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While manufacturing has relied upon the people to people bonds that characterise this industry to drive sales and business growth, today, many companies are seeing value in marketing, and not just to other businesses. Telling the story of manufacturing to a broad audience has the potential to not only change the way the public understands manufacturing, but the potential to transform business models.

As manufacturers adopt service models by providing solutions on an

ongoing basis, rather than the one-off purchase of products, keeping tabs on your markets and customers, and consequentially, your products, can pay dividends.

In the main story for this issue we speak with manufacturers old and new, to see how they are getting the word out there. These include a metal manufacturer with over 100 years of history, and an automotive manufacturer still in the start-up phase. Here we can see how this issue affects the entire sector.

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Comment

SYED SHAH – Managing Editor, Manufacturers’ Monthly

Ask a manufacturer

T

HE opportunity that the world, faces when it comes to the introduction of robotics and automation is not one that is often understated. In Australia alone, there is the potential to unlock $315 billion dollars of value over the next decade through the application of digital technologies, according to the Digital Innovation report, prepared for CSIRO’s Data61

by AlphaBeta Advisors.

Digital technologies have the potential to radically transform jobs that until now have been the exclusive domain of humans – for example, aged care, education, health, and financial services. While the economic potential, whether in improvements to productivity or cost savings, is measured in the billions, there are also the human side effects. These effect include layoffs, shortened hours, and reduced job satisfaction, as David Thodey highlighted at Data61’s recent D61+ Live event.

But all this won’t come as news to the one sector that has been grappling with these issues for over half a century. In 1961, the first

4 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

industrial robot was introduced to a manufacturing production line in Trenton, New Jersey. Its name was Unimate #001 and the client was General Motors.

More than 50 years on, when other industries raise their concerns of the replacement of humans with robots, they should perhaps talk to a local manufacturer and listen to their story. Although the number of people employed by manufacturing businesses in Australia has fallen since the late 1980s, the past two years have seen an increase in employment, just as manufacturing enters Industry 4.0, its next phase of technological innovation. This suggests that there is no simple binary of human robot replacement, and that rather, when manufacturers adopt new technologies, they are increasingly doing so to grow the value of their workforce and the products they produce. This in turn spurs greater employment as dirty, dull, and dangerous tasks are automated – allowing people to take on higher value work.

In this edition of Manufacturers’ Monthly, we are speaking with

those manufacturers who are at the edge of this technological curve.

One area where more people are being employed in manufacturing is research and development, and marketing and sales. The two ends of the so called “smiley curve”. In this issue we speak with the team behind the production of a revolutionary dental composite, which removes the need for mercury in dentistry.

In this instance a specialist dental manufacturer, SDI, located in Bayswater, Victoria, partnered with Australian researchers to create a world-first material. Now, SDI and its research team is looking into how to produce the material at scale for global orders. It should not come as a surprise that automation will be part of this solution.

At the other end of the curve, manufacturers large and small are seeing marketing as a way to grow the value of their products, tell their stories, and find new markets.

Fortress Resistors, from Braeside, Victoria, has now employed a young graduate to drive its marketing – an area that until now was foreign for the company. The marketing solutions

that all the manufacturers will utilise are based on artificial intelligence, algorithms, and big data.

Now, manufacturers are taking the next step. Driven by the potential of technology, new business models are opening up for manufacturers to grow their business. Manufacturers in Australia are analysing the data they gain from IoT-enabled devices, using their expertise, and developing software built off the data that comes from manufacturing. These software platforms, whether they be standalone programs or mobile apps, are then another source of revenue and naturally, employ more people.

One example is Orica, which, with nearly 150 years of history, has gone on a digitalisation journey and is creating software that enables its explosives to be used in the most efficient way possible, and in tracking the fragments of material it creates, is providing a new service to its customers.

Taking in sum, it is increasingly evident that when it comes to technology, whether that be robotics, big data, or automation, manufacturing is leading the way.

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Comment

STUART AYRES – NSW Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney

NSW makes a splash at PACIFIC 2019

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Image credit: Salty Dingo

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SW is home to some of the world’s most technologicallyadvanced and globallycompetitive defence industries. The NSW government is helping these industries grow, for the highly-skilled jobs they bring to our state and the capabilities they deliver to the Australian Defence Force.

We’ve leveraged the massive opportunities of PACIFIC 2019, held on October 8 to 10, with a prominent pavilion of technologicallyadvanced exhibitors, helping NSW companies connect with navy chiefs and other decision makers from around the world.

It’s part of our broader commitment to foster NSW defence industries, helping our companies develop leading technologies and win lucrative international contracts that create jobs in NSW and bolster the nation’s defence.

PACIFIC 2019 attracted more than 16,000 attendees and delegations from more than 50 countries. As the principal sponsor of PACIFIC 2019, the NSW government had a strong presence at the expo, promoting our defence industries on the international stage.

The 16 exhibitors on the NSW pavilion included Blueprint Lab, which makes the world’s smallest and most dexterous “robotic arm” manipulator for remotely-operated underwater vehicles; and Ocius Technology, makers of the BlueBottle autonomous vessels that use renewable energy to stay at sea to search for submarines, detect mines, or assist with electronic warfare.

The NSW pavilion reflected our state’s leading industrial capabilities and our culture of innovation – crucial ingredients that helped propel more NSW companies onto the shortlist for the PACIFIC 2019 Innovation Awards than any other state.

Innovation Awards winners from NSW included Droneshield, which can detect and counter drones; and Advanced Navigation, which develops and makes highly accurate devices for navigating both on and

The Defence NSW team and NSW co-exhibitors on the stand at PACIFIC 2019. under the sea. The Whiskey Project, which developed a next generation tactical water craft that I co-launched with Minister for Defence Industry, Melissa Price at PACIFIC, was also a finalist.

We are fostering our defence industries so more companies can develop innovative defence technologies and become integrated into global supply chains, expanding our defence industrial sector and delivering jobs to NSW. Defence industry is often viewed through a prism of major acquisitions, such as the launch of a new ship or the purchase of a new fighter aircraft. In reality, there is industry involvement in all stages of the life cycle of any equipment. NSW may not assemble the Hunter Class frigate but it will play a leading and long-term role in sustainment. NSW companies also supply a lot of the technology going in to every current major Defence project, and indeed into global projects like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

We’re proud of the Defence bases that exist in our state, not only because NSW supports our ADF and our veterans, but because the Defence presence is a catalyst for the growth of industry precincts.

These defence precincts allow a group of defence companies to attract and develop a highly skilled workforce, engage in research, and collaborate where appropriate.

We support our defence precincts for the same reason we support NSW companies at the PACIFIC expos – they bring highly skilled jobs and investment to our state while bolstering the Australian Defence Force.

The NSW Government’s $11.7 million commitment to the Williamtown Astra Aerolab precinct will assist aviation companies to establish themselves in the Hunter region, supporting Royal Australian Air Force aircraft such as the F-35, and delivering more than 5,500 jobs to the Hunter region.

At Albatross Aviation Technology

Park at Nowra, which supports the Fleet Air Arm at HMAS Albatross, the NSW Government is supporting the Shoalhaven STEMship Program to identify skills shortages and provide young people with a pathway to jobs.

In our aerospace and defence precinct at the Western Sydney Aerotropolis, we have launched a hub to develop future technologies that will catch the eye of international buyers at expos like PACIFIC. The international defence prime contractors Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems Australia have already committed to the Western Sydney Aerotropolis, with others set to join them and bring more highly-skilled defence jobs to NSW. The NSW government has a long-term commitment to nurturing our job-creating defence industries, whether we are fostering the development of new technologies in our defence precincts or marketing our companies to the world through expos like PACIFIC 2019.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 5

Comment

GEOFF CRITTENDEN – CEO, Weld Australia

Ensuring safety and updating standards

With the establishment of the Welding Safety Council, industry and legislators will work together to develop solutions.

S

AFETY is a critical consideration for any welding project. Welding is a safe occupation when proper precautions are taken. But, if safety measures are ignored, welders and members of the general public face hazards that can be potentially dangerous, from electrocution and inhalation of fumes and airborne contaminants, right through to structural failure.

These safety issues have the potential to cause very real – and very serious – accidents and injuries, as well as fatalities.

In fact, according to Safe Work Australia, between 2003 to 2015, 142 6 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

workers died as a result of incidents related to electrical safety (an average of 11 workers each year) – almost half of these deaths occurred in the construction industry.

Similarly, since 2012, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) has been notified of 11 events pertaining to workers or bystanders welding a container when it exploded, two of which involved a fatality.

These types of incidents are not confined to Queensland. In 2018, fire authorities revealed that a massive abattoir blaze at Murray Bridge, south-east of Adelaide, was sparked by a maintenance worker

who was welding a bin.

In recent times, concerns around airborne contaminants generated by the welding process have also been raised by industry, particularly following the reclassification of welding fume from Group 2B (Possibly carcinogenic to humans) to Group 1A (Carcinogenic to humans) by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

However, it is important to note that Safe Work Australia is currently evaluating the Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants to ensure they are based on the highestquality contemporary evidence and

supported by a rigorous scientific approach. There are over 650 chemicals – including welding fumes – outlined in these exposure standards.

Safe Work Australia is making the draft evaluation reports for each of the 650 chemicals available for public comment for a period of four weeks. With chemicals being released alphabetically throughout 2019 and 2020, the review of welding fume exposure standards is scheduled for early 2020.

The Welding Safety Council Given the significant gaps in the compliance framework that have manmonthly.com.au

Safe Work Australia is making the draft evaluation reports for each of the 650 chemicals available for public comment for a period of four weeks. With chemicals being released alphabetically throughout 2019 and 2020, the review of welding fume exposure standards is scheduled for early 2020. serious safety implications for Australian welders, Weld Australia considers the following to be issues, in order of priority: i. Workplace health and safety (welding fumes and electrical safety); ii. Non-compliant welding equipment (electrical safety); iii. Integrity of welded structures and pressure vessels.

To address these safety issues, Weld Australia has established the Welding Safety Council. This Council will provide a forum for industry and legislative safety authorities to discuss issues and work collaboratively to identify solutions.

The vision of the Welding Safety Council is to eliminate loss of life or injury attributable to welding.

The mission of the Welding Safety

Council is to establish and maintain the infrastructure required to identify and analyse welding risk, engage its stakeholders in formulating mitigation strategies, and use its influence to execute those strategies.

By drawing together key government stakeholders, statutory bodies and industry into a single independent body focused on eradicating welding related injury, the Australian welding industry will be taking a significant step forward in protecting both the general public and welders.

its inaugural meeting in early September. Representatives from all state and commonwealth WorkSafe authorities were in attendance (bar WorkSafeACT and WorkSafe Tasmania, both of whom were apologies), as well as the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists.

During the meeting, it was agreed that an Industry Scheme for Welder Safety Training and Workplace Certification will be developed and deployed by Weld Australia in partnership with the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists.

This Scheme will include the

delivery of workplace education and training, and individual workplace risk assessments to identify practical solutions.

The Council will also work towards securing JAS-ANZ (Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand) accreditation for the Scheme.

During the meeting, Safe Work Australia’s review of Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants was also discussed.

The Welding Safety Council will provide recommendations related to exposure standards for welding, once the review is released for public comment.

Inaugural meeting of the Welding Safety Council Chaired by Weld Australia director and Furphy Engineering managing director, Adam Furphy, the Welding Safety Council held

Health and safety in the workplace requires leadership

An industry scheme for welder safety training and workplace certification will be developed and deployed by Weld Australia.

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Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 7

Comment

DAVID CHUTER – CEO and managing director, IMCRC

Towards an Industry 4.0 future – leadership for innovation

E

VERY day, business leaders, in partnership with the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC), are searching for ways to embrace and invest in the advanced and digital technologies that have become closely associated with the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0.

