn has made the project economically viable. In addition to improving tooling performance, WTO’s Driven Broaching Unit has also improved the overall broaching process on the lathe.

“The experience that this South Carolina Company had is clear proof of the benefits that a WTO Driven Broaching Unit has in extending tool life,” says Paul Fowler, Managing Director of Dimac Tooling – WTO’s Australian agents.

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Another benefit that WTO range of static and driven precision toolholders offers for CNC machine tool operators is the QuickFlex quick change system – a new and innovative quick change system in one toolholder.

“Providing an ER collet chuck and quick change system in one toolholder provides a number of benefits, including reduced tool change time and higher flexibility,” Fowler adds.

The comprehensive QuickFlex system covers a full range of different tool clamping adapter types and sizes, and the tool change is designed to be quick, easy and safe utilising a one-hand wrench.

Dimac Tooling is a leading supplier of accessories and workholding solutions for CNC milling and CNC turning machine tools across Australia and New Zealand.

The company also manufactures soft and hard jaws in its own CNC-equipped machine shop in Dandenong, Victoria.

“Like all WTO products, the Driven Broaching Unit is manufactured in Germany, so high quality and durability is a given,” Fowler concludes. “Like all the products we sell, the WTO range has the full back up and support of Dimac technical personnel to ensure the product is installed correctly and operates at optimum performance.” www.dimac.com.au

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Software

Maintenance management in the Cloud – the weather is changing

In an economic environment that provides no leeway for mistakes, and when a short burst of downtime can eradicate all profit margins, organisations of every size need to improve the performance and uptime of equipment. Yet a lack of capital budget continues to constrain maintenance teams: how can any organisation maximise asset value when critical information regarding history, performance, stock and resource utilisation is recorded manually? By Richard Exley, Commercial Manager for Real Asset Management.

Times are changing. Cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) overcomes the traditional IT and budget barriers to provide a business with reliable, cost-effective software that is easily and quickly deployed. Cloud-based software doesn’t involve large, upfront licencing costs or massive internal IT overheads and, critically, delivers the high level of functionality required to improve performance in both proactive and reactive maintenance activity.

With the continued emphasis on every sector to ‘do more with less’, organisations are under increasing pressure to maximise asset value. For the manufacturing site desperate to minimise downtime and improve productivity, asset maintenance is finally taking centre stage.

Yet the vast majority of businesses in Australia & New Zealand are struggling to drive forward improvements. Most are still reliant on highly inefficient, paper-based processes or at best, spreadsheets for information. With no immediate or accurate insight into the cost of maintenance, stock expenditure or stock availability, asset performance history or trends in repairs, it is impossible to establish more efficient asset maintenance processes. Without trusted, accurate asset information, how can any organisation determine whether or not asset life can be extended without compromising reliability and performance?

As a result, organisations are actually incurring more costs, needing additional personnel to record the information required to meet burgeoning health and safety and compliance regulations. If companies are to respond to the demands to maximise asset value, drive down costs and improve efficiency, it is essential to evolve beyond the realms of basic maintenance solutions and processes.

A new model Of course, many organisations have been looking to embrace robust asset maintenance solutions but have been constrained by the lack of capital budget available. Not only have budgets been slashed, but the time and red tape associated with getting a new software solution onto a network can be disheartening. The reality today is that despite the essential nature of maintenance management and asset maximisation, the vast majority of organisations simply cannot justify the expenditure in new hardware, networking infrastructure or IT expertise to implement or upgrade a maintenance management solution.

As a result, the growing availability of Cloud-based maintenance management systems is compelling for many reasons. The model can provide unprecedented, low-cost access to highly functional software that can transform performance and ensure that today’s mobile workforces have full, real-time access to asset maintenance information, enabling them to reduce failure rates and to improve equipment uptime.

Critically, for every organisation, the subscription-based, hosted model enables the maintenance team to sidestep time-consuming expenditure approval and gain access to the new system within a matter of weeks. So what is holding companies back? With early security concerns allayed in an increasingly mature marketplace, there is no requirement for the more costly private Enterprise Cloud

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with dedicated resources that demand IT input and overhead, which also incur large associated costs for construction and ongoing support. Opting instead for a SaaS solution removes all IT overheads, driving down costs whilst delivering secure data storage and back up, as well as automated software upgrades to ensure the business always has access to the latest functionality.

Asset insight Cloud-based SaaS can be deployed quickly, reliably and costeffectively, providing organisations with rapid access to the critical asset information required to improve performance in both proactive and reactive maintenance activity. The web-based model transforms accessibility – from providing mobile field engineers with real-time access to check asset history, request parts and update maintenance activity, to enabling managers to review and approve stock requests and facilitating contractors inputting information relating to work undertaken. This ‘anytime, anywhere’ access, via tablet, phone or laptop device, is critical to improve the timeliness and accuracy of asset information and resource utilisation.

With detailed information about asset history, stock utilisation and asset performance, organisations can use in-depth analysis and reporting to determine new maintenance strategies. Dayto-day performance can be measured via dashboards, enabling proactive intervention to address problems and minimise the risk of productivity damaging downtime.

Combining day-to-day performance management with ongoing strategic analysis, organisations can transform the efficiency of maintenance work, improve planning, stock utilisation and resource utilisation and gain a return on investment typically within 12 months.

Conclusion By removing the capex barrier, the Cloud model provides maintenance teams with the chance to make a long overdue investment in technology. Rapid, cost-effective access to fully functional asset maintenance software will provide organisations of every size with the asset visibility required to transform performance.

Having access to in-depth, real-time asset history, performance, stock availability and costs, maintenance departments can begin to evolve and to embrace the proactive maintenance strategies required to extend asset life. This allows them to maximise value and to deliver the cost savings, efficiencies and performance improvements demanded by the business. www.realassetmgt.com.au

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Software

A Patriotic story

Annaliese Kloe is passionate about how a NetSuite implementation can help a fast-growing manufacturing company grow more efficiently, just as it did for her own family’s Headland Machinery.

She cites the example of Patriot Campers, which Klugo helped onto NetSuite.

Another family-based company, Patriot grew out of a couple’s passion for building their own camper trailers. Fellow campers soon started asking them to make more and the business quickly snowballed after it started selling in the US. Moving to NetSuite helped Patriot in many ways.

“It’s been a very fast journey for them as well,” Kloe says. “The software has enabled them to become a lot more efficient in what they do and also be able to expand internationally. If you’ve got paper-based systems and you don’t know where things are and you can’t track your orders and you’re manufacturing, it’s very hard to know where you’re at and make some sound decisions.

“They’ve made some very good calls along the way. Their challenge now is making enough changes. They’re out now to seven or eight months delivery times because they’ve got such demand for their trailers at the moment.”

Klugo has worked closely with manufacturers such as Patriot, and Kloe sees plenty of room for growth, particularly into services industries and in other areas such as medical devices that need regular servicing.

“Manufacturing in particular is a later adopter of the Cloud-based technology, but because it’s so cost-effective that’s driving most of the growth in the industry,” Kloe adds. “With Headland, we were quite savvy with our IT, but you get to a point where you can’t do any more with the systems that you’ve got that are band-aided together.” Kloe is particularly confident about how companies can extend those savings and reduce complexity out along the value chain to include both customers and suppliers.

NetSuite combines the manufacturing module, financials and customer relationship management into one tool that can work across borders through its currency management systems.

“Information will come in through your system and then communicating with your suppliers to buy more raw materials or to say ‘my machine is down, I need a service guy and automatically send that notification to that service person,” says Kloe. Using the cloud-based ERP means any company can simply log on a new employee or grow a unit with an internet browser. It’s also attractive to younger workers.

“Nearly all businesses will be leaping into the cloud in the next five to 10 years and on-premise software will become a thing of the past,” says Kloe.

“Younger generations have an expectation of doing that,” says Kloe. “And the new systems in the cloud allow that flexibility in the workforce.” www.klugogroup.com

www.patriotcampers.com.au

A collaborative trio in advanced manufacturing Precision manufacturing company Archer Engineering, machine centre supplier Okuma and CAM software developer SolidCAM have been working as a ‘co-operative’ since 2013.

Each one works very closely with the others to ensure that complex domestic and international manufacturing projects are making use of world-best technology and expertise. Grant Preston from SolidCAM explains how the trio formed.

“Archer has invested heavily with Okuma, which supplies and supports their CNC machines, and SolidCAM has a technical partnership with Okuma,” says Preston. “We specialise in supporting their products, in particular, their complex mill-turns which Archer relies on.

“We know the Okuma machines very well and offer a unique set of skills that take into account all of Archer’s capabilities. We modify and update post-processors with custom options and to suit new features in our software. Archer takes full advantage of our services so that it can maximise efficiency in production. In addition, SolidCAM works seamlessly with SolidWorks CAD/CAM software, which is Archer’s preferred design tool. So, you have a closed loop in which all of the technology understands the others.”

Preston says SolidCAM enjoys being a part of Archer’s success: “Archer is a pleasure to deal with and one of our major SolidCAM implementation success stories. We often use Archer as a reference for new customers. Our relationship with Archer has strengthened our technical relationship with Okuma.”

Archer’s Operations Director Russ Byrne adds: “Collaboration has been a big part of Archer’s philosophy since the beginning. For

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example, we made the decision to embrace Okuma and Sandvik as manufacturing technology partners 25 years ago. More recently we chose to align ourselves with SolidCAM, which is a world leader.

We work alongside them continually, often being the first in Australia to purchase new products when they are released, in our quest for excellence.”

Byrne says one piece of SolidCAM technology that has been a real gamechanger for them is the iMachining solution exclusive to SolidCAM. The revolutionary CAM toolpath and patented Technology Wizard provide automatic optional feed and speed values for different materials for first-cut success. By optimising tool cutting angles and feed rates, and enabling faster, deeper machining, iMachining delivers “unbelievable” cycle time savings and too life extension.

Byrne has heard of SolidCAM customers saving over 70% on cycle-times and extending cutters up to ten times, and he says Archer has definitely seen a big improvement in those areas.

“It is very common for us to meet with SolidCAM and Okuma before we start work on a project to make sure we are applying the best available tools and processes. The partnership has helped us to deliver outstanding solutions to our customers around the world.” www.archerenterprises.com.au www.okumaaustralia.com.au www.solidcam.com.au

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Software

Spending money to make money as manufacturing digitises

After years of developing cost-saving programmes, Australian manufacturing companies are beginning to see digital as a business-growth tool, not simply as a means of ensuring efficiency. Manufacturers now have the opportunity to increase revenue streams and results through investment in digital strategies. By Robert H Brown and Prasad Satyavolu.

Implementing a successful growthgenerating digital strategy comes down to vision and top-down leadership. Without these, imagining the future and thinking big become stuck in short-term budgetary concerns. The reality is: it’s about spending money to make money as the manufacturing industry digitises.

personalisation that customers now expect.

Embracing digital services directly impacts business growth. Increased financial investment in manufacturing digitisation allows businesses the opportunity to see the big picture and adapt appropriately to demand volatility.

It’s the investment in digital to power personalisation that is driving this growth.

Manufacturers are realising that a car can better represent and serve the needs of their drivers by doing anything from providing entertainment experiences or offering push notifications to inform drivers when they are near a branch of their favourite shop, making the car fully ‘mobile-ready.’ Auto manufacturing has moved beyond the building and sale of a car off a factory line to a fully integrated hardware and software ecosystem, thanks to digital investment.

Evidence shows that globally, investment in digital initiatives has increased manufacturing costs by 1%. Much of this is due to the investment, training and skills needed to use and operate cutting-edge technologies, but this increase in costs is not in vain, as manufacturers are already beginning to see growth from investment in digital strategies. For certain manufacturers, digital is estimated to have added 5.4% to total revenue between 2015 and 2016. This is a worthwhile return on investment from a 1% growth in cost. As technology advances, the relationship between manufacturers and customers will drastically evolve due to digital communication and new routes to market. Personalisation is one of the keys to growth in this Fourth Industrial Revolution as digital becomes increasingly embedded in societies and its role becomes synonymous with manufacturing success.