And it is easy to see why. In the past few years new technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, automation, 3D printing, robots, and sensors have disrupted traditional manufacturing business models and rapidly expanded the potential for what manufacturers can create.

Business leaders who are part of this revolution are starting to look beyond the technology and tools of Industry 4.0. Instead, they

see Industry 4.0 as about adopting a new approach to manufacturing – one that will empower them to continually improve manufacturing performance. As the pace of technology quickens and volumes of data increase, a new approach is essential to creating new value in a world that is constantly evolving and changing.

Below are three key actions that are helping leaders succeed on this journey.

Understand “why” and “how” new technologies will drive and deliver value In order to truly benefit from investing in the Industry 4.0 technologies available, leaders must be well enough informed to understand “why” and “how” their

companies will use the technologies to drive value for customers, consumers and their broader eco-systems.

The key for the manufacturing sector lies in enabling small to medium enterprises (SMEs) to be well enough informed to make smart investment decisions in a global context. Encouraging effective collaboration that creates scale, know how, strength, and capability will allow SMEs to leverage the potential of Industry 4.0.

Take, for example, a small or medium manufacturer who wants to change part of their production process to incorporate additive manufacturing – or 3D printing.

Before investing in a 3D printer, we would encourage the SME to question whether using additive

manufacturing as a production method will solve a real problem for customers, how it will be used to generate a better return on investment, and whether there might be an opportunity to collaborate with a partner, such as an incubator or research institute, to achieve the same result more efficiently. The answers to these questions will help reduce the risk of the SME investing in technology that would depreciate over time without producing commercial value for the business.

By setting out a plan and becoming well enough informed to understand why and how technology might be used to achieve strategic objectives, leaders can invest intelligently, efficiently, and collaboratively in solutions that deliver value.

IMCRC’s David Chuter outlines how manufacturers are building a culture of innovation.

8 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

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Invest in people for a resilient workforce Before investing in new technology, leaders should focus first on developing their people and building a culture of innovation within their business – critically also developing themselves as leaders.

The idea is to create a culture of people who are well-versed in the language and methods of both lean manufacturing and innovation so that they are less resistant and more resilient when the time comes to introduce new ideas. It is also important to ensure leaders understand the difference between breakthrough and step change innovation that can transform, as compared with day to day incremental improvement.

Building a culture of innovation requires regular communication with employees; creating time and space where they can have input into the business’s strategic goals and plans. Whether this includes introducing continuous improvement programs, such as lean manufacturing or informal consultations with staff, empowering employees to take an active role in the organisation’s future will make them more likely to be flexible and adaptable to a changing environment.

In most cases manufacturers will find many of their employees are already adept at some emerging technologies, for example tabletbased apps, and use them in their own homes. The key is to develop an understanding and willingness for employees to apply these skills in new ways to generate value both internally and externally.

Collaborate to innovate One of the most powerful catalysts we are seeing in the uptake of Industry 4.0 has been the emergence of collaborative business models.

With new technologies developing at such a rapid rate, manufacturers (particularly SMEs) can no longer afford to just use the traditional model of purchasing expensive software and equipment and then maintaining and manmonthly.com.au

Industry 4.0 is not just about the technology, but instead relies upon business leaders knowing how these will create value.

Building a culture of innovation requires regular communication with employees; creating time and space where they can have input into the business’s strategic goals and plans. depreciating it for many years.

An effective solution, which we have seen deployed successfully across IMCRC’s manufacturing research and development (R&D) projects, is for companies to engage researchers and other SMEs to obtain fresh perspective and insights to fast-track innovation and bring products and services to market more efficiently. So far, IMCRC has helped catalyse nearly $200 million in Australian

R&D investment that lay the foundation for innovations in the manufacturing, medical technologies, building and construction, new energy, mining, automotive, and defence sectors.

Last year, we rolled out our proprietary futuremap education program to manufacturing SMEs across the country, which is designed to help them assess their current and desired state of business and digital maturity and

identify the “why” and “how” of Industry 4.0. What we are finding is that businesses continue to resist collaboration – perhaps due to a perceived sense of competition and an outdated view that companies must make their own way to succeed.

Since 2017, the IMCRC has operated as a catalyst for manufacturing businesses seeking to join the Industry 4.0 movement, connecting them with other likeminded businesses and researchers who can help build knowledge and drive both competitiveness and innovation.

Those well on the journey understand their “why” and their “how” – which has enabled them to be clear about “what” they need.

Successful implementation of Industry 4.0 is then dependant on the “who”.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 9

News@MM Tender released for construction of train manufacturing factory

The new trains must meet a target of 50 per cent local content.

The Western Australian government has released the tender for the construction of the Bellevue railcar manufacturing facility.

The facility will enable the first locally manufactured trains in WA since the closure of the Midland Railway Workshop in 1994.

Currently, Alstom is the preferred proponent for the manufacture of the railcars, which will be carried out at the 180-metre-

long building. The site will include two cranes that lift 25 tonnes, a heavy maintenance railroad with a crane that can lift up to 10 tonnes, as well as offices, workshops, and storage areas.

The plant will manufacture 246 railcars, arranged into 41 six-car sets. One-hundred and two of these cars will be utilised in METRONET projects, and 144 will replace the A-series fleet.

“The release of [the] tender to construct the Bellevue depot is another step towards bringing railcar manufacturing back to Western Australia,” said WA Premier Mark McGowan.

“The new manufacturing and assembly plant in Bellevue will bring railcar manufacturing back to WA and back to its home in the Midland area.

“It means hundreds of quality, local jobs, more training and apprenticeship opportunities for our kids, and WA-made trains on our new WA-built METRONET lines,” said McGowan.

In a statement, the WA government estimates that the factory will create over 200 direct long-term jobs, and further

associated indirect jobs.

Transport Minister, Rita Saffioti, highlighted how the release of a tender for the construction of the facility follows through on a commitment by the McGowan government.

“One of our key election commitments was to bring railcar manufacturing back to Western Australia – [this] tender release is another step in bringing those manufacturing jobs home.

“The new Bellevue facility will be where our new, locally built trains are assembled and maintained,” said Saffioti.

As part of the contract to deliver the trains, Alstom will need to meet a target of 50 per cent local content.

Sugarcane and cotton waste turned into fuels, plastics, feed The potential to manufacture highvalue products from sugarcane and cotton by-products is one step closer to realisation with an injection of funding from the Australian federal government into a project by Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Professor Ian O’Hara, of the Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, will lead Phase 2 of the project, which will turn sugarcane and cotton by-products into usable materials.

The research is supported by industry-owned body Sugar Research Australia (SRA) and is part of the Rural R&D for Profit program run by the Australian Department of Agriculture.

“Three of the most positive and promising technologies from Phase One have been selected to progress towards commercialisation,” said O’Hara.

Technologies trialled in Phase 10 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

Chemicals for fuel production are one of the outcomes of the trial.

One include producing animal feed products, which will be demonstrated in animal feeding trials.

“The other area that we’re taking forward is demonstration at a pilot scale of the production of a specialty chemical from cotton gin trash, which

can be used for the production of fuels and bio-based plastics,” said O’Hara.

QUT’s research into converting biomass into high-value products is partly conducted at the Mackay Renewable Biocommodities Pilot

Plant (MRBPP). In Gladstone, the Mercurius Biorefining facility is being used to turn sugarcane waste into jet and diesel fuel, while also producing chemicals than can go into the production of plastic soft drink and beer bottles. manmonthly.com.au

News@MM Autonomous vehicles move Army personnel Two M113 AS4 Armoured Personnel Carriers will run using autonomous technologies, in a trial run by BAE Systems and the Australian Army.

Developed at BAE’s Edinburgh Parks facility, the trial will run throughout October, as the vehicles conduct experiments to test the applicability of autonomous thinking on the battlefield.

“Autonomous technology will assist soldiers to respond in an accelerating warfare environment – increasing their speed of initiative to outpace, out-manoeuvre and out-think conventional and unconventional threats,” said BAE Systems Australia CTO, Brad Yelland.

Once the first demonstrations are completed, the augmented vehicle will be turned over to the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre for industry and research partners

to further develop autonomous technologies.

On December 1, 2018, the Australian Army released its Robotic & Autonomous Systems Strategy.

Highlighting the move from remotely controlled systems, to optionally crewed vehicles to fully trusted autonomy, the current trial sits at the optionally crewed stage and augments traditional capabilities.

Defined in this way, the strategy breaks down the various aspects of autonomy, and applies them to where they are needed for each project.

“The Australian Army Robotic and Autonomous Systems Strategy highlights the goals that the Army is seeking from this disruptive technology,” said Yelland.

“Through this demonstration and the CRC program, we will help the Army achieve that.”

BAE Systems is the industry

Locally developed autonomous systems have been used in the trial. lead for Land Autonomy as part of the Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence CRC, and works with the Defence Science and Technology Group to ascertain what soldiers will need on the future battlefield and develop systems to support them in those projected situations.

The current trial utilises locally

developed autonomous systems for potential applications including intelligence gather and logistics support.

The Australian Army is exploring multiple methods for their vehicles to operate in future battlefields, either in this format as autonomous vehicles, or driven by electric power.

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Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 11

News@MM New fund to support purchase of technology

Grants range from $50,000 to $1 million.

Manufacturers will be able to take advantage of $50 million in funding from the federal government for the purchase of new technology, with the announcement of the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund.

Launched at Emesent, a startup that is commercialising drone autonomy and mapping technology, the funding from the government will enable manufacturers to be more competitive by awarding matched funding for investments in new technologies.

“Investing in technology can transform businesses, enabling them to become more productive, manufacture new products and create new jobs,” said Minister for Industry, Science, and Technology, Karen Andrews.

With Industry 4.0 technologies promising rapid growth in efficiencies for manufacturers, the fund will address the high cost of initial investment in innovative technology.

“For companies like ours it would help us invest further in

manufacturing the product; a grant such as this enables us to invest even more in the research and development of different materials and new technologies, and to hire more people,” said Lorraine Elsmore, marketing director of Emesent.

With industry now largely aware of the value of Industry 4.0, and 37 per cent of business leaders fully ready for Industry 4.0, according to a Deloitte report published in January 2019, investing in these technologies is the next step.

Indeed, in an Industry 4.0 report released by the Ai Group at the beginning of August, business and technology investment was a key recommendation.

“The fund will provide grants to small and medium manufacturing businesses so they can invest in capital equipment and new technologies to modernise and employ more Australians. It will also support businesses to upskill workers to maximise the benefits of Technology,” said Andrews.

The fund itself will be broken down into two parts. First, $20m

for matched grants of between $50,000 and $100,000 for small scale technology investments. Second, $30m for large scale grants of up to $1m on a three-to-one funding basis with industry for transformative investments in technologies and processes.

“As a young business about to celebrate its first anniversary, which has grown from two co-founders and five employees to 21 full-time staff, this opens a lot of doors,” said Elsmore. Emesent is currently exploring new technologies in robotics in partnership with a global mining company to make mining safer when operating in challenging environments.

“Without this kind of funding, developing and commercialising Australian-made products would be much harder,” said Elsmore.

With the latest Purchasing Managers Index for Australian manufacturing reading 50.9, the equal lowest of the year so far, greater investment in technologies and processes could lift the productivity of the sector as a whole.

Mike Cannon-Brookes looks to solar-powered steel Atlassian founder Mike CannonBrookes has announced he will look into personally funding a future Australian steel manufacturing sector, driven by renewable hydrogen.