The power of digital The opportunities that digital technology presents to the manufacturing industry are seemingly endless. Digital allows manufacturers to diversify, and offer better solutions and products for their customers.

There has never been a better opportunity for businesses to invest in advanced manufacturing processes in which software and hardware converge to create rapid production times and to meet all-important customer demand.

Consider new technologies such as augmented reality that can cut the time needed to lay complex wiring harnesses in a jumbo jet by 25%, or 3D imaging as a route to gather further insights into what can be automated in production and field service and repair. Robots and other autonomic systems are working alongside humans on modern manufacturing floors rather

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An example of this can be seen in technologies such as self-driving cars, and the increasing personalisation of connected cars. Indeed, the connected-car market is growing globally at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 45% — 10 times as fast as the overall car market.

Robert H Brown

Looking in to a digital future for manufacturing

Prasad Satyavolu

than being contained in “just designed for robots” floors. A great example is the Airbus factory, in which robots are strapped to the sides of fuselages, riveting thousands of holes, with operators “piloting” the robots.

The benefits extend to creating new routes to market and new product streams.

The traditional supply chain becomes newly connected, smart, and efficient, as integrated planning and execution systems, logistics, and warehousing forms a new ecosystem within manufacturing.

Customer experience is also a major benefit of digitisation. No longer is it acceptable for manufacturers to take a ‘one-size-fitsall’ approach with customer pain-points.

Consider the advent of 3D printing, and the global rise of so-called “maker-artisans” in diverse locales worldwide, heralding a nearterm future of “what you want, when you want it” manufacturing.

Delivering better and more personal service to customers through digital is the best way to address these new demands, and results in increased sales. Manufacturers need to recognise that digital technologies are the most cost-effective way to produce the

It is predicted that by 2018, digital will drive almost 25% additional growth in the global manufacturing industry.

In response, companies must acknowledge the importance of adopting a broader transformation strategy that will affect all stakeholders, whether they be customers, suppliers, products, markets or employees.

It’s this exact mind-shift of thinking big that will ensure manufacturers are well-placed to use digital wisely.

Investment in digital services is vital to the success of any manufacturer and the real value of digital comes from the power to drastically change the business offering, leading to significant growth through increased sales and entirely new revenue streams. While there are some difficulties in implementing a growth-generating digital strategy, the largest one by far is vision. For many businesses, imagining the future and thinking big are the main roadblocks for success. A major mindset shift is required to think big and embrace digital and once this shift occurs, technology can bring this vision to life.

Robert H Brown is the Associate VicePresident, Centre for the Future of Work at Cognizant. Prasad Satyavolu is Head of Innovation, Manufacturing and Logistics at Cognizant. www.cognizant.com

Software

ANCA Management Suite – Virtual machine monitoring for premium grinding efficiencies

According to ANCA, its new Management Suite is a game changer for the CNC grinding industry. It provides customers with the technology to monitor the performance of their machines no matter where they are in the world. The new software also enables companies to run smart factories by providing live production information to make data based decisions on operational improvements.

“We listened to what our customers needed to improve their grinding performance,” said Thomson Mathew, ANCA Software Product Manager. “They told us they wanted a smart factory concept where machines are grinding tools all day every day with minimal intervention and the ability to remotely monitor machines for better intelligence on grinding performance and down-times.

“Imagine you have planned for your CNC grinding machines to run a long tool batch over the weekend. One of your team is on alert to monitor production, keeping an eye on their phone or other device from home and are immediately notified if there is a machine down. In the past this person would have had to be on site all weekend which is a cost to the business - or would have resulted in lost productivity as the problem would only have been picked up when people returned on Monday to find the grinding had stopped at midday on Saturday. “There has also been lots of discussion about the value of data to companies. Data analytics are the key to improving business processes and our new software suite has been designed to give our customers as much intelligence as possible on their machines’ performance in a simple- to-use interface. Gone are the days where customers rely on manual records of machine performance with software that provides factual reports and analytics to enable informed decisions.

“The machine analytics provided by the Management Suite gives companies the ability to produce highly accurate reports on machine usage allowing them to identify waste and increase overall equipment efficiency.”

The Management Suite dashboard provides users with the flexibility to monitor the production of their machines in and out of the office – all they need is to be connected to their server via the internet. It can be viewed by multiple people in the company to ensure a connected team who can work together remotely and onsite to maximise their operational efficiencies. Thomson continues: “The new software means that our customers can decide where their time will be best spent; meeting with clients, visiting other sites or even having lunch out of the office in the knowledge that their machines are operating at a premium.”

Customer benefits of Management Suite Management Suite monitors machine and production in real time and delivers up-todate information, greatly enhancing visibility and control in manufacturing operations.

It reduces costly machine down-time by immediately notifying when a machine has ceased production, with reasons for the stoppage via an email or SMS to the relevant personnel. The software provides complete visibility of the machine status and activity from the office PC or from anywhere in the world if the user is logged into the company’s server.

The Management Suite comprises three products: Tool Management; Wheel Management and RedaX. Tool Management maintains revision control of your grinding programs allowing you to easily revert to older versions. You can also visually identify program changes using the file difference tool.

The Wheel Management product is a central inventory for wheels and wheel packs. It provides a platform to easily share wheel packs and qualification data between machines. It also has a handy search function so that operators can easily find what they are looking for. Another key feature of the Wheel Management product is the differentiation between simulator qualified wheels which prevents the usage of actual wheels on machines to avoid collisions and damages to machine and wheel packs.

The RedaX product is a remote data analytics real time monitoring solution for machines. Its open platform communication unified architecture is part of RedaX and runs on machines to monitor and broadcast machine data. From this, the client can consolidate the findings on a web page that is displayed in a real-time web browser. www.anca.com

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Safety

Human factors and their impact on plant safety

Operators in modern plants are tasked with numerous activities, making it difficult for them to handle abnormal process conditions. Research has demonstrated how an intelligent and ergonomic workspace can both mitigate risk and increase productivity. By Luis Duran, Hampus Schäring and Jeton Partini of ABB. The introduction of mission-critical computing systems and automated tasks in manufacturing processes has resulted in increased safety and productivity during normal operation. But what happens when abnormal situations arise? The answer is, of course, that a human must step in.

Human factors and safety culture The human factor needs to be at the centre of any safety discussion for many reasons, one of which is that human error is often the cause of incidents and accidents in the first place – despite the strict safety culture prevalent in most firms. The consequences of such incidents range from minor injury to headline-making catastrophe. If an organisation wants to ensure a successful safety culture, it must have a clear and explicit risk management strategy.

To understand and manage risk, plant operators should first carry out a hazard and risk assessment to identify the overall safety requirements. After that, they should focus on proactive measures to ensure, if possible, that a failure does not occur and that negative consequences are minimised if one does. Learning from experience can be an ideal starting point: • What should be done differently after a certain experience to prevent reoccurrence?

• What can be done to learn more from this experience?

• What should be done differently after a reccurrence of this experience?

It is important that, rather than be a chore, the company safety culture should provide an opportunity for individuals and organisations to learn from and be motivated by positive change. Employees can thus aspire to a safer and more productive way of working.

Technology as part of the solution Anticipating failure, engineering best practice allocates risk reduction across different independent protection layers in the form of multiple independent functions or systems. One such system is a safety instrumented system (SIS), which is based on a concept involving different “layers” of protection.

A process control system provides a layer that not only assists in the productivity of the process but also helps plant operators keep the process within safe operational boundaries. Today, most process control systems will alert the operator to abnormal conditions and support him or her by providing real-time access to critical information.

When events develop too rapidly for effective operator intervention, other protection layers, such as an automatic SIS, spring into action to return process conditions to normal.

Design-for-safety is supported by a series of standards – such as IEC 61508 and IEC 61511 – that aim to establish, and in some cases mandate, the best practices for design, documentation reviews, validation and verification of a safety project.

If any of these layers (technology or human) fail to prevent the hazard, there are other layers intended to mitigate consequences, such as fire and gas systems or emergency response procedures, which are not discussed here. However, the reality is that all these technologies are designed and implemented by human beings and, as a result, will not be perfect or 100% safe.

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Safety and productivity should be part of company culture.

Integrated control and safety systems provide the enabling technology to drive effective operations and minimise some of the sources of human error. Some benefits of this approach are: • Common failure modes can be designed out before the product is released.

• The standard product can be made secure to prevent unauthorised access to critical facilities.

• Integrated testing occurs in the product test lab and can be carried out by experts with in-depth domain knowledge of the multiple technologies involved.

Human-centered design Various sources indicate that around 70% of reported incidents in the oil & gas industry worldwide are attributable to human error and account for more than 90% of the financial loss to the industry.

This human error challenge can be addressed by matching the control room operator’s psycho-social working environment with his physical working environment. This type of human factor engineering and the use of ergonomic solutions can reduce financial losses.

Designing a control room or control centre working environment for humans is challenging yet fundamental. One of the most important challenges is the need to reduce human error by matching physical and psycho-social elements in the design. The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) formulates the problem thus: “Physical match includes the design of the whole workplace and working environment. Mental match involves the individual’s information and decision-making requirements, as well as their perception of the tasks and risks. Mismatches between job requirements and people’s capabilities provide the potential for human error.”

There are plenty of guidelines and standards that tackle the design process of a control centre or control room – the offshore industry has established ISO 11064 as the main standard worldwide, for example.

Safety

A best-in-class control room environment reduces the chance of human error.

Despite the prevalence and cost of human error, control centre and control room design has tended to focus on physical aspects and the process itself, to the detriment of the human angle. Moreover, with the increasing trend for operators to move from local control rooms to control centres comes a higher operator workload and attendant increased stress levels. Increased stress can lead to depression, anxiety and burnout. Poor ergonomics, poor lighting and high noise levels that directly cause physical ill health can exacerbate this fundamentally bad situation.

The alignment of psycho-social and physical elements automatically improve health and wellbeing in the control room or centre.

Organisations should develop stress management and counseling policies to identify and eradicate work practices that cause the most job dissatisfaction. Of course, humans differ very much in cognitive processes and ability to solve problems – for instance, some operators can be skilled in multitasking, some in understanding the complexity of a workload, others in data analysis, and yet others in effective leadership.

Nevertheless, there is one main value they share: health. Healthimprovement awareness among operators is one of the main factors driving ABB to develop further solutions for the early recognition of adverse stress levels and early warnings of deteriorating health status.

Human-centered design is made all the more imperative by the demographic pressure exerted by an aging workforce. To prevent knowledge being lost, young people must be attracted to a career in the industrial world. This can only be done by offering them a workplace in which they are content.

A holistic approach Improving only the physical part or the psycho-social part of the control room environment is not a holistic approach – both aspects must be improved in a mutually compatible way. This effect was illustrated by research conducted by ABB and Chalmers University, Sweden, in which a traditional control room was compared with a high-end control room. The perceived discomfort increased over time in both, but the increase was lower in the high-end control room. Thus, a more holistic physical and psycho-social environment was provided.

One way to influence performance is through varying lighting levels – a high level of illumination increases motivation and reduces errors and accidents. Lighting also has a direct impact on health and wellbeing since the human circadian rhythm is directly related to ambient light levels. ABB has co-operated with Lund University, Sweden, and others to provide a human-centered lighting platform

The flexibility of the Extended Operator Workplace allows a human-centric approach and thus increases efficiency.

for operators in a control room. One application of the research so far has been to allow the operator to freely adjust their task area lighting by using cold or warm light. The range of illuminance is between 900 to 1800 lux, which exceeds the minimum 500 lux recommended by ISO 11064.

Another way to increase operator efficiency is to simplify the variety of communications possibilities (an operator does not become more efficient by using many different communication tools at the same time.) Instead of a clutter of equipment for VHF/UHF radio, telephony, cell phone, intercom, public address system, and so on, all communication can be moved to just one device.