Outlining his investment in a $25 billion solar farm in northern Australia and a cable to connect the energy to Singapore, CannonBrookes highlighted that the energy produced by the solar panels could be used to drive electrolysers to produce hydrogen.

This hydrogen could be a replacement power source for steel plants currently using coal-fired power.

The overall project, led by the company SunCable, will involve 15,000 hectares of solar arrays, 3,800 kilometres of HVDC cable and 12 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

produce 3 GW of energy, supplying a fifth of Singapore’s electricity supply.

The batteries that store the energy produced by the solar panels will need to survive temperatures above 50oC, something that fellow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has reportedly assured Cannon-Brookes will be possible.

Cannon-Brookes has advocated investing in renewable technology beyond 100 per cent targets, with 200 per cent being the preferred amount so that excess energy can be exported and produce revenue for Australia.

When demand for electricity exceeds supply, energy produced at the solar farm can be used to create hydrogen, either for export or to decarbonise local manufacturing.

The low cost of solar energy

production in Australia, when compared to other, less sunny nations, could enable Australia to become a cost-competitive steel manufacturer, and reduce its reliance on the export of iron ore to be made into steel elsewhere, argued Cannon-Brookes.

Making these comments on the sidelines of the UN climate talks, Cannon-Brookes highlighted the value of projects such SunCable, which become “lighthouse projects” for further investment and innovation, similar to the Tesla battery installed in South Australia.

The future of Australian steel could be powered by renewable hydrogen.

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News@MM SA steps up battery manufacturing Multinational battery manufacturer Alpha-ESS has increased its production in South Australia, with the aim to double its production by 2020.

At its assembly site in Lonsdale, the China-headquartered company will produce 500 battery systems per month for the rest of 2019, with production to hit 1,000 systems a month next year.

“As one of the pioneer manufacturers in the energy storage market in South Australia, we are pleased Alpha-ESS is expanding its production outfit, providing a boost for local jobs and industries,” said Minister for Energy and Mining Dan van Holst Pellekaan.

Alpha-ESS managing director, Dr Dong Lin, highlighted how batteries from the company will support a renewable energy transition in the state.

“We are now ready to bring our investment and operation to the next

The aim is to produce 1,000 batteries per month. level, to boost the energy transition in South Australia,” said Lin. The batteries will be utilised not only for domestic use but will form part of a virtual power plant (VPP) established by ShineHub and energy retailer Powershop.

The potential of the VPP in part depends upon the local production of

batteries, highlighted ShineHub CEO, Alex Georgiou.

“We’ve managed to develop a scheme that utilises locally assembled batteries and makes it cheaper for households to adopt solar and storage and reduce their power bills,” said Georgiou.

If purchasing a battery through the

ShineHub VPP, customers will save up to $7,000 per battery and receive a payment from Powershop when the battery is required to feed energy back into the grid.

According to ShineHub, this could lead users to save $300 per year on energy bills, in addition to savings from the solar panels and battery.

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1300 65 75 64 Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 13

News @MM CSIRO develops solid-state lithium battery production On Thursday, September 12, CSIRO announced that it had formalised an agreement with Japanese chemical manufacturer Piotrek to commercialise Australian battery technology.

The agreement covers a licensing agreement for CSIRO’s existing technology for the creation of ionic liquid electrolytes for use in lithium ion batteries. These electrolytes are non-volatile and non-flammable.

CSIRO will also work with Piotrek to produce solid-state lithium batteries.

This technology is critical for nextgeneration batteries, according to CSIRO battery research leader, Dr Adam Best, who spoke with Manufacturers’ Monthly.

“This will make these batteries safer, more compact, and easier to manufacture over the longer term,” said Best.

The non-flammable and stable qualities of the batteries enables the technology to overcome current concerns around the volatility of electric batteries, particularly when used in vehicles and for utility energy storage. Meeting safety and storage concerns is key for the project, said Best.

“How do we make those batteries safer but also provide the energy density and range that people want so they can get places without having to recharge?” said Best.

With more stable lithium batteries, various other applications can be found and electrified, including in aerospace for both cargo and passenger flights, as well as extending the range and reliability of drones.

To develop the technology, CSIRO has employed its proprietary Reversible Addition-Fragmentation chain Transfer (RAFT) technology.

Piotrek then combines this technology with its Ion Conducting Polymers (ICP) to manufacture the batteries at commercial quantities.

“Piotrek has the knowledge and knowhow to help us bring Australian technology to the world,” said Best.

Based in Japan, which manufacturers and supplies 50 per cent of the world’s lithium batteries, means that Australian technology has a direct link to the global market, as general manager at Piotrek, Ihei Sada, noted.

“Together we will develop the world’s safest, longer life solid-state

The batteries meet key safety and storage concerns. high-energy battery.”

Although Australia mines 43 per cent of the global supply of lithium, most of the advanced manufacturing that results from this resources takes place offshore. While this partnership sees one link in this chain being located in Australia, Best noted that there is still more to do.

“There is no one in Australia who currently makes lithium salts, which go into batteries, so that’s definitely a future opportunity and we would love to partner with an Australian company to bring those things to market,” said Best.

With this project between CSIRO

and Piotrek bringing one step of the process to Australia, there is potential for further onshore manufacturing, as CSIRO’s Dr John Chiefari highlighted.

“By developing and exploiting disruptive technology platforms, we’re supporting the creation of new businesses and industries for Australia and the world,” said Chiefari.

What this will require, however, is the demonstration of Australian manufacturing’s capabilities, said Best.

“We need to show that Australian smarts and innovation can reduce waste, improve efficiency, enhance productivity, and reduce the cost of these batteries.”

NSW releases land for advanced manufacturing

The land is close to major logistics networks.

The NSW government has progressed approval for two major industrial estates in the state.

The first estate, Oakdale West in Kemps Creek, Western Sydney, is part of the $3 billion Oakdale Industrial Estate.

The concept plan and Stage 1 development application were 14 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

approved by the government, which Planning and Public Spaces Minister Rob Stokes highlighted would bring investment and jobs to the region.

“This latest project will inject millions of dollars in capital investment into the area and will provide 1,000 construction jobs and 1,845 operational jobs close to home, transport and the future Western Sydney Airport,” said Stokes.

The government will support the development with infrastructure including a road to connect the estate to Lenore Drive, flowing into the M7 and M4.

Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney, Stuart Ayres, said that the site will attract

major employers to the region.

“Twenty-two new businesses will set up in the precinct joining the likes of Toyota, Costco and DHL,” said Ayres.

“This is yet another important step in building a strong Western Sydney for the future, where people can expect to find quality jobs closer to where they live in a city which will be the economic powerhouse of the State.”

In a separate announcement, a Special Activation Precinct has been announced for the Central West town of Parkes. The precinct will cover 4,800 hectares, and the draft plan proposes an eco-industrial hub to connect with rail projects passing through the area, as Deputy Premier and Minister for

Regional NSW, John Barilaro, noted.

“The precinct will take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Inland Rail and the Parkes National Logistics Hub, and better connect investors and producers of the central west region to 80 per cent of Australia’s population, and directly to major ports.”

Businesses already committed to the precinct include Pacific National, SCT Logistics, Linfox, Westlime, Neoen Parkes Solar farm, and ARTC. “This draft master plan outlines how the Parkes Special Activation Precinct will generate business and employment growth offered by its location at one of the key freight crossroads of Australia,” said Barilaro. manmonthly.com.au

News @MM Subcontractors for Boxer vehicle contract announced Rheinmetall Defence Australia delivered the first of 211 Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles (CRVs) to Australia, and unveiled the businesses that will support the manufacture of the vehicles.

Australian businesses that will be involved in the forthcoming roll out of the program include Frontline

A range of SMEs will support the LAND 400 Phase 2 program.

manmonthly.com.au

Manufacturing, Precision Metal Group, Direct Edge, and Hilton Manufacturing, which will all supply prototype bracketry; Rockpress, which will supply mine-blast protection plates; and Axalta, which will supply specialist paint and paint supply products.

At the unveiling ceremony, at

Enoggera Barracks in Brisbane on September 24, Minister for Defence Industry, Melissa Price, highlighted how the project will benefit Australian manufacturers.

“This project presents an exciting opportunity for Australian industry to play a vital role in delivering leadingedge capability and technology to Australia’s Army,” said Price.

The vehicles will be delivered as part of the $5 billion LAND 400 Phase 2 Mounted Combat Reconnaissance Capability program.

Compared with previous combat reconnaissance vehicles, the new vehicles will have higher levels of protection, firepower, and mobility.

“They will be able to undertake a range of missions from regional stability and peacekeeping through to high-threat operations, and will provide improved safety to Australian soldiers on deployment and on exercises around the world,” said

Defence Minister, Linda Reynolds.

The vehicle delivered to Brisbane is one of the first 25 CRVs that will be made in Germany, and form the basis for the manufacture of the rest of the vehicles at Redback, near Ipswich.

The total investment that will flow to Australian industry in the vehicle’s 30-year life will be $10.2b. According to Gary Stewart, managing director of Rheinmetall Defence Australia, the benefits to local industry will be ongoing.

“Rheinmetall is committed to growing an Australian sovereign military vehicle capability. To have that centred in the most advanced military vehicle manufacturing facility in the country will make it a real asset of national significance,” said Stewart.

Rheinmetall is also shortlisted for Phase 3 of the Land 400 tender.

If successful, Rheinmetall would manufacture 400 infantry fighting vehicles at its site near Ipswich.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 15

Research & Development Taking two bites of the research pie Getting the mix right between industry and academia can be tricky, but one collaboration proves it is by no means impossible. Connor Pearce reports.

Left to right: Professors Gangadhara Prusty, Ginu Rajan, Ayman Ellakwa.

P

ARTNERSHIPS between industry and researchers can often be seen as the holy grail of product development.

Combining the minds of academics with the directed knowledge of manufacturers sounds great, but in practice can break down over issues such as project direction, intellectual property ownership, and the final stumbling block of commercialisation. One partnership 16 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

that has overcome this, and is on its way to market, is the collaboration between researchers from a consortium of universities and Australian dental restorative materials manufacturer, SDI Ltd. Leading the research side of this partnership is Gangadhara Prusty, Professor of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering and Director of ARC Training Centre for Automated Manufacture of Advanced

Composites (AMAC), together with Dean of Engineering, Professors Mark Hoffman and Scientia Professor Martina Stenzel at UNSW Sydney, Ginu Rajan, Senior Lecturer at University of Wollongong and Ayman Ellakwa, Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. With dental amalgams, which contain mercury, being phased out of worldwide use, the race is now on to find a similarly applicable material, and

as Prusty points out, a shift such as this combines the requirements of industry with the talents of academics.

“Dental material manufacturers, such as SDI are thinking, ‘How can we come up with an alternative material?’ It doesn’t come just overnight, it takes time to think, research, and do the science.”

The project started in 2014, as a outcome of dentist Dr. Paul Shouha’s manmonthly.com.au

Research & Development When we talked to SDI, who manufactures those dental products, they had already realised that they have to move from the amalgambased product, and this new material sounded scientific and the approach also looked good and so they accepted the idea.

PhD dissertation. Rajan and UNSW researchers turned to a dental resin reinforced with commercially available high-strength glass fibres and investigated their curing kinetics.

After developing a cleaning process for the fibres’ coatings, the fibres were held in the resin with a saline coupling agent.

“We looked at one single fibre, and then we put it into the resin, cured it, and then we pulled to understand the shear stress,” said Prusty. Going on the principle that understanding what occurs in one fibre will be replicated when resins at higher quantities are reinforced with such fibres, the team found the material acted just as required. These findings were formalised with a provisional patent and now the team is exploring how to get this process from the lab to commercial production, and then into the dental surgery.