Finally, controlling noise levels by working with directed sound is another way to improve the operator’s workplace experience. Sound showers are especially beneficial as they allow telecommunication, alarms and so on to take place without disturbing others.

Putting people first Planning for human error is a critical part of control room design.

Designers of systems have to be very careful as they can induce human error if they have not identified all operational eventualities and provided a suitable control process or system response to them. These latent failures can lurk unseen until a specific operational constellation appears and an incident occurs. In such situations, the operator is often unprepared and unable to respond appropriately.

As industries continue to invest in new facilities or modernise existing ones, they could profit from directing some of the investments toward reducing the propensity for human error. This can be done by the adoption of human-centered design best practices.

Consideration of the human elements of the control room will lead to additional benefits and a safer and more productive environment.

Putting people first is a sound business strategy.

This article was initially published in ABB Review. www.abbaustralia.com.au

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Safety

Pilz – Bringing the Mittelstand down under

Pilz is getting set to pass the baton, as it announces the retirement of Renate Pilz – who for four decades has been the driving force behind the growth of the 70-year-old German engineering giant.

Mrs Pilz visited Australia in late August and affirmed that Pilz’s Australian business has the potential to be a local powerhouse of engineering. Pilz Australia is headquartered in Melbourne, with offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland, providing sales and logistics, along with turnkey engineering projects to the local market. Pilz Australia forms part of the Asia Pacific region for Pilz, where it has high expectations for growth, in line with business doubling in five years to nearly $100m, accounting for 20% of company revenue.

to safety on machinery from simple guard-switches on a woodworking machine, to emergency shutdown sequences on nuclear reactors, known colloquially as the Pilz relay.

Australian connection

The character of Mittelstand is a perfect fit for the Australian economy, which like Germany shares a dependence on the success of small-to-medium-sized enterprises to power the economy. The German Mittelstand philosophy is a hereditary DNA that carries through into the products and services it produces. Typically these companies are heavily focussed in niche markets producing highly superior products that are either number one or number two in their markets and taking them to the world.

Australia was part of the company’s first foray outside Europe in 1998, when it launched subsidiaries in Australia, Brazil and Japan – with Australia seen as a forerunner into the Asia Pacific market.

Australia has a safety culture that matches Europe’s – in particular Germany – which leads the world in safety products and services.

Pilz Australia’s Managing Director, Scott Moffat says: “Given the relatively small size of the local market compared to Pilz’s 40 sistercompanies worldwide, we are a good test market to champion new products throughout the region. In particular it is our strong safety culture and lead in industries such as mining, oil & gas, medical, research and defence.

“We learn how to do it on the ground here and leverage that into countries with similar markets and applications globally. As our great skill is know-how and a workforce developed to collaborate with our sister-companies, we are the perfect training factory.”

Pilz came to world-wide acclaim as the pioneer of the Emergency Stop – that red button you see on machinery everywhere. Today this button is integral to everyday safety in everything from baggage handling and packaging equipment through to the process lines in manufacturing and automotive factories. There is a lot of technology behind what looks like a very simple button, given that it has to reliably operate every time since every time is an emergency.

The button relies on the smart technology pioneered by Pilz and contained largely within its safety relays and configurable safety controllers: the yellow box used to control everything related

An economic powerhouse Pilz is the quintessential German “Mittelstand” company. Like so many German words, Mittelstand doesn’t really have a clear translation into English. It’s an ethos, often cited as the miracle of the German economy.

Herman Pilz founded Pilz in 1948 and its international growth and innovative trajectory is based posthumously on his son Peter Pilz, who was killed in a plane crash in 1975. His legacy is the driving force behind the company, where 40 years later his vision for safety automation is just as prevalent today. When the team gathers to talk of innovation, new products or services it is guided by one single ethos: “What would Peter think?”

Picking up the reins at the time was his wife and mother of his two small children – Renate Pilz. She had not studied, and she had no technical or economic knowledge, let alone a clear concept of automation technology.

“Nonetheless, against the advice of my confidantes, I decided not to sell the company, out of a sense of duty,” says Mrs Pilz.

“When I stepped into my husband’s shoes in 1975 I had two small children, Susanne and Thomas. My friends were all housewives and mothers so they were quite surprised at what I was doing. That was a different era and it was very unusual for a woman to head a company, let alone a technical engineering business in Germany’s southwest region of Swabia.”

Mrs Pilz with her son Thomas and daughter Susanne.

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Safety Renate Pilz.

Mrs Pilz remembers clearly the day her husband had shown her a safety relay for the first time. She told him not to even start explaining it to her as automation was a complete mystery. Initially she limited her involvement to chairing the company’s advisory board, before taking full control of the company in 1994. Having committed herself to a period of intense learning, today she speaks automation and safety fluently.

“Like anything, you can apply yourself diligently and you will learn it,” she says. “I have had no technical training, but I made it my mission to educate myself in this industry and surround myself with a supportive and instructive team. Now I have been in the business so long - over 40 years - I don’t know any other life. It is wonderful to be independent: you are the author of your success.”

Surprisingly, Mrs Pilz says that taking over the leadership of the company was not in fact the most challenging part of her career.

“By far the most challenging time was the global financial crash in 2008,” she says. “It was not something we anticipated and it felt like we were being buffeted in a storm. We fought hard in every direction, especially with the banks. Our priority was to secure everyone’s jobs worldwide, that’s 1500 workers – which we did.

“Globalisation is a concept we struggle with. The challenges balance themselves out, an international market place is exciting and we just look forward to what the next day will bring.”

The future – Industry 4.0 Mrs Pilz previously visited Australia in 1998 for the opening of the new subsidiary, which coincided with the company’s 50-year anniversary. Her philosophy is firmly that each region is run as a “Schwestergessellschaft” – the German word that describes a sister company that is independent and autonomous. With her latest visit to Australia, Mrs Pilz has announced her retirement and is handing over the reins to her son Thomas and daughter Susanne.

Pilz reinvests nearly 20% cent of revenues a year on research & development – whereas most industries are around 3% to 5% – in a bid to capture the future. This includes a large focus on Industry 4.0, the new cyber-physical world of manufacturing systems and the digital factory of the future. This ‘smart’ factory sees devices communicate in real time, connected to big data, thinking for themselves. Work is a ‘batch size of one’ as the customer designs a bespoke piece of equipment. The company’s R&D program is setting it on a growth trajectory, and Mrs Pilz steps down knowing the future will be both successful and exciting.

“The advice I have for any person in business is the same as I give to my son and daughter who are taking over the reins,” she says.

“Put your whole heart into what you do and commit to the customer – without customers we do not have a business.

“Once I retire I’m looking forward to some quiet time gardening and enjoying my family.” www.pilz.com.au

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Safety solutions for intelligent human-robot collaboration

Human-robot collaboration (HRC) describes a work scenario in which humans and automated machines share and work in the same workspace at the same time. Driven by Industry 4.0, this model of collaboration promises highly flexible workflows, maximum system throughput and productivity, as well as economic efficiency. However, ensuring that HRC is actually able to live up to this promise requires exactly the right safety technology for the application in question. By Fanny Platbrood, Product Manager for Industrial Safety Systems at SICK. One of the major issues associated with Industry 4.0 is making work processes flexible. At the extreme end of the spectrum, this may involve manufacturing products in batch size 1 under industrial mass-production conditions – that is, manufacturing unique items on a conveyor belt. This type of smart factory – where products and production processes are one with state-of-the-art information and communication technology – is becoming home to machines that are increasingly intelligent, and increasingly autonomous as a result.

Not only that, but interaction between humans and machines is also set to increase in industrial manufacturing. This is because combining the abilities of humans with those of robots results in production solutions that are characterised by optimised work cycles, improved quality, and greater cost-efficiency, to name a few examples. At the same time, however, machines that are autonomous but primarily interact with humans require new safety concepts that provide effective support for making production processes more flexible.

Human-robot interaction: a question of space and time Industry 4.0 is not the first time that industrial automation has focused on interaction between humans and machines. To date, the two-interaction scenarios of co-existence and co-operation have dominated, accounting for around 90% of cases. Space and time are crucial interaction parameters in these scenarios.

Coexistence denotes cases in which humans and machines stay in neighbouring areas at the same time while they interact. A typical example of this is an insertion station with a rotating table on a robot cell. Humans and machines work in neighbouring workspaces at the same time, with the area between the two being monitored by a deTec4 Prime safety light curtain, for example.

Co-operation, on the other hand, is when humans and machines work in a shared workspace but at different times. An example of this type of work situation is a transfer station for assembly robots.

A worker inserts a workpiece and, at the same time, a S3000 safety laser scanner with multiple simultaneous protective fields that detect the worker ensures that the robot speed is reduced or that the robot is brought to a safety-monitored stop.

Industry 4.0 is seeing a third form of interaction shifting increasingly into the spotlight: collaboration between humans and robots. This involves both humans and robots sharing the same workspace at the same time. An example of this is a mobile platform with a robot that takes parts from a belt or a pallet and transports them to a workspace, where they are presented and given to the worker stationed there.

In collaborative scenarios such as this, the conventional safe detection solutions used for coexistence or co-operation are no longer sufficient – instead, the forces, speeds, and travel paths of robots now need be to monitored, restricted, and stopped where necessary, depending on the actual level of danger. The distance between humans and robots is therefore becoming a key safetyrelevant parameter.

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Interaction between humans and machines is set to increase in industrial manufacturing.

The risk assessment is always the first step – even for “cobots” No two examples of human-robot collaboration are the same. This means that an individual risk assessment for the HRC application is required even if the robot concerned has been developed specifically to interact with humans. “Cobots” like this therefore have many features of an inherently safe construction, starting from their basic design.

At the same time, the collaboration space also has to meet fundamental requirements such as minimum distances to adjacent areas with crushing or pinching hazards. General standards such as IEC 61508, IEC 62061, and ISO 13849-1/-2 are one way in which the foundations for the functional safety of HRC applications are laid. It is also important to give particular consideration to ISO 10218-1/-2, which concerns the safety of industrial robots, and ISO TS 15066, which relates to robots for collaborative operation.

Developers and integrators of robot systems not only have to perform thorough checks on the structural safety measures taken by robot manufacturers, with regard to their functions and compliance with the aforementioned standards, but are also required to consider any hazards or risks that may remain. This means carrying out a risk assessment in accordance with EN ISO 12100 for the robot system, its motion sequences, and its planned collaboration area in order to determine which safety measures are appropriate – such as implementing suitable types of collaboration as defined in ISO/TS 15066.

Safety

Coexistence denotes cases in which humans and machines stay in neighbouring areas at the same time while they interact. A typical example of this is an insertion station with a rotating table on a robot cell.

Co-operation, on the other hand, is when humans and machines work in a shared workspace but at different times. An example of this type of work situation is a transfer station for assembly robots.

The “speed and separation monitoring” type of collaboration is completely in keeping with the concept of highly flexible work scenarios – and therefore with the principles of Industry 4.0 and production processes in smart factories. It is based on the speed and travel paths of the robot being monitoring and adjusted according to the working speed of the operator in the protected collaboration area. Safety distances are permanently monitored and the robot is slowed down, stopped, or diverted when necessary. If the distance between the operator and the machine becomes greater than the minimum distance again, the robot system can continue moving at typical speeds and along typical travel paths automatically. This immediately restores robot productivity.

Functional safety for HRC: expertise, portfolio, and implementation from a single source

Industry 4.0 has brought collaboration between humans and robots to the fore. This involves both humans and robots sharing the same workspace at the same time, such as a mobile platform with a robot that takes parts from a belt or a pallet and transports them to a workspace, where they are presented and given to the worker stationed there.

Safety-related operating modes of collaborative robot systems These technical specifications can be used to discern four types of collaborative operation. The “safety-related monitored stop” prevents robots from interacting with humans, while “hand guiding” ensures safe HRC by guiding the robot manually at an appropriately reduced speed. The third type of collaboration, “power and force limiting”, achieves the required safety by reducing the power, force, and speed of the robot – through safety controller limiting functions, for example – to a biomechanical load capacity at which no hazards or injuries are to be expected. This takes place regardless of whether there is unintentional or intentional physical contact between robots and humans.

Of the different types of ISO/TS 15066 collaboration, speed and distance monitoring in HRC applications offers the greatest potential as we move into the future. When considered in relation to these, and in view of the interaction scenarios of coexistence and cooperation that have dominated up to this point, it is clear that safetyrelated sensor and control technology is facing new challenges to ensure that HRC is able to continue operating unimpeded.

It is also worth noting that the more the requirements imposed on the safety of shared workspaces increase, the more collaborative future work situations will become. As a manufacturer of sensor, control, and system solutions for functional safety and a supplier of comprehensive safety services that range from risk assessment and safety concepts through to system solution implementation, SICK has extensive expertise in designing safe robot applications.

What’s more, SICK offers a range of sensors and controllers that has developed along with the requirements of safe robot applications over the decades. Safety solutions based on various technologies are becoming more and more intelligent and are constantly making new HRC applications possible because they are able to fulfill requirements that are becoming increasingly demanding.

As things stand, HRC only accounts for a small share of all applications involving human-robot interaction. Innovative solutions for functional safety in robot applications, like those developed and implemented at SICK, can help to increase this share significantly in the foreseeable future. www.sick.com.au

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Forum Finance

The importance of a specialist equipment finance consultant

Finance company Interlease has experienced high levels of enquiry for funding of new manufacturing equipment .

This hopeful sign indicates that a rebound in the economy is taking place. However businesses are finding it difficult to source funding due to the stringent credit assessments imposed by banks. Angus Macdonald explains.

Speculation that interest rates will rise has been lingering for a while now and to some extent such speculation is warranted. If so, what is holding the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) back?

Banks raised their interest rates on more than one occasion in 2017, this being without any movement from the RBA on the official cash rate. Most of the speculation was based on the economy improving, which would warrant a rise in the cash rate, but instead, we have seen household debt remain high, wages stagnate and no major economic shift to prompt a rise. While employment has risen, underemployment remains concerningly low.

After assessing all of this, we see that the next move may not be a rise, instead it is looking more likely that the next move by the RBA will see the official cash rate dip even lower than the current record low of 1.50%. That said, any move at all is still likely to be postponed until 2018.

Recently we have also seen an increase in the Australian Dollar, something not welcomed by many. The reasons surrounding this are supported by Australia’s healthy AAA credit rating and strong appetite for overseas investors in our local ASX stock market. While we are seeing decreases in Australia’s natural resources such as iron ore, which would traditionally convert to a decrease in the $A, we are instead seeing investment as the key factor in sustaining a strong value in the dollar.

From the outset, all of these factors paint the picture of a fairly stagnate economy with little growth, however Interlease is currently experiencing high levels of enquiry for funding of new equipment specific to the manufacturing industry which shows a rebound is taking place. In many ways, key decision makers in business are seeing the bigger picture. With economists giving conflicting predictions on a daily basis on which way interest rates are going, one thing has remained true, and this is that money is cheap. When we compare current rates to that of 10 years ago we are still riding the wave of record low interest rates and businesses are choosing to borrow more to the point where the economy has hit a crossroad.

We aren’t at the level of inflation needed to justify a rise in interest rates, yet the powers to be don’t want debt levels to rise too high.

So where does that leave us?

It is expected that while interest rates are low, businesses will take advantage of this climate to purchase new plant and equipment to increase productivity and output. Invariably, this puts a greater risk to banks and finance companies as their lending becomes more risk adverse, making it harder to recover capital lost to bad loans.

The natural reaction to this is to adjust credit policy to tighten the requirements on lending. A key example of this is the restrictions the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) have put on investment lending. Business lending has remained slow due to these factors. To quote J.P Morgan’s Henry St john: “Business credit continued to expand at a snail’s pace in 2017, growing 0.2% month-on-month in May, with the annual growth rate in business credit remaining at 3% - a three-year low. The slowdown in business credit is disappointing given the strength in business survey data since the start of this year”. These words giving a clear indication that businesses are performing but are finding it hard to source

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funding due to the stringent credit assessments coming from the banks. This can create a minefield for SMEs looking to borrow for new technology or imported machinery - requiring a letter of credit or structured payments.

When assessing the credit worthiness for almost all SMEs, banks will look at equity in land and property and often overlook equity in plant and equipment and business goodwill. Just as a business wouldn’t rely on one contract for all of their income, the same should be said for their lending. A business’ primary bank can act as a concentration risk. A bank’s key objective is to manage their risk in order to generate returns for their shareholders, while businesses should take the same stance when managing their banking. By spreading lending across multiple lenders, a business will always leave themselves less vulnerable to negative changes in the lending market. Each lender would have minimal exposure and be more open to future lending.

If a business is to run successfully with minimal exposure to external factors outside of their control such as bank policy changes, it needs to have good, independent people working for them. A specialist equipment finance consultant is important to the running of any business that requires equipment in its daily operations.

Interlease has over 40 years specialist experience in commercial financing, working with clients, accountants and suppliers to structure finance to meet almost any requirement, as well as extensive expertise in structuring transactions, whether it’s another forklift or large imported machinery, which requires managing currency, interest rate and supplier risk.

Please contact Angus Macdonald on 03 9420 0000 or amacdonald@interlease.com.au www.interlease.com.au

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Law

Debt recovery – What to do and when to do it

Many businesses fail because they don’t have cash in their bank account to pay their debts. How do you ensure that this doesn’t happen to you? Jeremy Streten offers helpful debt-recovery advice.

Are you struggling to make ends meet? Do some customers take liberties and pay you weeks or months after you finish the work?

Do you have a large outstanding debtor balance that just doesn’t seem to reduce? If you answer yes to any of these questions then more often than not the answer to your problem is putting a debt recovery procedure in place. A good debt recovery process will train your customers to pay on time. It can be a difficult task as they will often be busy in their own business and don’t prioritise payment of your bills.

Often you may feel that you are working long hours and getting no reward; usually this is because you have not been paid for work you have already finished. Cash is the lifeblood of any business. It lets you continue to operate, pay yourself and pay your bills.

Prevention is better than a cure Getting paid up front before you do your work is the best solution to improve cash flow in your business. One option is to provide a discount, if your customer pays you up front. The money that you save not chasing your debtors should allow you to offer a discount.

Debt recovery options If you provide credit you must have a procedure in place to ensure that you get paid. The procedure needs to help you collect your debts, training your customers when they need to pay you. There are a number of steps to the debt recovery process, ie: demand; going to court; and enforcement.

Demand Once a debt is overdue, you need to contact the debtor to demand payment. In dealing with the debtor, it is important that you: • Know all of the details about the person that owes you money • Are confident, business-like and courteous • Listen carefully • Adapt your approach according to their response • Convey a sense of urgency in setting deadlines for payments • Be calm and polite no matter how rude the debtor may become • Make sure the debtor knows you want a fair outcome By following these simple guidelines, you will show the debtor that you are serious. Becoming aggressive and rude will only escalate any conflict and it is unlikely to result in you getting your money. If this doesn’t work then you should consider employing the services of a professional debt collector. They will also usually work on a contingency fee, meaning that they will be paid a percentage of any money recovered.

Going to court Once you exhaust your options demanding payments, then you can consider litigation. This means commencing

proceedings in a court or tribunal to recover your money.

This process can be costly and affords the debtor the opportunity to dispute your debt. If they do that, then the costs of the recovery process may end up costing you tens of thousands of dollars. This is where you need to take a pragmatic approach to ensure that what you are paying to go through this process won’t cost you more than you get back. Often even if you are successful in litigation, you may only receive somewhere between 50%-75% of your costs back so be careful not to just pursue someone for ‘the principle of it’.

The litigation process can also be time-consuming. You may need to appear in court or tribunal and give evidence in a court setting. This may not be something that you want to do. Before you proceed with litigation you need to speak with your lawyer about the time that you will be required to devote to the process not just the costs. This is so you can consider the emotional toll that the process will take on you.

Enforcement If you are successful in the litigation process, you will receive a piece of paper that says that you are owed an amount of money. This is known as a judgment. At this point you then need to enforce that judgment against the debtor. There are various processes that you can use (all of which cost more money and take more time) to recover your money. Remember if the debtor has no money, then there is nothing to recover. At this point you can consider applying to make the person bankrupt.

The end game Ideally you don’t need to give credit to your customers. If you do decide to give credit then you need to understand the debt collection process. More importantly you need to ensure that you strictly follow your process. If you do not, then your customers will know that they can get away without paying you for longer periods of time. Doing it right will ensure that you can maintain the cash in your business so that you can pay your debts and operate a successful business.

Jeremy Streten is Director of Qld-based law firm Streten Masons Lawyers. Streten Masons is an innovative law firm with progressive attitudes which gives accurate and comprehensive advice to clients in order to obtain the best possible outcomes.

Jeremy is the author of the amazon best seller “The Business Legal Lifecycle”- a guidebook designed to help business owners understand what they are doing in their business from a legal perspective. Phone: 1300 000 529 http://smslaw.com.au

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Forum OHS

Workplace health & safety penalties – Potential to increase There is a potential for higher WHS penalties to be imposed, as a recent court case has demonstrated.

Tim Capelin and Emily Setter explain Work Health & Safety Harmonisation (WHS) is an initiative by Safe Work Australia that aims to standardise work health and safety legislation across all states and territories. The reason for this is obvious – with one simple and clear set of model laws and guidelines instead of several, a national standard can be set, simplifying WHS for both businesses and practitioners. This will help ensure that all Australian workers have a minimum standard of WHS no matter where they work. It will also simplify the operations of companies working across several territories. A case earlier this year in Queensland has set a precedent which may see an increase in penalties. The case involves a “manifestly inadequate” penalty after a fatal injury which occurred in Queensland five years ago.

The Queensland District Court last April found that a fine of $90,000 imposed by the Queensland Magistrates Court in Williamson v VH & MG Imports Pty Ltd [2017] QDC 56 was “clearly manifestly inadequate” when compared with fines imposed in other harmonised jurisdictions under the model Workplace Health and Safety laws.

The ruling affirms the importance of national consistency in penalties, with the Queensland District Court accepting that its WHS Act permitted sentencing courts to consider comparable decisions from states and territories subject to the harmonised legislation. This decision has important implications and sets a precedent which may see more lenient courts increasing penalties to the level set by courts nationally.

Background In October 2012, a labourer employed by VH&MG Imports Pty Ltd was fatally injured when a strut on the prototype boat trailer he was building exploded and penetrated his skull above his right eye. The defendant company, a small to medium size manufacturer of camper and boat trailers, was found to have failed to ensure the safety of the employee, who had adopted “trial and error” practices in constructing the trailer. Relevantly, the employee was not a qualified welder and had warned his managers that he had “never designed anything from scratch” previously.

The incident in question occurred when a gas strut on the trailer exploded while being hammered by another employee, who was attempting to loosen it. The court found that the struts were overextended and were of poor manufactured quality and that hammering the strut is known to impact their safe operation.

WHSQ charged the employer with breaching a category 2 offence under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) (WHS Act), by failing to conduct a risk assessment, failing to engage a competent person to calculate the correct load points of the struts and failing to adequately train employees on safe work method procedures.

The maximum penalty for such offences is $1.5m for corporations, however in this instance the court imposed a fine of $90,000 for the breaches.

The Appeal WHSQ appealed the decision on the grounds that the penalty imposed at first instance was manifestly inadequate, and in particular that insufficient weight was given to general deterrence, and too much weight was given to the employer’s post-offence measures. WHSQ also alleged that insufficient weight was given

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to the failure to take even basic risk assessments or to seek expert advice when engaging in a novel area, as occurred when building the prototype trailer which caused the injury and that the sentence was “well out of line” with those imposed for similar offences under the harmonised WHS laws in other jurisdictions.