“At the laboratory scale, we can produce a gram of material or three grams of materials, but if they need half a kilogram of materials, which can go into thousands of syringes, how can you do that?” asked Prusty.

While from an industry perspective, the current stage of the project is just the beginning, the project has already gone through the full gambit of research stages.

Having established the viability of the technique, the team were then able to further develop the method for producing the fibre reinforced dental composite.

Involving industry partner SDI Ltd, led by research and development manager Paul Farrar, the academic team were able to progress the project, while SDI were able to leverage the scientific knowledge manmonthly.com.au

already developed.

“When we talked to SDI, who manufactures those dental products, they had already realised that they have to move from the amalgambased product, and this new material sounded scientific and the approach also looked good and so they accepted the idea.”

Having SDI as a partner meant that the research team could apply for an Australian Research Council (ARC) linkage grant, which specifically supports advanced research that has an industrial or commercial component. The ARC linkage grant enabled the project to emerged from the lab into SDI’s factory. To take the next step, the consortium enlisted additional partners Bestech Australia and Dentalk Ltd and were awarded a Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant (20192022) to take the research one step further. Not only will this

The composite is made from non-toxic glass fibres. grant support the commercial production of the dental materials but a new polymerisation shrinkage measurement device, known to the team as profilometer, and a novel glass fibre cutting machine.

“That will be state-of-the art,” said Prusty. “This fibre optic profilometer can track the shrinkage and the curing rate of the restorative material. It will be a good training tool for the dentists to understand the mechanism of delivering the filling.”

The secret to success With each step in this project so far being seemingly smooth, the what is behind each stage is a close collaboration between researchers

and their commercial partners.

After the initial testing was carried out, which contributed to a number of academic publications and a provisional patent for the manufacture of these composites, the next step was to find a method for the research to be applied in its intended context.

“We are developing science in the laboratory, so we thought, ‘Who can take this knowledge?’” said Prusty. “We can find something but that can stay inside the laboratory, it won’t be useful unless we attract the manufacturing industry, so that’s the time that we found SDI.” After making the connection, Jeffery Cheetham, founder and chairman of the SDI board, visited

The research team spans three universities.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 17

Research & Development the facilities and team at UNSW. Seeing the quality of the project that had already been developed, the next step required an act of belief on behalf of SDI. Not only did SDI have to invest in the research, as both the ARC Linkage grant and the CRC-P grant require cash contribution from industry, but it also made in-kind contributions.

This belief was based upon the quality of the research conducted so far and its distance from what else is available.

Underlying the collaboration between SDI and the researchers Collaboration across universities and industry developed a unique product.

18 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

The industry can take that science and then upscale that production capability, so this way the industry benefits as they will move from amalgam based restorative composites to the deployable dental composites alternative. was an agreement on how the intellectual property would be shared between the two of them.

This agreement has enabled a

long-term partnership, and both sides are looking towards further innovation, with the proficiencies of each side complimenting each other.

According to Prusty, however, the intangible assets that the university has are the largest contributors to the partnership. ”The biggest strength is the research pool, PhD students, postdoctoral fellows.”

The current stage of the project, operationalising the funding that was received from the CRC-P program, awarded in July 2019, exemplifies this win-win relationship between researchers and industry.

“We have a patent, the science, and the knowledge,” said Prusty.

“The industry can take that science and then upscale that production capability, so this way the industry benefits as they will move from amalgam based restorative composites to the deployable dental composites alternative. We will enable them to upskill their product manufacturing, so that needs instrumentation and an understanding of the techniques”.

Through this CRC-P project, SDI joins the ARC Training Centre for AMAC as an industry affiliate. In alignment with AMAC’s vision, the current project will take the methods and techniques that have been developed in the laboratory and translate them to commercial production outcomes.

With sensors and instrumentation company Bestech Australia onboard for the CRC-P project, beyond dental materials, the goal is to develop state-of-the art dental instrumentation as well.

Not only have research outcomes already been gained from the project over its lifetime so far, with two PhD dissertations and over half-a-dozen undergraduate and postgraduate theses to be completed on the basis of this research, but the project aims to benefit the wider community.

“SDI sells their products to more than 100 countries around the world,” described Prusty. “In this way, we will have the opportunity to spread the work of this collaboration which will give a lot of exposure for Australian science and development, coming from the laboratory and going into reality.” manmonthly.com.au

Tests & Measurement Instant replay A video playback function allows for more value to be extracted from each test.

Manufacturers’ Monthly explains.

W

HILE conducting a test of a material is an essential part of the prototyping and design process, understanding the results of the test is not always straightforward.

Test Machines Australia, local distributor of Tinius Olsen’s material testing machines, can now offer manufacturers a new service that helps with analysing the results of a test.

Incorporated into Tinius Olsen’s Horizon software is a video replay function, whereby the results of the test can be seen as a video. Paul Cibotto, managing director of Test Machines Australia, highlighted how seeing the results of a test can provide a better understanding of how a material reacts to a stress.

“When we perform a test, as the test happens, the sample will deform in shape. As the sample stretches or compresses as the test happens, the sample will change shape, and now we can visually see all of that.”

The visual representation of a material undergoing a test has until now been the domain of video extensometers, a precise, but expensive, piece of equipment.

“A video extensometer will cost $50,000. This is basically a webcam that connects to the software. It is a relatively low price for an extremely effective outcome.”

What makes this solution distinct, however, is its integration with Tinius Olsen’s Horizon software.

“What this will do is record video,” said Cibotto. “While anybody can do that with their phone, for example, what they can’t do is they can’t marry up the time with the actual test.”

For current users of Tinius Olsen testing equipment, the 2D graph which charts the stress the material undergoes during the test remains with the addition, however, of realtime video to show everything else that is happening to the material manmonthly.com.au

Video replay allows for greater insights to be found in each test. beyond what is captured in the graph.

Having the two visualisations of the results synched allows for accuracy in results analysis.

“You’ve got the 2D graph and the video, and they’re coming up at the same time,” said Cibotto. “When I pause the replay, it pauses the screen and the graph; when I rewind the test, it will rewind the video and the graph.

I can go to the 59 second point and exactly see what the test is doing and where it is.”

This functionality, the ability to pause and replay and then determine what is occurring to the sample at determined levels of stress, allows for a greater level of understanding of how a material is reacting to pressure or force.

“We can pause the video, or we can replay the test at any time. And we can look at what the sample has done, we can go forwards and backwards and we can watch the sample at this much force, determine that the sample did this, and at this much force the sample did that.”

Materials testing standards set the speed and levels of stress that a material must withstand for its use in industrial, commercial, or research purposes. Knowing how a sample reacts to stress can enable the designer to go back with a greater knowledge about what is causing a break or fracture.

“We can see the sample was perfectly straight until this point when, bang, something happened, and we can visually see that and marry that up to the curve on the test,” said Cibotto.

With the testing of a component being a valuable, yet sometimes expensive exercise, having a video replay function allows for more information to be gleaned from each test, as Cibotto highlighted.

“When you may have spent three months making a prototype, once you break it and if you miss what happened to the sample it’s all over.

A video recorder is a valuable thing because you can replay the run an unlimited number of times and you can see what really happened to that $50,000 prototype you designed.”

With the video playback program allowing for frame-by-frame playback, the crucial time at which a sample broke or fractured can be extensively analysed.

“You can predict a lot of things and, in the video, you can see exactly what it did and how it did it,” said Cibotto. “The last 10 seconds are usually the most important in a test, but you can’t slow the test because the standard will call for a certain speed.

But you can slow down the replay, so you can visually see what’s happening and how it’s happening.”

In addition to the visualisation potential on the monitor directly connected to the testing equipment, results can be sent to other users who can then view the test independently.

This allows for greater collaboration between teams that are spread out, particularly in a university context, as Cibotto noted.

“If we’re in a university, we can show our teacher later on how the sample behaved during the test – for example, if the sample stretched thinner before it blew apart,” he said.

Cibotto also sees the program being particularly useful for testing

houses to demonstrate to their clients what occurred to a prototype undergoing a test.

“Because customers will be going to them to get the test done – they don’t visually see the test being done, all they do is get a result. Especially if the result is bad, they don’t necessarily know what happened during the test.

With this recording, they can then see what happened in the test, and they can verify the results themselves because they can see how their sample behaved during that test.”

There is also a safety element to being able to review the test after the event. While a test could be observed as it is occurring, if a material shatters in an unexpected manner, the test machine must be contained, blocking out potential viewing angles.

“Quite often you may not want to be too close to the sample as the test is happening for safety reasons,” said Cibotto. “There might be a safety cage around the machine, because as the sample deforms it breaks or shatters. Once I had a customer do a concrete sample and, as it shattered, a piece of concrete went through the computer monitor.”

In addition, video replay functionality can allow for different elements of the material to be viewed.

“With our eyes, we might be so busy looking at one part of the sample that we miss what is happening on the other part of the sample. With the video we can replay the run and look at the top piece, at the middle piece, and the bottom section.”

The video playback function is available for any Tinius Olsen testing equipment that uses the Horizon software: the software only needs to be updated to the latest version and the Tinius Olsen help desk is available to assist if needed.

“This is all backed up by Tinius Olsen’s 18-month warranty,” said Cibotto. “That’s a feature that no one else has.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 19

Industry Focus Making a lasting connection Marketing can be thought of as an optional extra for manufacturers, but by having an ongoing relationship with customers, innovative manufacturers are finding new ways to add value. Connor Pearce reports.

“W

E had a desire to improve a number of different things in the marketing area, such as our website, the literature that we were using, and email marketing, but we’d never found the time to do it,” said Phil Newman, managing director of Fortress Resistors, a resistor manufacturer based in Melbourne.

It’s a story that many manufacturers in Australia may have heard or told themselves; the desire to incorporate marketing to grow a brand and add value to a product, but the lack of manpower to do so.

“We’re a relatively small organisation with 25 people and at that size you can’t always afford to have all of the operations that most

bigger companies would expect to have,” said Newman. “There were other competing needs in the organisation that had higher priorities. When you’re comparing bringing in another engineer or sales person to marketing, then most of the time that engineer or that sales person is more critical.”

A way to shift that balance arose when Newman and the company began speaking with Swinburne University of Technology about providing an internship for an engineering student at their Braeside, Victoria, facility.

“While I was talking to them, I saw that they did other types of placements as well and I ended up getting in touch with the

department that looked after marketing,” said Newman. “I realised that this could well be a low risk, relatively low-cost way of getting that resource which we’d never been able to justify before.”

Ultimately, this led to Fortress Resistors taking on a student as a marketing intern. The partnership was such a positive one for both that the student was hired once she had finished her placement and continued to work for the company in a part-time capacity.

Taking on marketer role for Fortress Resistors in this manner became cost competitive. “What changed here was the cost to the business. We were no longer

comparing $70,000 marketing person to a $70,000 sales person, we were comparing a $38,000 marketing person to a $70,000 sales person,” said Newman.

With that marketing person now established in the business, the attitude within Fortress Resistors has shifted. Marketing is now seen as adding value to the products the business sells, through marketing materials and communications.

“We’ve moved from a point of saying, ‘this isn’t an area that we can justify as a standalone department’ to something that is now embedded in our budget, and we will plan to maintain that over the next few years,” said Newman.

Tradiebot is exploring new business models, while using marketing to communicate this with its customers.

20 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

manmonthly.com.au

Industry Focus show the human side of the family business and distributed them via social media.

“The videos focus on the people who work at Furphy’s, and the people that our customers are ultimately dealing with if they purchase tanks and services from us. Getting across that they’re in safe hands is really key in what we do,” said Lawrence.

“We work on the fact that we’re growing a legacy. We’re not trying to sell products, it’s about selling relationships and forging long-term partnerships where we can work with people over and over again.”