On appeal, the Queensland District Court found that the failure of the gas strut which fatally injured the employee “was just the final step in a sequence of systemic work health failures”, and accordingly held that the penalty imposed by the Magistrates Court was manifestly inadequate in the circumstances.

In determining the appropriate penalty, the Court had regard to comparable interstate cases in which penalties imposed were in the range of $150,000 - $425,000. The court also agreed with WHSQ’s submission that sentencing under the harmonised WHS laws “is analogous to the sentencing of federal offences by state courts”, and referred to the objectives of the WHS Act to support this position.

Importantly, the court also acknowledged that, insofar as possible, looking to relevant decisions in harmonised interstate jurisdictions to ensure consistency “is fundamental to a fair system of justice”.

Lessons for Employers Employers in states which have historically imposed lower penalties under the model WHS laws should be aware of the potential for higher penalties to be imposed, in accordance with those across other harmonised jurisdictions.

Employers should not expect the courts’ attitude to penalties to moderate. A lax approach to safety, particularly where the potential ramifications are very serious, will lead to severe penalties.

Tim Capelin is Partner and Emily Setter is Law Clerk at commercial law firm - Piper Alderman.

Should you have any questions concerning how the decision described above may affect your business, please contact Piper Alderman - which has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Piper Alderman is committed to continual excellence in the practice of law, having been leading advisers to commercial interests across Australia for over 160 years. The firm’s impressive growth has been achieved by listening to clients, responding to their needs and creating practical legal solutions. As a genuinely national firm, Piper Alderman works with clients across all states and territories in Australia, as well as several international organisations.

Sydney: 02 9253 9999 Melbourne: 03 8665 5555 Brisbane: 07 3220 7777 Adelaide: 08 8205 3333 www.piperalderman.com.au

Forum

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Compliance

Battery storage standards – a case study in collaboration

With much controversy, Standards Australia concluded public consultation on new Australian Standards for the installation of on-site battery storage systems. Over 3000 comments were received, many on a single issue.

Since the consultation, government and industry has come together to agree on a framework to accelerate the development of standards to support innovation, customer choice and meet community safety expectations.

What is battery storage?

Battery storage is about enabling Australian consumers to be able to store energy, for later use, off the grid.

The transformation of energy generation and use comprises significant challenges and opportunities for Australian industry, consumers and regulatory stakeholders. For many, one of the most important pieces of infrastructure to emerge in the Australian market is energy storage systems, which enable occupants to interact with the “smart grid” in new and innovative ways. As this new technology emerges on the Australian market, it is crucial that storage systems are safe, reliable and efficient. To do this, regulatory frameworks and technical infrastructure, including standards, are required.

The COAG Energy Council identified a need for energy storage standards to cover the increasingly diverse range of energy storage technologies, and thus sought to work with Standards Australia to develop the Roadmap for Energy Storage Standards which identifies standards that are needed to facilitate the safe installation, connection, maintenance, operation and disposal of batteries.

The Roadmap for Energy Storage Standards identified the ongoing need for an installation standard for battery systems. At the same time, it also noted the lack of product standards in the market, particularly in terms of safety. As a result the roadmap recommended that product standards be adopted or developed as soon as practicable.

Draft standard provokes strong responses In June 2017, Standards Australia released for consultation the draft voluntary standard, DR AS/NZS 5139:201X, Electrical installations – Safety of battery systems for use with power conversion equipment.

The release of the draft standard came less than a week after the release of the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Electricity Market (the Finkel Report) where it was noted that consumer demand could drive the number of on-site battery storage systems installed in Australian homes and small businesses to more than 1 million by 2035.

The draft standard, prepared jointly by Australian and New Zealand stakeholders, includes provision for: • Installation requirements for all battery systems connected to inverter energy systems, covering all battery types.

• Mitigating hazards associated with battery energy storage system installations; and • Classifying batteries based on hazards, rather than chemistry type.

The standard is applicable to systems with a rated capacity equal to or greater than 1 kWh, up to and including 200 kWh, covering installations ranging from residential housing to buildings and larger commercially zoned premises.

Balancing interests; safety vs innovation Throughout the consultation process concerns were raised that the draft standard would seek to ban lithium-ion batteries in homes. As it does with all drafts, Standards Australia opened the document to the broader community. This gives individuals and organisations the opportunity to review the content of a standard prior to its completion and submit feedback to be reviewed by the technical committee.

Over 3000 comments were received from the public on DR AS/NZS 5139 during its 9-week comment period. Standards Australia has since been working closely with key stakeholders to chart the best way forward on this project.

Finding Solutions Standards Australia’s Chief Executive Dr Bronwyn Evans brought together senior industry and government leaders to discuss the introduction of residential on-site battery storage standards in Australia. At the roundtable broad agreement was reached that will see Standards Australia, industry and government working together to fast track the development and adoption of appropriate product safety standards.

The agreed standards framework includes the expected adoption of product standards developed by the IEC and UL, two leading developers of standards for battery products. The adoption of these standards will complement the installation standard being developed in Australia. Standards Australia is committed to fasttracking these projects over the next three months. Additionally, it was agreed that the provisions contained in the draft installation standard related to small scale commercial and residential building regulation, beyond product placement, will be

Where to from here?

Standards Australia will organise a future roundtable as the standards development work progresses to ensure the broad support and alignment remains. Progress will be communicated along the way, and the public is invited to submit comments during further rounds of consultation.

In regard to building regulation, industry and government will work together to develop appropriate requirements that recognise current installation practices based on the international product standards. These changes will also be subject to further community consultation.

The end goal for all is to enable the continued roll out of small scale commercial and residential onsite battery systems while empowering customer choice and meeting community safety expectations.

Standards Australia is the nation’s peak non-government, notfor-profit standards organisation whose expertise and main responsibility is the development and adoption of standards in Australia. The company forms technical committees by bringing together relevant parties and stakeholders. Through a process of consensus, these committees develop standards for Australia’s net benefit. Ph: 02 9237 6000 www.standards.org.au

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104 Manufacturing matters in Australia.

Our manufacturers lead the world in numerous products and industries.

Australia’s manufacturing industry is a major contributor to our economy each year, and our manufacturers employ large numbers of people, offering them challenging, rewarding work, and providing the basis for stable, diverse communities.

Welcome to the Manufacturers’ Pavilion, the section of AMT Magazine dedicated to celebrating some of the best, most dynamic, most innovative manufacturing companies working in Australia today.

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The Manufacturers’ Pavilion highlights the capabilities of Australia’s precision engineering and advanced manufacturing industry. Over the following pages, we will look at companies delivering products and services across a variety of industrial sectors, and employing a diverse array of processes.

It builds on the successful Manufacturers’ Pavilion exhibition area within the Austech trade show and is sure to enhance the profile of the leading edge manufacturers in our sector.

If you feel your company should be featured in a future edition of the Manufacturers’ Pavilion, please contact AMTIL Sales Manager Anne Samuelsson, on 03 9800 3666, or by emailing asamuelsson@amtil.com.au

Manufacturers Heading Pavilion

Industry leader in the manufacture of precision thin metal parts Flexible manufacturing of thin metal parts, signs and the supply of custom shim packs is the speciality of Mastercut Technologies – a capability which reliably meets customers’ specific requirements.

Based in Queensland and operating for over 25 years, Mastercut Technologies is the industry leader in the manufacture of precision thin metal parts. Specialising in thin stainless steel, copper and brass, Mastercut has a variety of cutting techniques to suit the application. One of the most flexible is PCM or photo chemical milling. This method is the closest thing to photocopying of metal and is a great intermediate step between laser cutting and stamping.

Mastercut also has lasers for cutting and marking and these methods can be combined for specific requirements. In addition to precision parts, PCM is used for half etching ID plates and signage from stainless steel which will remain perfectly readable in all conditions.

Mastercut also manufactures a range of building signage including fascia signage, door numbers, elevator plaques and directional signage, for apartment buildings, office buildings, hotels and

high-rises. Signs are generally made form marine grade 316 stainless steel; copper and brass are also available. These signs can last decades and can be colour-filled or powder-coated for an added finish.

Mastercut is a major stockist of stainless steel shim of 600mm wide coils in both grades 304 and 316 in thicknesses starting from 0.025mm. Supplying to mining, oil and gas, Mastercut produces shims in a ‘pack’ of thicknesses to meet a customer’s specific design requirements. Mastercut can assist with drawing the shape if electronic files are not available.

Mastercut Technologies Pty Ltd 22 Leda Drive Burleigh Heads, Queensland 4220 T: 07 5576 1900 F: 07 5576 1910 W: www.mastercut.com.au E: info@mastercut.com.au Toby Poulsen Sales Consultant E: toby@mastercut.com.au Based on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Mastercut specialises in deep acid etching and laser cutting of thin metals. Operating for over 25 years, Mastercut is the OEM supplier to many manufacturers throughout Australia, New Zealand and SE Asia.

Commenting on the benefits his company has to the mining industry, Managing Director Jim Cove said: “We often get calls from miners needing shim packs for operations in remote locations. Because we stock a broad range of stainless shims starting from 0.025mm (.001”), we can get the job cut and despatched pretty fast. All we need is a drawing of the required shape and the required thicknesses.”

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Innovative industrial design and engineering Overcoming complex design challenges through unique and innovative industrial product design and engineering has provided Integra Systems’ clients with improved productivity and sales both locally and globally.

Since 1991, Integra Systems has worked with hundreds of Australian businesses and helped them enjoy prosperity in both local and export markets with product designs that blow their competition out of contention. Integra Systems is proud to be a 100% Australian-owned family business, supporting customers globally.

With innovation as the cornerstone of Integra’s culture, Integra empowers clients in key areas of industrial design, product design engineering and mechanical engineering through highly efficient in-house advanced manufacturing systems and project management expertise.

The company focuses on working collaboratively with clients so they may secure new market opportunities and overcome complex design challenges in a highly diverse range of industries. Offering a unique design process – no matter what the industry – is what distinguishes Integra, and provides you with the ultimate solution.

Empowering you to ‘Make Your Vision Real’ is what drives Integra Systems.

Breakthrough product and engineering design, followed by world-class execution, is the method. Industry recognition for this is supported by the many awards Integra has received.

Integra TransForm – Innovating for Performance Integra Systems has created a new division – Integra TransForm – which specialises in product design and manufacturing of proprietary products owned and commercialised by Integra, right here in Australia. Global research and usercentric design inform the innovation of Integra TransForm products that have been conceived with the primary purpose of improving business, productivity, sales, service and personal performance.

AeroSMART & BioSMART

BioSMART cleverly converts your office furniture to sit–stand Delivers one–touch electronic simplicity Elegant design, built for strength A quality investment that will last All Australian made

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Paul Hughes Managing Director T: 03 9359 3133 E: paul@integrasystems.com.au For over 25 years, Integra has empowered clients to achieve their aspirations through integrated solutions – innovative, creative and break-through product design engineering and advanced manufacturing from ideation to delivery.

THE WORKSMART COLLECTION

Enquire about our BioSMART 30 day free trial *conditions apply

Integra is proudly a multi-award winning enterprise

197 Northcorp Blvd Broadmeadows, Vic, 3047 T: 03 9359 3133 F: 03 9359 3166 W: www.integrasystems.com.au E: enquiries@integrasystems.com.au

Ultimately, Integra’s business relationships are centred around its ability to ‘Make your Vision Real’.

Boost your workplace performance with beautiful sit–stand solutions that deliver health and productivity improvement results.

The strong and sturdy WorkSmart Collection uses world–class electronic technology and user–centric designs to deliver elegant sit–stand solutions to the highest quality, right here in Australia.

Your workplace will directly benefit from Integra’s drive to provide elegant ergonomics that deliver results.

A division of Integra Systems Pty Ltd Telephone +61 3 9359 3133 Facsimile +61 3 9359 3166 Email sales@integratransform.com.au www.integratransform.com.au

Integra Systems

Integra BioSMART

Integra AeroSMART

Manufacturers Heading Pavilion

Broad range of general engineering & manufacturing in-house

Kilner’s Engineering Pty Ltd

Kilner’s Engineering in-house service ensures seamless transition from prototype to production.

Kilner’s offers a broad range of general engineering and manufacturing services from its facility located in Bulimba, Brisbane.

Kilner’s aim is to produce products in one facility and deliver on time and budget.

The company offers any combination of laser cutting, waterjet cutting, metal folding, CNC machining, CNC turning and fabrication services.

Engineering materials are the company’s specialty - offering a vast range of thicknesses & grades including mild steel, stainless steel and aluminium.

Kilner’s is able to laser cut or waterjet cut your design from a drawing or sample, fold it, weld it and carry out any secondary machining operations that are required; with the turning or milling of any other components as necessary. Kilner’s can also organise and manage any coatings including anodising, galvanising, powder coating or zinc plating and also supply any fasteners or bearings. Your product can then be supplied

as a kit or fully assembled with grease and loctite where required.

If you require help with your design or just need to progress from theory to prototype to full production, Kilner’s can assist at any stage and utilise 3D modelling, design and drafting experience to help make a commercially viable finished product.

The company is a family-owned and operated third generation manufacturing engineering company with a depth of experience only achieved through time and continuous development. Kilner’s has been using SolidWorks since 1999 and combined with the 3D machining capabilities of SolidCam, is able to deliver a complete product or complex assembly that works.

41 Godwin St Bulimba, QLD 4171 PO Box 88 Bulimba, QLD 4171 T: 07 3399 4273 W: www.kilner.com.au E: sales@kilner.com.au • Laser Cutting • Waterjet Cutting • CNC Turning • CNC Machining • Metal Folding • Welding • Fabrication • 3D Design

Being able to control every aspect of the production in-house, Kilner’s is also able to adapt and revise your product quickly and efficiently and move from prototype to production smoothly.

G N I N UR T C NG NG I I CN T N I T U CH C A T E M ERJ T LY CNC A B W M SE & S R A E & LAS N O TI A C I NG I S FABR S G RE N P I T E F K A R D BRA & N G I S E D + 3D 273u 4 399er.com.am.au 3 07 ww.kiln les@kilner.co : H P w l: sa Emai 17_KE_AMTAdvert.indd 1

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High-quality supplier and re-grinder of machine knives and precision grinding services Davis & Jenkins offers a unique ability to handle large workpieces – including grinding – with extreme precision and at precise bevel angles on any kind of steel, plus a reputable refurbishment service for companies Australia-wide.

Recently, Davis & Jenkins acquired a new precision surface grinding machine, which substantially increased the company’s capacity. With that new machine, it is possible to handle work pieces with dimensions as large as 3,000mm x 1,000mm x 1,040mm, and weighing as much as 3,000kg. The ability to process such large workpieces, with a height up to 1,040mm, is rare in Australia. It allows the grinding of large workpieces including machine beds, bases, fixtures, jigs and large steel plates, with extreme precision. Davis & Jenkins has four more machines with a swivellable magnetic chuck capacity, which is also very large at 5,500mm x 300mm x 250mm, enabling the grinding of precise bevel angles on any kind of steel to a length of 5,500mm. This machine has also been utilised to provide a refurbishment service for press brake tooling, in particular, MultiVee Block Dies, helping other companies to save much money by not needing a new replacement tool. Various industries use machine knives in varying qualities in

paper or metal cutting guillotines, paper or metal slitters, newspaper presses and wood chippers, just to name a few. Davis & Jenkins is a manufacturer, supplier, and re-grinder of industrial machine knives for the printing, paper, wood, plastics, and metal industries.

A core service provided by the company is precision surface grinding with very largecapacity magnetic tables. Davis & Jenkins also supplies spare parts, accessories, and consumables for the printing industry.

The company originated as engineering arm of Alex Cowan & Sons (later known as Spicers Paper) in the late 1800s. Cowan sold that arm to Messers Davis & Jenkins in 1927, who remained a partnership until being incorporated in 1955. Currently, the company has eight employees in Melbourne providing supply and grinding services for companies throughout Australia. As the Australian agent for the German TKM Group (formerly IKS Klingelnberg), Davis & Jenkins has achieved an excellent reputation as a high-quality supplier and re-grinder of machine knives and for precision grinding services.

Davis & Jenkins Pty Ltd 198 Christmas Street Fairfield Victoria 3078 T: 03 9499 2858 F: 03 9497 1992 W: davisandjenkins.com.au E: info@davisandjenkins.com.au Patrick Vlahos Production Manager T: 03 9499 2858 E: info@davisandjenkins.com.au Currently, Davis & Jenkins has eight employees in Melbourne providing supply and grinding services for companies throughout Australia. Being the Australian agent for the German TKM Group (formerly IKS Klingelnberg), Davis & Jenkins has achieved an excellent reputation as a high quality supplier and re-grinder of machine knives and precision grinding services.

Quality+precision = reputation.

Davis & Jenkins – high quality supplier anD re-grinDer of machine knives anD precision grinDing services.

• Workpieces up to 3000 x 1000 x 1040mm, with a weight of 3000kg • Swivel-able magnetic chuck capacity is 5500 x 300 x 250mm, enabling precise bevel angles on any kind of steel to a length of 5500mm.

davisandjenkins.com.au 198 Christmas Street • Fairfield VICTORIA 3078 • Tel: 03 9499 2858 • Fax: 03 9497 1992 AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Manufacturers Pavilion

Camtech Engineering – Moulding a niche With its core focus on metal mould manufacturing for plastics-packaging, Camtech has diversified into areas including press tools and customised engineering solutions.

Based on the Gold Coast, Camtech Engineering celebrates three decades in business. Established in 1988 with six partners forming the core expertise, it is now flourishing, with around 40 staff specialising in toolmaking and precision engineering.

Camtech’s core business is in plastic packaging and MD Gary Roche explains: “We produce the metal moulds that your plastic items are formed in, precision blow moulds, precision injection moulds, and everything that the plastic industry requires.

We are Australia’s major manufacturer of the moulds that produce your milk bottles and their caps and our years of experience has us at the forefront of innovative design and manufacture. We have full five-axis machining capabilities on both mill and lathe, precision CNC cylindrical grinders and we literally do everything in-house. We are toolmakers with NC machines that help with our precision and quality”. That high level of capability also means Camtech is able to supplement its core market in plastics with work in other areas. And changes in the Australian plastics industry have resulted

in Camtech taking a much larger role as a provider of services to its clients, rather than just delivering a physical product.

“We provide a vast range of services to our clients” says Roche. “We travel to every state commissioning the equipment that we supply. A number of issues with installing new moulds in the machines, are to do with the lack of quality machine maintenance, requiring recalibrating. We’re getting tied in more because of the technical support service that we provide. We find ourselves working more closely with our clients in the initial design stages of their products, because of our experience, knowledge and innovative approach to thinking outside the box.” Camtech has managed to hold off the threat of competition from overseas so far and opportunities are emerging allowing them to diversify into other areas such as press tools and customised engineering solutions. “We have the capability to do anything. We specialise in premium quality products. We believe that to support Australian manufacturing it should be Australian Made” concluded Roche.

Camtech Engineering 2 Demand Ave Arundel, Qld 4214 T: 07 5594 7566 F: 07 5594 7594 W: www:camtecheng.com.au E: info@camtecheng.com.au Gary Roche Managing Director E: g.roche@camtecheng.com.au Camtech Engineering is a toolmaking and engineering company celebrating 30 years of high quality, innovative precision manufacturing. It understands its clients’ requirements and delivers competitive solutions.

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Join us at the AMTIL National Conference It gives me great pleasure to be able to announce the 2017 AMTIL National Conference in Melbourne on 14 November. This is the first in what AMTIL intends will become a regular fixture on the Australian manufacturing calendar, and for this year’s event, we will be looking at the theme ‘Manufacturing’s Future in a Digital Age’.

When we started planning for the Conference, the first thing we had to do was to decide exactly what it would be about. We quickly realised that one subject stood out from the pack, and that was the wave of change sweeping our industry driven by digital technology.

Developments like the the Internet of Things and the interconnectivity of devices, robotics & automation, Cloud computing and big data are all over the headlines at the moment. It seems like barely a week goes by without another story in the news about Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 and how it’s going to change every aspect of manufacturing.

But at the same time, there’s still also a lot of uncertainty about what all these developments are going to mean for manufacturers in practical terms. Many manufacturers are still struggling to understand what the new technology can offer, how they can implement it in their own business, and even whether it’s actually worth the investment in terms of money and time.

For Australia in particular, where the industry is largely dominated by small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs), there is a widespread feeling that things like Industry 4.0 just aren’t relevant to businesses here. Isn’t this just something for the big boys of manufacturing overseas, for Samsung, or Volkswagen, or Boeing? This is just one of the areas where we hope the Conference will provide some much-needed clarity.

We had already run the new Digitalisation Pavilion area within our Austech exhibition in Melbourne earlier this year, and it proved to be a great success, becoming one of the highlights of the show. It demonstrated to us that there was a great deal of interest in finding out more about what all this technological change means, both among our members and across the industry. We felt that the Conference would be the perfect vehicle to bring together some of the key experts in this field and give people the opportunity to find out more about it first-hand and get their questions answered direct.

We feel that this is something that will be of great benefit to our members and the manufacturing industry in Australia as a whole. The team at AMTIL has worked very hard to deliver what I’m sure is going to be a terrific event with a fantastic line-up of speakers.

I’m looking forward to this becoming the first of what will become an unmissable date in the diary for Australian manufacturers in the years to come.

So visit the Events page of the AMTIL website for details on how to register to attend.

I look forward to seeing you there.

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Solvency: Managing cash in SMEs

A basic legal requirement for directors is that they cannot trade while insolvent. Rob Murphy offers some advice on meeting your obligations.

The Australian Institute of Company Directors defines a business as solvent when its current assets equal its current liabilities, or when current assets, minus inventory, are at least half of current liabilities. Unfortunately, many businesses I visit sail very close to the wind, and some are in real trouble without fully understanding why.

A shortage in working capital becomes apparent when it’s difficult to pay employees and suppliers on time, or even maintaining good supplier relationships to preserve raw material supply for the business. The key is to maintain proper and planned cash management where cash outlays are delayed up to the maximum possible duration.

Cash Flow = Cash inflows – Cash outflows Cash flow simply means the amount of cash remaining after all outbound payments are made from monies received. Positive cash-flow means that the cash received from sales is more that spent on salaries, expenses, and materials. Negative cash-flow is the opposite and often indicates some underlying problem, or could be a temporary setback. Even profitable businesses can show negative cash-flows. Simply reviewing profit and loss statements is not enough, businesses need to consider several factors such as accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, capital expenditures, and taxation. A sound financial strategy involves regularly reviewing all of these factors along with the profit and loss statement.

To do’s for effective cash flow management 1. Always measure working capital. The key metrics are: the amount of inventory needed for safety stock, overdue invoices, tied-up cash in work in progress, and the time gap between collection and payment. An accountant will be invaluable in setting up a system and helping with reviews, but accounting software or the use of spreadsheets can assist tracking of cash-flows over set periods.

2. Financing assets. Using financial options comes at a cost but it does help keep cash within the business. Short-term financing can help with emergency purchases or minimise the gap between payables and receivables. Long-term loans should be strategic and used for such things as key equipment or real estate purchases.

3. Collect receivables early. A common mistake is to wait until end of month before having an invoice working bee. Invoices should be detailed, clear, and raised as soon as products are delivered. Progressive invoicing can be useful to some; the agreed terms include a deposit on signing a contract with progressive payments through manufacture to delivery. Waiting a long time for payment eliminates the time value of money and can risk default. Providing online links on invoices provides convenient options; offering early payment discounts may reduce collection times overall.