Marketing and manufacturing value First popularised by Stan Shih, of electronics company Acer, the smiley curve highlights how the activities at the beginning and the end of the production chain, research and development, and marketing and advertising respectively, are where a product derives the greatest share of its value. This has been realised as global value chains allow manufacturers to offshore low-value activities, such as assembly and production to low-cost locations.

A 2018 report prepared by the Australian Office of the Chief Economist, Industry Insights: Globalising Australia, found that from 2006 to 2016, a period where overall employment in manufacturing declined, roles related to research and development and marketing and advertising increase or had more modest declines. In addition, the median earnings of those in these roles was higher than those involved in basic manufacturing.

While noting that these findings did not mean that basic manufacturing should not occur in Australia, the report did highlight that, “there has been greater value added from activities that align with research and development, as well as marketing and advertising, compared to the activities directly related to the production and assembly of goods”.

One manufacturer that has seen how investing in marketing has increased the value of their products is Tradiebot. A spin-off of Plastfix, an automotive plastics repairs company, Tradiebot provides 3D printed plastic parts for automotive repair, along with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) tools for the installation and repair of car parts. As Mario Dimovski, managing director of Plastfix and CEO of Tradiebot, outlined, marketing was something the company embraced from the start.

“From an early stage, we knew that we had to get the message across as we developed our solutions and we knew that we needed the right branding and a simple message to go with each product,” he said.

As a company producing a new manmonthly.com.au

Fortress Resistors has brought in a young graduate to step up their marketing. technology, Tradiebot’s marketing focussed on proving that their product was of value to their future customer base. Dimovski explained how this was done.

“Our marketing strategy was getting the big industry partners on board as collaboration partners.

Tradiebot is a start-up with a new technology, yet people are too busy getting their product out the door, which is repairing cars. So, part of our strategy was getting listened to and getting noticed. Tradiebot is so new that auto repairers could think that the product could be years away, or, if not, it’ll never come, so you have to prepare them that you have something that’s real.”

Part of the job for Tradiebot, in their marketing, was not just to spread the word of their product, but to educate their customer base and industry about what their product was, and this partly determined what marketing they invested in.

“Even today, customers are getting confused between AR and VR,” explained Dimovski. “We’ve turned our marketing more into content-driven marketing where we’re incorporating story around the products that we’re developing and just getting that message home.”

For Fortress Resistors, in contrast, marketing has been a way to maintain a customer relationship that is often spread over a long period of time inbetween large orders. Here, Fortress

Resistors has leveraged the fact that their resistors are manufactured in Melbourne as a way to increase the value of their products in the eyes of their customers.

“One of the things that we’re looking to do is to have a more structured communication process with people, from the initial inquiry through to the completion of the project,” said Newman. “We can provide that customer with case studies on similar products that we’ve recently supplied to other people.

That might happen every few weeks to maintain some contact with that customer through that period of time where they’re assessing the project.”

Another manufacturer that has been finding value in marketing is Furphy Engineering. A fabricator of stainless-steel tanks, Furphy has had a continuous history in Australia of over a century. Now, the company is utilising social media to spread the general awareness of the brand, said business development manager, Stephen Lawrence.

“We’ve learnt that it takes someone six times of seeing a brand for it to lodge in their brand. By the time they’ve seen some content from us half a dozen times, it starts to stick and then we talk to them for the first time and they say, ‘I saw this on Facebook,’ and it’s almost like they feel like they know you a bit more before you met.”

To get the story of Furphy out, the company has utilised short videos that

Connecting the value chain These kinds of ongoing connections with customers, which can be garnered through marketing activities, have a value beyond the products that are sold, but can develop a relationship between manufacturer and customer that influences product design and lasts for the lifetime of a product.

As the products that Tradiebot offers are still being developed, marketing has been a way for the company to refine their product.

“At each stage of our development process, we’ve run campaigns and that also gave us feedback, positive and negative,” said Dimovski.

One piece of feedback that Dimovski gained when marketing his product at talks and conferences, was a question about whether the new technology that Tradiebot was developing was going to replace jobs that employed people.

The answer that Dimovski gave highlighted how the technology would upskill the existing workforce and encourage new participants into a trade that has a shortage of skilled workers at present.

“That then became a very vital part of our marketing, and we are now constantly talking about upskilling, new skills, and everything to do with that,” said Dimovski.

David Chuter, CEO and managing director of the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC), outlined that connecting with a customer once a product is sold can be an extension of a firm’s marketing practices, and one that allows for Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 21

Industry Focus value adding as a product ages.

“If a company that manufactures equipment is able to monitor how that equipment is used, they’re going to be able to learn an awful lot about what its maintenance schedules are, what its energy usage is, and all of that data should allow that company to iterate that back into their design processes to improve their machine,” said Chuter.

This kind of monitoring also allows companies to take ownership of what happens to a product at the end of its life, potentially adding value as the product is re-used or recycled.

“It’s a genuine problem that could be a value proposition, because you’re solving a customer or community problem and therefore you can monetise that as well,” said Chuter.

With these kinds of processes established, it is possible for manufacturers to fully take advantage of where the value lies in the production cycle and lift the edges of the smiley curve. In the first instance, as Tradiebot has found, telling the story of a company in an exciting and engaging way can increase staff retention and engagement.

“We enjoy a retention rate of 90 per cent, purely because we communicate and market internally about what we’re doing,” said Dimovski. “People like to hear that – it doesn’t matter if they’re your customers or your staff – people want to know what’s going on. Gone are the

days where people just went to work and came home. Our staff are the core of the business and we need to make sure they are aware of the direction we move in and experience the journey.”

Dimovski has also seen how having a strong brand has led to new opportunities, outside of the manufacture of the product.

“One of the things that marketing so heavily and being active on social media has done is it’s actually allowed collaborators to reach out,” said Dimovski, who cites opportunities to work with the Australian government address audiences in the UK, Vietnam, India, and the US as an outcome of being noticed via his marketing strategy. In addition, Tradiebot is now exploring new industries such as the defence sector.

“We look professional, we’ve got great innovation, our web-mobile site navigates well, and it’s got a story on there that is regularly updated. That all comes down to getting the message right,” said Dimovski. “It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does take time.”

These kinds of impressions have a value for a company, as Chuter points out, in terms of product differentiation and the attitudes a customer base may have towards a company.

“A company is able to create a strategic division with customers that is based on a much more comprehensive value equation. They’re starting to be seen as experts in their fields, with a level of uniqueness in

terms of how they are doing business, separating them from lots of others that may be selling the same product or the same service,” said Chuter.

While much of what is possible with marketing and customer relations is enabled through technology, whether that be tracking social media or email campaigns, or via Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors that share a machine or component’s status with a manufacturer, Chuter argues that technology is only part of the solution.

Companies need to think about what is the problem that they are solving for the customer first, and how technology can help them do that.

By extending the point of interaction between a business and a customer from the sale of a product, to a service that lasts for a product’s life cycle and subsequent replacement, a broader shift is occurring in how

businesses and customers interact, according to Chuter.

“Companies are recognising that there’s a great opportunity to invent that service model, be it everything from marketing all the way back down to design, research and development and to actually sell that as a business model in addition to the manufacturing model that they’ve grown up around.”

This approach leverages both ends of the smiley curve to grow a business’s value add in the areas where most value is being created, while not forgetting about where they originated.

“What I’ve seen is companies are growing significantly because they’ve changed the way they are going to their customers and adding service models,” said Chuter.

“But they are marketing it in a way that is clear that these are service models enabled by what they make.”

For Furphy Engineering, telling their story has been about sharing the human side of their historic business.

22 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

manmonthly.com.au

Defence The “new defence”: Agile SMEs delivering new capabilities What began as a collaboration to develop an unmanned ground system has evolved into a joint venture that showcases the way that defence contracting is changing. Manufacturers’ Monthly speaks with Backplane Systems Technology and Praesidium Global.

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INCE the release of the 2016 Defence White Paper, and its commitment to spending $195 billion on new equipment for the Australian Defence Forces, businesses large and small across

Australia have been impacted by the new policy framework. One company, Praesidium Global, would simply not have existed without this new funding and policy environment.

Although David Baird, CEO of Praesidium, made the decision to develop an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) in 2015, the changes that were part of the 2016 Defence White Paper made it possible for him to pursue the development of the project in Australia.

“In 2015, the Australian Defence Force did not have a capability requirement that was directly linked to an unmanned ground system. That didn’t arise until February 2016 when the government introduced the new 2016 Defence White Paper. At that point we saw some changes within the terminology that was being used within the capability document.”

Previously, the only reference to unmanned systems were unmanned aerial systems. However, the 2016 Defence White Paper stipulated the need to confront the emergence of unmanned systems, not only in the air, but on the ground and in the water.

This change in terminology allowed Baird to realise the vision he had for a UGV for the Australian Army.

Getting from an idea, to the production of an entirely new vehicle and the systems to support it, was the next step. Baird saw his opportunity in 2016 at the Australian Army’s innovation day, which was structured under the theme “manned and unmanned teaming for the soldier”.

“Troops working dismounted with unmanned systems was the key focus of the innovation day,” recalled Baird. “Praesidium was down-selected from 150 companies to 25 companies, and then in midOctober 2016, we demonstrated at the Australian Defence Force Academy with the then head of modernisation, Major General Fergus McLachlan.”

Having demonstrated the concept of a UGV to the Australian Army, Baird and his team had

Praesidium has integrated Backplane’s rugged PC systems.

manmonthly.com.au

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 23

Defence to negotiate a new operating environment as a supplier to the Australian Defence Forces. Rather than fulfilling a specific contract for an identified need, what Praesidium had developed was new, and now the company began to work with Defence to determine the operational capacity of the system.

“One of the problems with the UGV is that there are no standard operating procedures for unmanned systems in the Australian Defence Forces in the ground context,” said Baird. “From our first contract, it’s been a collaboration between Praesidium and Defence to develop the Army’s understanding of how they will apply unmanned ground systems.” The Australian Army adopted a learn-by-doing approach to develop their Robotic and Autonomous Systems (RAS) strategy Thus, Praesidium took on the “spiral model” of development.

More commonly used in software development, where the final outcome is not known at the outset, Praesidium adopted the method for the development of the software and hardware components of the UGV. Although this has created challenges, for Praesidium, this method is a rewarding process.

“Army is taking an approach of

That relationship has been continuously developed. Backplane are really responsive when we give them a problem, which we’re really glad about. Their team responds to it and deals with it accordingly ‘learn by doing’,” described Baird.

“Normally in the development process, the troops – the end users – very rarely have the opportunity to input into a program at such an early stage in the lifecycle of a product. Now, we have very early engagement with the end user at all levels and different regiments. The Defence Science and Technology Group is taking the metrics out of those tests and evaluations that are happening with the end users to really define their scope and requirements for an unmanned system going forward.”

A testing process The product that Praesidium developed was M.A.P.S. (Mission Adaptable Platform System), a medium-sized, semi-autonomous unmanned platform. To driving the system internally, a highly durable

Implementing autonomous land systems with the Australian Army took a “learn-by-doing” process.

and reliable computer system was required, which was delivered by industrial computer integrator, Backplane Systems Technology.

“Right from the first contract, we used Backplane,” said Baird. “Their computer hardware, because of their experience in the mining sector in particular, that harsh environment, was really important.”

Throughout the iterative design process, Backplane has been involved in developing the solution that Praesidium could offer the Australian Army, leading to a closer partnership between the two companies.

“That relationship has been continuously developed. Backplane are really responsive when we give them a problem, which we’re really glad about. Their team responds to it and deals with it accordingly,” said Baird.