4. Manage inventory. Inventory takes up space and ties up cash, and if not effectively managed will result in a build-up of nonvalue stock (obsolete, bits and pieces, and damaged stock).

A basic, but useful, tactic is to identify stocks that are unlikely to sell within the next 12-month period and gradually write them down, so spreading the expense over a longer timeframe. At low holding value any sales will translate to higher profit, or any liquidation of idle equipment and slow stock will not entail a once off high write off.

5. Be risk ready. For each business period a budget should be set and a cash-flow budget set up from it. Risks such as defaulters, cancellation of large orders (accounts), or receipt of a very large order should be considered. Conducting a simple risk analysis early will help guide a business as to the amount of buffer cash needed.

6. Keep personal and business affairs separate. It is unfortunately not uncommon that business owners treat their business as another credit card and many non-business-related assets are purchased through it. Maintaining a personal and business divide will make the business finances more transparent and this will assist if the business is to be sold; it also clears the way for much better business decision making.

7. Cut costs and grow cash. All variable costs can drift if not supervised, especially discretionary spending, and a firm stance on all supplier and employee negotiations is needed to ensure fair outcomes. The strategic purchase of equipment that drive cost savings with reasonable pay back times should be front and centre. Invest surplus cash in interest bearing short-term accounts.

8. Maximise cash inflows - minimise cash outflows. There are various methods used to maximise cash-flow: subscription models (prepayments), layby (receive goods only after full payment made), direct sales from stock (a credit card option is increasingly needed). But for most manufacturers it comes down to having well-managed and supervised accounts receivable and accounts payable procedures.

Profit has no meaning if the business has no available cash. Saving an adequate cash buffer helps the business stay flexible and open to opportunities as they present themselves. Lack of cashflow management can see businesses borrowing just to maintain business functions where they should be on the lookout for competitive investments. Good cash-flow management provides the coverage that directors have done everything reasonably practicable ensuring their enterprise will not operate while insolvent.

Rob Murphy is a Business Adviser with AMTIL for the Federal Government’s Entrepreneurs’ Programme. To find out what the Entrepreneurs’ Programme can do for you, call 13 28 46 or visit www.business.gov.au/EP, or contact Greg Chalker on 03 9800 3666 or email gchalker@amtil.com.au.

At your service. www.amtil.com.au/Membership/Service-Partners

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AMTIL supports its members through its select range of AMTIL Service Partners.

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AMTIL National Conference – Meet the speakers

Under the theme ‘Manufacturing’s Future in a Digital Age’, some of the speakers who will be presenting at the Conference include: Brad Howarth

Dr Nico Adams

Keynote: ‘Navigating to a Digital Future’

Industry 4.0. State of the Sector, Opportunities and How to Get Started

Brad is a respected authority on technology, marketing and digital media. As a journalist, Brad spent the last two decades researching and writing about technology’s impact on organisations, society and individuals. While he continues to study change as a freelance journalist, as a speaker and facilitator he works with organisations to help them understand and plan for changes yet to come. In 2012 Brad was selected to participate in the Prime Minister’s Digital Economy Forum alongside leaders from Australian industry and academia.

Brad’s books ‘Innovation and Emerging Markets’ and ‘A Faster Future’ (co-authored with Janelle Ledwidge), respectively examined the impact of high-speed communications technology on business, society and individuals, and the path to commercialisation for Australian technology innovation. His latest, ‘Managing for Change’ (with Peter Fritz AM) sets out a practical guide for helping people anticipate, understand and plan for change to improve their lives.

David Chuter.

Industry 4.0 – Australian Industry Uptake David is Managing Director and CEO at the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC). David is an experienced senior executive with a strong industry record in leading strategic business growth, operational management and change in the manufacturing sector. He is passionate about local industry and creating a stronger platform for the wider Australian manufacturing sector through catalysing investment in technology, innovation, collaboration and competitiveness. David has more than 25 years of international manufacturing experience, with much of this experience gained in the global automotive industry. David joined the IMCRC in June 2016. Prior to this, he was CEO of MHG Asia Pacific from 2014, and a member of Futuris Automotive’s executive leadership team from 2001.

AMTIL NATIONAL CONfereNCe

Manufacturing’s future in a Digital age

TueSDAY 14Th NoveMBeR, 2017 LeoNDA BY The YARRA – hAwThoRN, vicToRiA

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Nico Adams is IMCRC Program Lead for Digital Transformation, as well as a Senior Research Scientist and formerly Product Manager in CSIRO’s Data61 business unit. He supports Australian manufacturing companies in exploring and leveraging modern information technology, the Industrial Internet and Industry 4.0 to develop new products and services. By understanding how manufacturing companies think about the role of digital technologies in their businesses, and through his work from across CSIRO and engagements with external stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem, Nico develops products and services designed to lift the digital and innovation capabilities of companies. He holds degrees from the Universities of York and Oxford.

Dr Steve Dowey The Smart-Enough Factory: Realising a Low Cost IoT Solution For Factory Visualisation Steve is Technology Manager at Sutton Tools and a Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University working with the Australian Defence Materials Technology Centre. After serving in the Royal Air Force in the UK he gained a BEng and PhD from Hull University and worked with SCADA, PVD coating and associated equipment development for cutting tool and semi-conductor applications.

His current projects include ‘Additive Manufactured Tooling’, ‘Tooling for Robotic Applications’ and applied ‘Industry IoT’ in collaboration with the DMTC. Steve’s Industry 4.0 focus is on the ‘The Smart Enough Factory’, where the issues of legacy systems, security and STEM skills are addressed to ensure the benefits of Industry 4.0 can reach the Australian SME. In addition there will be panel discussions over the course of the day. A Research & Training Panel Discussion will examine ‘How to Train the Next Generation Workforce’. Meanwhile a Technology Applications Panel Discussion will look at ‘New Technology in the Production Process’.

The AMTIL National Conference will take place on 14 November at Leonda by the Yarra, Hawthorn, Victoria. For more information on the Conference please contact AMTIL Events Manager Kim Banks on kbanks@amtil.com.au. www.amtil.com.au/Events/AMTIL-Conference

REGISTER NOW! Early Bird Rate

Hotspots is proudly owned and managed

by AMTIL

Getting the right job, making the right piece •

You need a specific component made, but don’t have the capabilities in house.

•

Your company has landed a major project, but your workshop or your workforce just aren’t big enough to handle the volume required.

•

Your business is diversifying into an area where the expertise available within the company is not sufficient.

HotSpots is a service designed to connect AMTIL members with opportunities to help their businesses grow. That piece of work that you need done might be just the sort of opportunity they’re looking for. And by featuring that opportunity as a HotSpot, you gain access to a wealth of Australian manufacturing capability and expertise.

Our regular AMTIL HotSpots email goes out to over 1,000 people every month, making HotSpots an incredibly powerful way to reach large numbers of key decision-makers from across the manufacturing sector.

Provided your opportunity meets our criteria for listing, inclusion in AMTIL HotSpots is free. If you have something you feel will meet our criteria, please forward it to AMTIL for assessment by emailing info@amtil.com.au with the subject line HOTSPOT. www.amtil.com.au/Membership/Hotspots

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Finding the right balance

AMTIL will be holding its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 19 October, preceded by a breakfast presentation from AFL coaching legend David Parkin.

For all people, old and young, male and female, the ability to get a reasonable life balance underpins their capacity to live efficient/ effective lives, both personally and professionally. This doesn’t just happen. It needs thought, planning, organisation and commitment on a daily basis.

More upcoming events

David’s presentation – ‘Life: The importance of balance in the life of a business entrepreneur’ –will draw on his incredible accomplishments have seen his talents transferred from the sporting and academic arenas to the world of business. He originally trained as a primary school teacher and has spent over two decades in teacher education.

AMTIL NSW Members Christmas Function

Date: 19 October 2017 Location: Riversdale Golf Club Mt Waverley, VIC 3149 Breakfast will be served at 8.00am, with presentations to commence at 8.30am. The AMTIL AGM will follow David’s presentation.

Free parking is available at the venue.

Please register in advance at: www.amtil. com.au/Events

AMTIL has finalised its schedule of festive events for the run-up to the Christmas holidays:

AMTIL 2017 Corporate Golf Day & Christmas Lunch 1 December 7.00am – 3.00pm. Golf commences at 7.30am. Lunch will commence as golf finishes (approx 1.00pm).

Riversdale Golf Club Mount Waverley, VIC

5 December 7.00pm to 10.00pm (dinner) Adria Bar & Restaurant 108 The Promenade Cockle Bay Wharf NSW

AMTIL QLD Members Christmas Function 8 December 12.30pm to 3.00pm (lunch) Breakfast Creek Hotel 2 Kingsford Smith Drive Breakfast Creek, QLD For more information on the AGM or any of AMTIL’s upcoming events, please call 03 9800 3666, or email Events Manager Kim Banks on kbanks@amtil.com.au. www.amtil.com.au/Events

AMT 2018 Media Kit

AMTIL has completed the Media Kit for AMT magazine for 2018, and can now be viewed on our website.

The AMT Media Kit lays out all the opportunities available for companies wishing to promote their businesses via advertising in AMT magazine next year.

Advertising rates have been held at 2016 levels, with prices having only risen by 5% since 2011.

In addition to advertising options, the AMT Media Kit also details our editorial plans for next year, with a full list of our upcoming features for each issue. While many of the regular product and industry features will be making their return as expected, the year to come will also see various new categories of coverage. “AMT remains the most trusted, authoritative magazine for the manufacturing industry in Australia,” says Anne Samuelsson, AMTIL Sales Manager. “It’s still the most effective way to reach the key decision-

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Media Kit 2018

AMT proudly owned and published

by Australian Manufacturing Technology

Institute Limited (AMTIL)

makers in our industry and showcase your products and services.”

For further information about advertising opportunities either in AMT Magazine or via AMTIL’s online services, please contact AMTIL Sales Manager Anne Samuelsson by emailing asamuelsson@amtil.com. au. To submit editorial or discuss your article ideas, contact AMT’s Editor William Poole at wpoole@amtil.com.au. www.amtil.com.au/AMT-Magazine

AMTIL FOOTY TIPPING 2017 The much revered AMTIL Footy Tipping has been run and won – BIG CONGRATS to Swannies for taking out the chocolates, with Brigitte and Frank C rounding up the other placings. Preliminary Finals weekend sees the Crows vs the Cats in Adelaide, with Richmond hosting the Giants at the MCG. Experts are tipping a Crows v Tigers Grand Final, but stranger things have happened. The Tiggie Train is well and truely on track, with the horn tooting… could the long sufferring Richmond fans be in line for a Doggies type euphoria?

Been another great year, till next time. Sanchez ROUND 23 1 Swannies 2 Brigitte 3 Frank C 4 Wooden Spoon 5 Fethers 6 Matt Ferguson 7 raxo 8 STRINGYBARK 9 murf56 10 Jobba

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Real Business Real People Real Members Why am I a member of AMTIL? Aside from supporting our industry through membership of our peak body, I find the developed network of like-minded companies and individuals invaluable. As an engineering and manufacturing group we all face similar challenges. Often when issues arise I am able to pick up the phone and discuss a problem or get advice from other members who all share our common values and goals of seeing Australian manufacturing prosper.

Peter Sutton, Sutton Tools

Since 1999, AMTIL has been connecting business, informing of opportunities and growing the manufacturing community.