Not only was Backplane’s previous experience in the mining sector an important reference point, but work with other emergency services was key to their hardware being adopted by Praesidium.

With a mandate to deliver value for money to the Australian Army, Praesidium needed an off-theshelf solution that met their high standards.

“One of our remits to the Army was to reduce total cost of ownership. We wanted something that was readily available, that already had a tested track record.

And the mining industry is one of the toughest environments, akin to the environments we’ll be operating in,” said Baird.

Being delivered to the end user, the soldier, right from the start of the design process meant that any potential pain points in the hardware would be discovered immediately, and any difference from advertised standards would impact both the capability and reliability of the project, as Baird highlighted.

“Experience has shown us that most things do not actually survive real world tests, for all the vibration testing and everything else that’s done in workshops, the real test is when we put it in the hands of soldiers because they will find points of failure in any product.”

The rugged solution Not that this troubled Backplane.

According to Kristy Comb, CEO of Backplane, the tests that their fanless, rugged PC systems had gone through in other sectors assured them that the systems would stand up to the tests of the Australian Army.

“We were confident because of where the products had already been. We’d known they’d been on mine sites in the Pilbara, in 50oC heat. We had faith in the product and knew that it would survive in that situation,” said Comb.

Having developed rugged PC systems for the mining industry, Comb is well aware of the exacting conditions that industrial PCs in Australia must be developed to withstand, which makes them an 24 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

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Defence

The development of an autonomous unmanned system was the result of a collaboration between Australian SMEs.

appropriate component for systems such as Praesidium’s M.A.P.S. “In Australia, we’re looking at 60 to 70oC,” said Comb. “If the PC is the Pilbara, in a truck cabin on a 50oC degree day, the user is going to get in the truck, the airconditioning is going to take some time to start up, and they need to turn it on and have it go. The ambient temperature is 50oC, so the PC in the cabin is going to be hotter than that. It needs to be able to start at 60 to 70oC. A desktop PC, as a comparison, is only rated to about 30 to 35oC.” The PCs must also withstand constant vibration and be fanless, to ensure no dust or grit can get inside the system.

With these technical benchmarks now met, for both Backplane and Praesidium, the next challenge was to ensure that their companies were prepared for the specific requirements of working as a defence supplier. Although Comb’s staff at Backplane had already been subjected to a higher level of rigour as part of delivering products to emergency services, Baird pointed out that supplying to defence added another layer of security.

“All the staff have to have a police check – a standard part of the business – but within the defence space we have to prepare for everything, cyber security, security of IP, and information,” said Baird.

“It’s not just about our information, it’s about our clients information." manmonthly.com.au

Cyber security is a constant threat to all business but operating in the defence space requires a higher level of threat management.

Baird cited being probed by outside scammers and hackers as a constant threat that Praesidium must now be aware of.

Defence contracting was the domain of the large multinational defence contractors. With the explicit aim of supporting local Australian industry, in the past three years, more SMEs are now directly working with defence, rather than supplying through the larger multinationals.

“Typically SMEs form part of the global supply chain via the large defence contractors,” said Baird.

“With the push by government to create Sovereign capability that’s all changed now. New opportunities have arisen for innovative SMEs to enter the defence space through the traditional route of supply chain, or in dealing direct with defence particularly in the innovation spaces. In turn this has created new challenges for defence as well, because defence working with SMEs directly, it’s having to manage risks within SMEs, which is completely different as well.”

Working with SMEs also presents opportunities for dynamic and

We have some phenomenal technology in Australia that’s being developed by SMEs because they’re not bound by the restrictions of large enterprises; they’re constantly looking to the latest technology and constantly evaluating.

“It can seem anal retentive, but as we’ve seen in recent years, companies like ourselves, that were part of defence programs, that were hacked through a simple administrator password and all the intellectual property that they were holding if were compromised, so we have to be mindful of that,” said Baird.

Supplying as an SME The particular issues that confront Baird are part of the specific nature of being an SME contracting to defence, something that both Praesidium and Backplane will become even more familiar with as they launch their new joint venture, Disruptive Defence Technologies.

Prior to the changes in 2016,

flexible responses to emerging needs for the defence forces, something which would have taken longer and been more expensive under previous arrangements, said Baird.

“We have some phenomenal technology in Australia that’s being developed by SMEs because they’re not bound by the restrictions of large enterprises; they’re constantly looking to the latest technology and constantly evaluating.

"This is something that defence realised in conflicts, particularly in Afghanistan and Syria where ISIS was employing modern technology such as off-the-shelf commercial drones. It would buy them off the shelf and deploy them immediately

against our troops.”

The resiliency of Australian manufacturing SMEs makes these enterprises a great potential source of technology and innovation for the Australian Defence Forces, however without the institutional resources of larger corporations, they also require support.

Baird sees this in the likes of the Centre for Defence Industry Capability (CDIC).

“I often refer to it as the ‘new defence’, from 2016 with the creation of government departments like CDIC that are trying to support SMEs and businesses. We’ve benefited from the advice of CDIC and that’s something, as we move to this joint venture with Backplane, that we will be able to draw on as well,” said Baird.

Although still in the early stages, Disruptive Defence Technologies will take the software developed

by Praesidium and the hardware provided by Backplane to develop new autonomous systems for the Australian Defence market as well as for export.

Building off the success of the M.A.P.S. platform, which is already being noticed by national militaries in the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Indonesia, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and New Zealand, Baird and Comb will take their business model to another area of potential.

“You’re flexible in that you can move quickly,” said Comb.

“David owns his company, I own mine, we can make a decision instantaneously, and we can look at what’s in front of us we can make approvals and decisions and move forward.”

Having only recently returned from the Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair, held in mid-September, 2019, both Comb and Baird see a future for Australian innovation in agile SMEs. “It’s a really exciting time,” said Baird. “Now, through government spending and supporting SMEs in particular– small, garage located workshops – if you look at some of the things they’re building, it is absolutely phenomenal.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 25

Digitalisation Leading the way in digitalisation Finding the right partner to take with you on the digital manufacturing journey can save money and increase orders. Manufacturers’ Monthly finds out.

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ITH the digitalisation of manufacturing processes speeding up, it can be hard to imagine what process and workflows would be like without our digital tools. But the journey to a connected manufacturing ecosystem, even within the one plant depends upon the individual nature and design of each business.

Mapal Australia, a supplier of cutting tools and metal working fluids, took its own, unique path on the digitalisation journey. According to Kanak Raj, managing director of Mapal Australia, the first area to be digitalised was the accounting side of the business, which turned to Xero for a solution.

“When Xero kicked in then Mapal looked at their inventory side as well. That’s the time they found that Unleashed was a platform that supports inventory and Unleashed also integrates with Xero.”

An inventory management software designed for manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors, Unleashed fitted into Mapal Australia’s business operations, being the local sales arm of the German machine tools manufacturer.

Coming in to the organisation once Unleashed had been integrated with the accounting system, Raj saw the potential of the platform.

Mapal has used Unleashed as it expands globally.

26 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

Precision engineering requires a platform designed for manufacturers.

Within the business what we’re trying to do is take the data from Unleashed directly into our reporting packages to the headquarters’ system and that will also go through an API.

“I saw that Unleashed was not being utilised to its full extent. We were on one of the oldest subscriptions levels and so I changed it to the full capability, and from then on, we found that it was more suitable for the business in every way.”

What distinguishes Mapal’s integration of Unleashed software,

is its relationship to the German parent company. As Raj described, the business’s local operations melded into what functionalities Unleashed could provide.

“Mapal’s business in Australia is only trading, so we bring in goods, we sell it and we also carry some inventory here. We’re managing the inventory and making the re-orders go smoothly. For all those things, Unleashed is very powerful and useful.”

Continuing with Unleashed provided the local company a way to cost effectively improve their business operations, however without sacrificing interoperability. While Mapal Australia’s suppliers utilise SAP and other software platforms, the current project Raj is pursuing is integrating Unleashed’s inventory management system with the systems of Mapal’s suppliers.

“Testing is going on and we are

just ironing out some of the issues, and once that is done we will be using that. The idea is that when we raise a purchase order in Unleashed or a sales order in Unleashed the data is pushed automatically into the other platform.”

This saves Mapal from completing orders via email, over the phone or on paper, smoothing out any bumps that are caused in the business’s operations.

“The supplier doesn’t accept any paperwork anymore, they’re all digital. They have their own platform and if you want anything purchased from them you need to actually enter the order on their platform. Instead of duplicating the same work, what we’re trying to do is integrate it so that when we place a purchase order on Unleashed, it is actually automatically getting pushed into the other side, while also taking data from the other side, so we can update our order confirmation dates and delivery dates,” said Raj. The successful utilisation of Unleashed in Australia has also influenced the approach that Mapal has taken in expanding to new sites in South East Asia. At the company’s Malaysian facility, which is also handling production, Unleashed has been the platform of choice.

“Within the business what we’re manmonthly.com.au

Digitalisation

Unleashed’s flexible platform has allowed for it to be the software of choice for Mapal. trying to do is take the data from Unleashed directly into our reporting packages to the headquarters’ system and that will also go through an application processing interface (API),” said Raj. “Once that is successful, we will roll this into a couple of other units in Southeast Asia.”

Creating a digital business from the ground up has been informed by Raj’s experience working with integrating Unleashed into a business that has been in Australia for half a century.

Integral to the success of that has been the support which Unleashed provided Raj at both ends of the process. While Raj has premium support in Australia, the site in Malaysia only had a basic level of support, knowing that the two businesses were connected, however, Unleashed provided the same level of service.

“To get it kicked in and manage that in Malaysia, the staff from Unleashed over the phone helped me, even though we didn’t have telephone support function for that particular account. Because I have it on my Australian account, I just dialled in and had a couple of questions that they answered me. For that reason, I should thank the staff at Unleashed for doing it because they could’ve turned around and said, ‘You don’t have the telephone support. You need to send everything by email’.” manmonthly.com.au

Bringing in the B2B Store helps us reduce our internal work. It’s just a matter of getting our customers in the right mindset to start using the platform because if the order is placed in the B2B Store it is only a matter of accepting that particular order in Unleashed to process it.

Not only has partnering with Unleashed been part of Mapal’s story of expansion, it has also streamlined the business internally – a key saving that can be found in digitalisation.

Raj estimated that Unleashed reduced his labour cost by 50 per cent of one full time equivalent position,

and with the subsequent integration of the B2B eCommerce store from Unleashed, Raj only expects the number to grow.

“Bringing in the B2B Store helps us reduce our internal work. It’s just a matter of getting our customers in the right mindset to start using

the platform because if the order is placed in the B2B Store it is only a matter of accepting that particular order in Unleashed to process it.”

In this sense, Raj sees the potential of Unleashed’s functionality to go beyond the cost savings normally associated with digitalisation.

“Unleashed is going to cut down costs, but at the same time, the B2B is a tool actually to increase the business. For an online shop, you don’t want anything complicated. You just want to pick what you want, put it in the cart, and pay for it as quick as possible. The simpler the shop looks and feels, that’s when the customer will do more shopping on it.”

Raj estimates that between 3035 customers have embraced this digital ordering process, which in expanding the digital aspects of Mapal’s business beyond accounting and inventory, comprise the next step of digitalisation.

For Danielle Dadello, country manager of Unleashed, this example of the utilisation of the B2B store on the digitalisation journey, is one area where Australia is a world leader, and has the potential to increase accuracy.

“Phone orders and email orders, they have mistakes and they’re very time consuming for your sales team to punch into the system.”

As customers look to this functionality, Dadello highlights the importance of having a partner such as Unleashed in managing this change.

“People are pushing that message into digital transformation and ensuring you’ve got the best of breed system helps take you into that digital form, rather than passing pieces of paper around.”

Mapal manufactures machine tools, and distributes them through its subsidiary in Australia.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 27

Skills & Training Safety leadership at every level Establishing and maintaining health and safety in the workplace requires genuine commitment from an organisation – and that starts with your leaders. Ai Group explains.

A safe workplace requires clear leadership.

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T is obviously good business practice to run a safe operation in your workplace – but organisations can only achieve good outcomes if there is clear leadership from the senior management of the business.

Officers are required to exercise due diligence (taking reasonable care) to ensure the organisation meets its legal obligations under health and safety laws. The due diligence approach to health and safety, seen in Figure 1, is consistent with the due diligence required in relation to every other important issue in the business.

Systems can assist the organisation to meet its health and safety obligations; however, a senior manager must be directly involved 28 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

in understanding the business and making decisions about resource allocations. Senior managers also need to understand what is truly happening in the business; they need to convince workers that they want to know the real issues in the business and be prepared to do something about fixing them.

Colleagues and customers also rely on each business to have a safe operation and to ensure workers go home every day safely. As a business it is important to have clear, consistent messages regarding the business running the operation and its activities and how it is keeping people safe.

A safety journey and positive safety culture is not reliant upon one person, it involves the entire

business. A vision where safety is valued, enforced, and acted on daily is necessary. Valuing coming to work and working safely is a responsibility everyone should have regardless of business size, culture, gender, and industry.

Excellent communication Genuine conversations between senior management and workers which are focused on a joint benefit of improving safety will help to build trust and confidence. This will enable workers to contribute to other improvement opportunities and therefore potentially improve business productivity. Supervisors and managers are required to pass on messages about the importance of safety in the workplace and

transfer this information to the broader workforce. At the same time any issues and concerns should also be raised with management to get issues resolved quickly and efficiently.

Middle managers have the toughest job of all when it comes to managing safety. They are often required to be the “middle-person” between the workers and the senior management team. It is important middle managers take messages from the leadership team and senior managers about how important safety is on the job and translate it down to their teams. At the same time, middle managers must take issues and concerns of their teams to management to help get them resolved. As a result, workers need manmonthly.com.au

Skills & Training Figure 1: Due diligence framework

Ensure the business has: Have:

Appropriate resources to eliminate or minimise risk

Up to date knowledge of health and safety

Appropriate processes to receive and consider information about health and safety

Understanding of hazards and risks

Verify: That all is going as reported

Implemented processes to comply with duties

Preparing workers with planning skills provides opportunities to look at tasks and activities, identify any hazards present and then put in measures to prevent incidents and injuries from occurring.

The importance of leadership style Leadership styles vary from person to person. However, when developing a team and enforcing a safety message, it’s important there is leadership from across the entire organisation. Collaborative and coaching styles are the most effective to increase engagement with workers and to establish a positive safety culture.

Persist and be relentless to trust in these middle managers to be able to deliver this message accurately, so that their issues have been heard and translated correctly.

The impact of participation It is important to have everyone involved in making decisions about safety issues in the business. This requires consulting with workers rather than just communicating to workers what needs to be done.

Consultation involves asking feedback of workers and taking their views into consideration – it is not a process of telling them

what to do. Everyone should be involved in a way where workers can voice their concerns and share any previous lessons learned to improve on practices within the workplace and identify opportunities for improvement.

Build safety leadership capability Often when we consider developing safety capacity we find it is a technical skill set; however, it’s more than understanding safety concepts.

Two of the most important skills to provide people are

communication and planning skills. Leaders’ communication skills are important so that when interventions need to occur leaders feel comfortable to highlight when safety issues are identified and can work with their teams to find ways to resolve any issues.

Communicating in front of groups of people and discussing safety issues and actions will help make the workplace safer and demonstrate safety leadership.

Many incidents happen when undertaking work in strict timeframes and with little planning.

Safety leadership is an ongoing process. Positive leadership must be in place from the planning stages of setting strategic plans, right through to ongoing encouragement, enforcement and reviews throughout the year. Keeping workers safe is a message that needs to be consistently delivered by all the leaders in your workforce, and it can’t be compromised. Safety must be a value that goes before all else.

Ai Group offers training in Safety Leadership in the Workplace. Ai Group’s online Health & Safety Resource Centre is a great reference centre for articles, templates and documents on WHS issues.

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Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 29

Instrumentation Current trends are changing future innovation Today, any one can innovate, from anywhere. Mouser Electronics explains the technology that is behind this new landscape of ideas.

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ANY factors are contributing to a modern transformation in the way innovation happens – new tools and resources available to innovators, new business models that help turn good ideas into viable products, and industry recognition that not all products have to be based on proprietary research. The result is a climate of more open innovation that is accelerating the development of new ideas and turning innovation into a global activity. More people from more walks of life and regions of the world are becoming creators.

Key drivers of open innovation 1. More open idea sharing The ability to collaborate is a key factor in innovation, but so is the willingness to collaborate. For many innovators, collaboration becomes the fastest and best way to test ideas and make necessary connections. Social media and collaboration tools are collapsing barriers to communication and changing the way people work around the world. Michael Parks, co-founder and senior vice president of engineering and design at USbased embedded electronics design studio and security research group Green Shoe Garage, described it in this way: “Teams that are distributed around the globe have a unique advantage in that their business never closes. Someone, somewhere, is always innovating and refining product. Furthermore, the product stands a better chance of being adopted globally since localised needs stemming from cultural and economic differences can be considered during the design process itself.”

2. Accelerated idea testing and prototyping Collaboration plays a role not only in helping creators quickly validate ideas but also in helping 30 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

3D printers can accelerate prototyping. them identify the right resources to develop their ideas into a product. One key to successful idea development is speed. Markets move fast, requiring creators to develop and prove their ideas while commercial opportunities exist. Financial backers want to see whether an idea will succeed or fail as quickly as possible so that they can decide whether to offer additional support or move on to other opportunities. Creators must build and test prototypes quickly to validate design strategies and improve them, if necessary.

Today’s creators have many resources available to them that accelerate building, testing, and refining prototypes. Bob Martin, senior staff engineer at Microchip Technology, explained how these resources work together to accelerate design refinement: “Rapid prototyping that can be done by snapping together modules, combined with 3D printing, means

creators are not having to wait weeks for machining or tooling. They can assemble something quickly and get immediate feedback. It’s really tightening the loop. Speed and modularity are making big changes.”

The affordability and accessibility of desktop manufacturing tools such as 3D printers, printed circuit boards (PCBs), milling machines, and laser cutters are making it possible for more innovators to seriously pursue their ideas.

“Even if you can’t afford to purchase the equipment, you can take advantage of numerous emerging online electronic and mechanical manufacturing companies that will take your design files and produce PCB or 3D printed parts at very reasonable costs and turnaround times,” said Parks.

3. Hardware acceleration Hardware acceleration is a critical innovation enabler for several reasons. One is that component

manufacturing has become a global industry, offering more choices and more specialised players.

Innovators now have many price and performance options, but logistical challenges that are difficult for ordinary mortals to overcome have cropped up as well.

Hardware accelerators have knowledge that can help address these challenges. They can help wade through all the resources, tools, and kits that are out there. They have access to resources innovators may not know exist. Maybe a maker is wondering how to fund a $100,000 injection mould, but someone may know somebody who can cut a mould for a fraction of that cost.

An accelerator can’t reveal what other customers are doing, but they may know that customers have had trouble with a particular evaluation kit or supplier.

Martin emphasised the value of a hardware accelerator, especially for start-ups. “As a single entrepreneur manmonthly.com.au

Instrumentation or small company, there are logistics that you’ll find nearly impossible to take care of yourself,” he said.

“Maybe the best supplier is in Asia.

You can’t afford to fly to China every week. You should focus on what you’re trying to do and take advantage of the tribal knowledge that accelerators offer.”

Hardware acceleration is a rising force in the world of technology innovation that can speed up productisation and reduce costly mistakes along the way.

potential is not growing nearly as fast. Parks notes that corporations need to find a way to develop and attract talent. “Corporations will become more involved in training people to accelerate specific products. It’s the ‘teach a man to fish’ versus ‘give the man a fish’ paradigm,” he explained.

4. Acceleration of innovation and productisation

The future of innovation A more open, global innovation-toproductisation development cycle is already changing the way innovation happens. More people from nonengineering disciplines are becoming technology creators, and valuable innovations are arising from more remote areas of the world. These trends are further accelerating the speed of innovation through idea sharing and additive technology advancement.

1. Who will be the creators of the future?

You don’t have to be an engineer to become a creator, and this trend is likely to continue. Parks sees everyone as a potential innovator.

“Decades ago, the personal computer gave rise to desktop publishing; today, it is giving rise to desktop manufacturing. That is helping grow innovators from the masses,” he said.

This will increase open sharing and expanded use of open source models, such as Microsoft’s embrace of Linux or Tesla’s open sourcing of certain key electronic vehicle patents. Parks also sees this trend being a force in the localisation of innovation. “With the continued expansion of the internet and a growing realisation of the need for localised manufacturing for environmental and socioeconomic reasons, we will see innovation coming from anyone who wants to contribute, not just those who can afford to contribute,” Parks said.

Many see innovation coming from people of many different backgrounds said John Teel, founder of Predictable Designs.

“In the past, most innovation manmonthly.com.au

Different communities are opened up to innovation. has come from engineers. Now, innovation is open to anyone with an idea.” It’s also possible for people with certain kinds of technical expertise to translate that knowledge into other kinds of innovation.

Joshua Lifton, co-founder and president of Crowd Supply, sees new innovation opportunities opening up for non-hardware technologists.

“There are millions of software developers, but fewer hardware developers,” he said, noting that the common programming language Python is showing up in hardware as MicroPython, IronPython, and CircuitPython. “Suddenly, microcontrollers are beefy enough to run a Python interpreter. This trend will enable software engineers to enter the hardware space,” Lifton said.

“People innovate in the areas they understand or that affect them.

In the United States, innovations often involve an Internet of Things device. People from various parts of Africa contact me with product ideas related to power generation. Already we see different innovations from different parts of the world,” he said.

Parks believes that this local innovation trend will extend to manufacturing.

“Instead of manufacturing products in one place and shipping them around the globe, designers will share designs around the world. Local innovators will tailor the designs for their local market, and then manufacture the product using local resources,” said Parks

2. The power of regional innovation

Increasingly, innovation is moving beyond the confines of corporationfunded research. Therefore corporations will need to have stakes in this new game of open innovation.

Some corporations are joining business groups that provide venture capital and resources to innovators.

Others make their products available at low cost to innovators working on prototypes. Some are actively becoming hardware accelerators.

The tools that make innovation possible are increasingly available, but the talent pool of people who can use those tools to their fullest

As entrepreneurial innovation opens up to widely dispersed communities of curious people and problem solvers, where new innovations come from and where new products are manufactured will change dramatically. Localisation of innovation will drive products designed to solve regional problems.

These are likely to include products that larger corporations could never profitably develop themselves. Teel sees this in the kinds of designs that cross his desk.

3. The changing role of established enterprises

Some people predict that the end of Moore’s Law will slow new innovation, but tools and resources that are making a more open, global approach to innovation possible will defy technical stagnation. The fact is, innovation is accelerating. Innovation for the masses is also making new business models possible, not only for services that target innovators, such as hardware accelerators, technology incubators, and prefabricated component manufacturers, but also new models for bringing products to market.

Lifton points out that this new age of innovation creates lucrative opportunities for niche products serving niche markets, which can have a big impact on the way creators approach the productisation of their innovative ideas.