To be become an AMTIL member contact our Corporate Servcies Manager, Greg Chalker on 03 9800 3666 or email gchalker@amtil.com.au

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Industry Calendar

Please Note: It is recommended to contact the exhibition organiser to confirm before attending event

INTERNATIONAL SIANE France, Toulouse 24-26 October 2017 Machine tool exhibition. Specialising in digital manufacturing, robotics and AM. www.salonsiane.com

Bursa Sheet Metal Processing Technologies Fair Turkey, Bursa 30 November- 3 December 2017 Metal processing technologies fair. http://tuyap.com.tr/en (Fair Calendar)

Asiamold China, Guangzhou 4-6 March 2018 Mould & die exhibition. Includes machine & cutting tools. www.asiamold-china.com

METAVAK Netherlands, Gorinchem 31 October – 2 November 2017 Metalworking industry exhibition. www.lvdgroup.com/en/events/metavak

Additive Manufacturing Americas USA, Pasadena 6-8 December 2017 Trade Fair for AM/3D Printing. www.amshow-americas.com

MATOF South Korea, Changwon 31 October - 3 November 2017 Manufacturing technology tradeshow & AM conference. www.matof.co.kr

ArabiaMold UAE, Sharjah, 11-14 December 2017 Exhibition for the mould, die & tool industry. www.arabiamold.com

Indonesia Metal Working Week Indonesia, Jakarta 7-9 March 2018 Comprehensive sheet metal working exhibition. www.indonesiametalworkingweek.com

Blechexpo Germany 7-10 November 2017 Exhibition for sheet metal working. www.blechexpo-messe.de/en/blechexpo Compamed Germany, Düsseldorf 13-16 November 2017 Medical technologies trade fair. www.compamed-tradefair.com Metal-Expo Russia, Moscow 14 – 17 November 2017 Industrial exhibition for the steel industry. www.metal-expo.ru/en Metal Madrid Spain, Madrid 15-16 November 2017 Metal industry exhibition. www.metalmadrid.com/ficha-tecnica_ en.html DMP China, Dongguan 28 November – 1 December 2017 Mould, metalworking, plastics & packaging exhibition. www.dmpshow.com/en/exhibition-info/ general-info EUROTOOL Poland, Cracow 28 – 30 November 2017 Machine tool/material processing exhibition.

Co-located: Intl. Trade Fair of Sheet Metal Working; BLACH-Tech-Expo. http://eurotool.krakow.pl/gb Metal & Weld Vietnam Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City 29 November – 2 December 2017 Metalworking & welding technology exhibition. http://metal-weld.vietfair.vn Tech Industry Latvia, Riga 30 November – 2 December 2017 Industrial, engineering, metalworking, automation, electronics exhibition. www.techindustry.lv/?lang=en

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

Metal Middle East UAE, Dubai 17-19 December 2017 Trade Fair for metallurgy, foundry machinery and metal working. www.metalmiddleeast.com

2018 SteelFab UAE, Sharjah 16-19 January 2018 Exhibition for metalworking & steel fabrication industry. www.steelfabme.com NORTEC Germany, Hamburg 23 – 26 January 2018 Manufacturing exhibition highlighting Industry 4.0. www.nortec-hamburg.de/en IMTEX India, Bangalore 25-30 January 2018 Metal forming technology exhibition. www.imtex.in EXPO MANUFACTURA Mexico, Monterrey 6 – 8 February 2018 Manufacturing technology exhibition.

Includes Industry 4.0 and AM. www.expomanufactura.com.mx MachAuto Expo India, Punjab 16-19 February 2018 Machine tools & automation exhibition. www.machautoexpo.in Bautec Germany, Berlin 20-23 February 2018 Trade fair for the building & construction industry. www.bautec.com/en METAV Germany, Dusseldorf 20-24 February 2018 Exhibition for metalworking technologies. www.metav.com

Advanced Factories Spain, Barcelona 13-15 March 2018 Exhibition for machine tools, automation and Industry 4.0. www.advancedfactories.com/en GrindTec Germany, Augsburg 14-17 March 2018 Grinding technology exhibition. www.grindtec.de/en Konepaga Engineering Works Trade Fair Finland, Tampere 20-22 March 2018 Metalworking exhibition. Includes Nordic Welding Expo. www.konepajamessut.fi Mashex Siberia Russia, Novosibirsk 27-30 March 2018 Metalworking exhibition. www.mashex-siberia.ru/en-GB SIMTOS South Korea, Goyang 3-7 April 2018 Seoul International Machine Tool Show. www.simtos.org CCMT China China, Shanghai 9 -13 April 2018 China CNC Machine Tool Fair. www.ccmtshow.com/enindex.jsp MACH UK, Birmingham 9-13 April 2018 UK’s premier engineering/manufacturing technologies exhibition. www.machexhibition.com IMTS USA, Chicago 10-15 September 2018 International Manufacturing Technology Show. www.imts.com EuroBLECH 23-26 October 2018 Germany, Hanover International sheet metal working technology exhibition. www.euroblech.com/2018/english

Industry Calendar Heading local Victorian Manufacturing Showcase 2017 Melbourne, Victoria University, Sunshine Campus 24 October 2017 (8.30am – 2.30pm) Annual event hosted by a partnership of the Industry Capability Network (ICN) Victoria and the State Government’s Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR). This event will provide opportunities for Victorian manufacturers to gain invaluable insights into successful Victorian businesses while networking with other manufacturers and the Victorian Government. www.bit.ly/VMS2017interest Ausbiotech 2017 Adelaide Convention Centre 25-27 October 2017 Australia’s biotechnology industry organisation working on behalf of over 3,000 members in the areas of biotherapeutics, medical technology (devices and diagnostics), food technology, industrial and agricultural. www.ausbiotechnc.org International Mining & Resources Conference Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre 30 October - 2 November 2017 Australia’s largest mining conference.

Includes Mines and Money Australia.

Includes the latest innovations, technology and services for the mining industry. http://imarcmelbourne.com Corrosion & Prevention Sydney, Intl. Convention Centre 12-15 November 2017 Event on corrosion mitigation. Includes corrosion control products, nano technology, cleaning equipment, air solutions, engineering, technology etc. https://conference.corrosion.com.au AusRAIL PLUS 2017 Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre 21-23 November 2017 Exhibition for Australia’s rail sector.

This year’s theme: ‘Rail’s Digital Revolution’. www.ausrail.com

Advertiser Index

Asia-Pacific International Conference on Additive Manufacturing Melbourne, RMIT 4-6 December 2017 This APICAM is the first conference of its kind to be held in the Asia-Pacific region.

Will provide an opportunity for industry professionals to share knowledge and engage in the type of networking that is vital to the furthering of the additive manufacturing industry. www.apicam2017.com.au

3D Systems

2018

DMG MORI

13

ECI Solutions

89

Emona Instruments

59

Australasian Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference Perth 14-16 March 2018 Showcasing latest products &technologies for the Australian oil and gas industry. https://aogexpo.com.au AusMedtech 2018 Adelaide, Adelaide Convention Centre 1-2 May 2018 Australia’s premier medical technology conference. http://ausmedtech.com.au MEGATRANS 2018 Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre 10-12 May 2018 Debut event involving the future of global multimodal freight and logistics. This event is a key connection bringing together the entire logistics and supply chain. www.megatrans2018.com.au QME (Queensland Mining and Engineering Exhibition) Qld. Mackay Showground 24-26 July 2018 Includes innovative products and machinery for the mining industry and live demonstrations of the latest mining equipment and technology. www.queenslandminingexpo.com.au

57

Alfex CNC

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Applied Machinery

15

Avian Machinery P/L

83

Bolts & Industrial Supplies

29

Bystronic P/L

6-7

Cammtech 109 Complete Machine Tools

27

D & D Barry

35

Davis & Jenkins

108

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Headland 120 IMTS Laser P/L

19

Industrial Laser

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Integra Systems

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Iscar 2-3 Kilner’s Engineering

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Machinery Forum

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Mastercut 105 MTI Qualos

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Okuma

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One CNC P/L/QARM

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Premium Tools Aust P/L

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QMI Solutions

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Renishaw Oceania

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Sandvik Aust P/L

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Seco Tools

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Sutton Tools

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Teco Tooling

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AMT OCT/NOV 2017

117

118

history

Big wheels & little wheels – the story of Sir Laurence John Hartnett (1898 – 1986)

MAKE IT IN AUSTRALIA

Part 21

UK-born Sir Laurence Hartnett arrived in Australia in 1934. The visionary Sir Laurence became known as Australia’s ‘Father of the Holden’ – and much more. In the mid-30s, the Australian public had a deep-rooted antipathy to most things “made in Australia’. This – according to Laurence - had to change!

T

The only way to achieve economic production was to make the complete car in Australia. It was the obvious solution and I could see no reason why Australia, in the mid-1930s, should not have been making complete-car production its goal. The basic raw materials were available here: good quality iron and steel at a low price, lead, zinc and copper. Most importantly, we had a trained, enthusiastic and resourceful work-force.

I had come to Australia in 1934 with a completely open mind about the country, the people and the job. But I very soon became aware of the quality of Australian manufacturing ability and the unlimited potential, then not generally realized, of the country. My order went out soon after arriving, that before any imported parts were bought, they would have to be ten per cent cheaper than the locally-made item. At every opportunity I enthused about our good fortune in being able to buy good quality parts from local manufacturers.

Australians had a deep-rooted antipathy to most things made in Australia, and I did my utmost to discourage this point of view. It was unfair, illogical and dangerous - and I suspect it was encouraged by the vested interests who gained their money from imports. These same vested interests were the first to scorn any suggestion that Australia should make a car of her own. They put up a fantastic opposition to the idea. “It can’t be done ... our iron is no good ... why try to beat the Yanks at a game they know best? ... economically unsound ... take millions of pounds just to tool up for it ... not enough people, so not enough volume of production to make it pay ... forget it!” On and on went their propaganda, and very effective it was, too.

In time they had even the most fair-minded and patriotic Australians believing it couldn’t be done. The slander directed against Australian workmanship was the biggest lie of all. But, as Hitler proved, if you tell a big lie loud enough and often enough, everyone will believe it.

That’s what almost happened in those early years when I began to advocate an Australian car for Australians.

I knew, too, that once you designed and produced a car of your own in Australia, your economics of production would improve immediately. You could make the body changes when and where you required them. If you could run for two or three years without changing the model, you could spread your tooling costs and write them off as and when you determined. No longer would you be at the mercy of overseas manufacturers who decided on a new body design for every model almost every year - just because the change was being made in America or elsewhere, where, with high-volume production, competition demanded a change or the dies were wearing out, anyway.

I could see a few things that would delay its arrival. One was the immaturity of the inter-related industries. Without them, the project could not begin. It was no use trying to force the pace before the setting was right. And we hadn’t reached the stage in our steel plants when sufficient quantities of panel-steel were available at an economic price. That was another barrier to complete car manufacture in 1936. At that time GM-H was importing most of its panel-steel. The prejudice of Australians against Australian-made goods was being broken down, but it was a slow process. So psychologically, the nation wasn’t ready in 1936.

my time at Vauxhall had been the pressing of body-panels. Here in Australia we had completely mastered that aspect of manufacture.

In knowledge and experience, those fellows at the Woodville plant in South Australia were streets ahead of the equivalent men at Vauxhall.

Possibly the greatest single contribution I was able to make in those years achieving the objective of an Australian car was in 1935, just thirteen years before the first Holden was produced. That was the year we planned and built the great GM-H plant at Fishermen’s Bend near Melbourne. This project was a milestone in the story of the Holden, and a most significant chapter in the post-depression history of ‘Australian industry. Until 1936 our Melbourne office, the Australian headquarters of GM-H, was a run-down building in City Road, South Melbourne. It was a badly designed building, draughty and infested with rats. We all knew we’d have to get out eventually, but there was so much work to be done in the first year, that no one had had time to do any more than complain about working conditions. In any case, our financial record was still so bad that to ask GM for several hundred thousand pounds to build a new plant would have been stupid. We would have been rejected immediately.

We had no other course than.to get on with the job, do the best we could with what was available, until finances improved.

So, although I knew the Australian car was inevitable. I could not determine when it would come.

At that stage I didn’t shout; I went quietly to work preparing for the Australian car in a hundred different ways. The major headache during

This is an extract from ‘Big Wheels & Little Wheels’, by Sir Laurence Hartnett as told to John Veitch, 1964. © Deirdre Barnett.

AMT OCT/NOV 2017

To be continued…

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