“Many creators don’t realize that a niche market is actually a much better place to be,” Lifton said. “Niche markets tend to be well connected through social media. From a marketing perspective, it’s way more efficient than a mass-market product that requires costly ramp-up, with expensive marketing and volume manufacturing.” This niche market dynamic also works for regional or local innovations designed to fill regional and local needs.

It’s difficult to predict the future, and, by nature, innovation creates the basis for its own transformation, but current trends show innovation changing from a discipline shrouded in secrecy to a movement that is more visible and public.

“Innovation is not something best left in the hands of engineers.

We’re just a limited set of people with limited ways of seeing things.

If you open innovation to the entire world, there are just so many more possibilities,” said Teel.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 31

Construction The networks and systems required for Industry 4.0 have an impact on the floorspace of manufacturing plants.

Early involvement ensures smooth integration Working at the intersection of digital and physical systems, Total Construction is primed to integrate Industry 4.0 into a manufacturing facility. Manufacturers’ Monthly explains.

T

HINKING about installing Industry 4.0 systems in your plant? It’s time to talk to your builder. This is the message from Rob Blythman, general manager, Engineering Construction Group for Total Construction.

“When you’re increasing your efficiencies by 20 per cent or more by doing Industry 4.0, you’re going to need more storage space,” said Blythman. “If you are doing more throughput through the factory, you need to think about, ‘Where am I going to keep the materials?’”

The real adoption of Industry 4.0 in the manufacturing sector in Australia is not a vision of the future, but a current concern. Whether that is in the form of digitally connected processes or the automated movement of goods, Industry 4.0 presents major opportunities, which Blythman sums up.

“A saying someone said to me once 32 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

is, ‘if you have to push it, pull it or lift it, automate it’. That takes out all your risk of injury to staff, streamlines your processes so you can manage your efficiency, and after that, everything else in automation is bespoke to your particular operation.”

Implementing these bespoke and off-the-shelf automation systems into a factory is where Industry 4.0 becomes a reality. Total Construction – which serves market sectors such as food and beverage, energy and infrastructure, commercial and industrial and health – knows what the impacts of the adoption of the latest industrial technology are, and how to integrate them into a building’s floor plan.

However, the company remains a construction firm at their core.

“We’re not going to say, ‘This should be automated and this is the piece of equipment you should use’,” said Blythman. “You’ll know as the manufacturer what piece of equipment

you want to put in, what process you want to put in. We’ll advise on what that means for your building.”

Blythman highlighted that before introducing a new piece of equipment, which has the potential to reshape a manufacturing process, a production or building manager should be thinking about the flow of people through a building. This is where Total comes in.

“We can help with the process flow, design layout, costing on that building and then manufacturers have a full package to present to financiers or boards.”

While these issues may be a simple step in the construction process of a new factory, when retrofitting advanced automation or digital technologies to existing factories, the process becomes more complex.

“Not many existing factories around have an abundance of spare space or services within the building,”

cautioned Blythman. “A lot of them are old, a lot of them have issues with asbestos, with services. So you can’t go in and cut off services that may be crucial somewhere else in the factory.”

With connectivity being a key enabler for Industry 4.0 technology, introducing a high-speed, internet network into an existing factory takes an understanding of the structure of the building, as James Bolton, general manager, energy and infrastructure at Total pointed out.

“That can be anything from the ethernet backbone and how that’s all laid out, through to things like the wireless access points that need to be physically put in place. That usually gets thought about at the very end, after the fact,” said Bolton.

Bolton sees the introduction of new systems such as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) as presenting new issues for buildings.

“Ten years ago, you might have manmonthly.com.au

Construction had a robotic palletiser and a fairly straightforward conveyor that puts a box on a pallet. Now the difference is that we’re starting to see this language of ‘dark factory’; there are no humans, it’s all conveyors. One of the more interesting things we saw of late was the robot AGVs bringing empty pallets to the palletiser, bringing film to the shrink wrapper, taking completed pallets to the truck.”

These AGVs are now one part inside wider Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), which according to Blythman are becoming increasingly accessible to a wider range of businesses.

“In the last 6-12 months, ASRS, that started in the mass FMCG market, have gone beyond that. We’re dealing with a small manufacturer, and he’s put in an ASRS, because the cost barrier has come right down. It’s not massive volume, but he still wants an ASRS, because having people go in and out of a freezer all the time, power-wise, costwise it’s not good.”

When introducing these systems, the safe interaction between humans and robots is a key consideration.

While AGVs have their own safety and stopping systems, reducing the incidence of this occurring is something that can be solved with foresight.

“One of the biggest issues occurs when people have to re-do their layout inside a factory,” said Blythman. “You look at the footsteps, where people are going, and then you’ve got to map what the new footsteps will be.”

In a recent project, a Total client had retrofitted AGVs into an existing warehouse, and staff crossing in front of the paths of AGVs caused the vehicles to stop. Despite the stopping not being a fault of the machine, the time it took for the AGVs to restart impacted enough on the profitability of the system to cause the client to return to manual handling of goods.

Planning for now While Industry 4.0 might seem like a project to fix current problems, the potential for new systems to improve the productivity of a system means that implementing Industry 4.0 requires thinking about the future. Incorporating room for future manmonthly.com.au

expansion should be part of any Industry 4.0 plan, noted Blythman.

“We’re talking about what they’re potentially going to be doing in 5 to 10 years. We allow for 20 per cent growth in Industry 4.0 implementation. More robotics or non-labour-intensive activities.”

Where Blythman sees this playing out is not only on the factory floor but in the supporting infrastructure for digital systems. With data now an essential utility, alongside electricity, incorporating this into the physical footprint of a plant is something worth consideration.

“A lot of factories don’t have a

refrigeration and air-conditioning are required for the factory.

“We know how to look at negative, positive air, what the impact on a facility and cost is. Quite often, we’ll say use your refrigeration system to do refrigeration and air-conditioning.

A bigger refrigeration system will cost you less in maintenance in the long term and less on your installation costs, whereas if you want to have two separate systems you’ve got to have condensers all over the place, to keep something at 20oC,” said Blythman.

“That’s where the building smarts come into play.”

The next step is to look at whether

Automation has the potential to reshape the physical nature of factories.

data room, and it won’t be climate controlled,” said Blythman. “We do big data centres and just as much effort goes into the conditioning of the air as in a food facility.

“We understand that the computers can’t be running at 50 degrees.

Whether it be one server or a bank of servers, you’ve got a have a lot of computer power to run whatever level of Industry 4.0 you’re doing.”

Here, Total draws on its experience in the food and beverage sector where

the facility would benefit from a comprehensive Building Information Modelling (BIM) system to enable the “smart factory”.

“Someone with a notebook can walk around the factory and look at any piece of equipment without leaving the office,” said Blythman.

“That’s where this thing leads to.”

Building the process Getting to the point of implementing a BIM requires a

holistic understanding of how cyber and physical systems fit together, that Total, which stands at the point between construction tradespeople and Industry 4.0 engineers, can provide.

“We manage installation and commissioning,” said Blythman.

“We won’t install equipment because again, most of that kit has warranty issues, but we manage those people so that the safety and process requirement are met.”

Bolton likens this working relationship to one of a translator.

“We have a conversation with the tradespeople to get that solution back to the client, to say ‘Here’s what you need to achieve what you want, it has these components in it and the price is X’. The tradespeople are happy, because they’re talking to someone who knows their needs, and then the client is happy because we’re explaining it to them in a way that they can understand.”

A successful relationship comes down to early contractor involvement, something that Total sees as key to navigating the construction process. Knowing from the start what will be required for the upgrade or construction of an integrated, smart factory, avoids variations that occur once a plan has been finalised, which involves a significant time and monetary cost.

The final relationship that Total advises manufacturers to be aware of is with local regulatory bodies.

“Manufacturers might want to add a room or add a storage area, but anything outside the original footprint has got to go through a Development Application (DA),” said Blythman. “That’s anywhere up or sideways, and what council will do is require the entire building to be upgraded to current specification. They won’t come doorknocking when you don’t do anything, but when you put in a DA they’ll say, ‘You need a lift for disabled access’. You’re not breaking the law by not having it done, but you won’t get approval for the new works unless the entire building is brought up to code as part of the works.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 33

Software Finding the right fit: An ERP designed for manufacturing Maintaining a productive and cost-effective workplace requires a software system that knows manufacturing. Manufacturers’ Monthly finds out what such a system entails.

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OR Jonathon Worner, finding an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that could fit into his specific needs as a manufacturer was as essential as finding a software partner who will stick.

“We were juggling between two other systems. One of them was only run by a two-man band and the service didn’t really live up to our requirements. And the other one was half-implemented and also wasn’t the right fit for our manufacturing company,” Worner said.

The manufacturing company that Worner is referring to is Pressform Group, where Worner is the group general manager. Started by his father John in 1976, Pressform not only continues the work of the original business, Pressform Engineering in fabricating metal products, but also encompasses three other subsidiaries: Alloy Design, Pressurelube, and Valve Sales Australia. The ERP partner that Worner was looking for had to satisfy all these businesses’ needs, 34 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

and Worner found that in Global Shop Solutions.

“Global Shop Solutions was specifically directed towards manufacturing, and encompassed all of the processes and attributes that we were looking for from an ERP software system for our four companies,” said Worner.

Global Shop Solutions ERP software includes applications for shop management, scheduling, inventory, accounting, quality control, CRM, and more. Available in the cloud or on premise, Global Shop Solutions’ headquarters are in The Woodlands, Texas, US. Getting Global Shop Solutions onboarded across these varied applications required a close and productive relationship between Worner and employees of Global Shop Solutions. They began with implementing ERP into Alloy Design’s processes and moved up to Pressform Engineering, the largest business in the group.

“We had the team from Global Shop Solutions visit our facility on a

Ryan North, Evolve Design Studio

Pressform has integrated Global Shop Solutions into their business, with a screen displaying the program on the manufacturing shop floor.

number of occasions before, during, and after implementation of our four companies,” said Worner.

Once the system was implemented, its manufacturingspecific nature began to be realised in the capabilities of the platform.

One area in particular, however, stood out to Worner.

“Job costing for a manufacturer is essential, especially when you have different products made each time. Other software companies on the market don’t have the background knowledge of job costing, such as the materials, labour, overheads, and subcontract requirements, to manufacture a product along with that cost broken down into separate buckets. That knowledge, along with the software functionality, really helped our decision to go with Global Shop Solutions,” said Worner.

With the system now up and running at Pressform’s site in Bassendean, Western Australia, work is tracked through a barcode system that then provides real time

vision on estimated and actual times for making a standard product. This system enables Worner and others at Pressform to get a comprehensive understanding of what making each product takes.

“We make many different items with estimated materials and times.

We did not think in the past that packaging cost so much and packing the actual product took so long, but it became apparent when we were going over our Estimates vs. Actual report in Global Shop Solutions.

This detail has helped us improve our job costing and our production planning,” said Worner.

The status of production is not only monitored from laptops that are dotted around the shop floor, but Pressform has set up a large television screen for everyone to see what is being worked on at the time. For Ryan Fisher, operations and sales director for Global Shop Solutions’ in Australia and New Zealand, this method of visualisation is one of Global Shop Solutions ways of ensuring that time spent on the shop floor is productive and valued.

“It’s that constant reminder that your time here counts, and that your time being productive as possible matters to the organisation. It helps with communicating that to the shop floor employees,” said Fisher.

These insights have allowed for Pressform to identify what aspects of their production cycle are most productive, and where areas of wastage can be eliminated.

One area that Worner has found highlighted is indirect, unproductive labour, such as materials handling, cleaning, supervisor meetings, and machine maintenance.

“We’re able to then show the guys in the factory a graph of how we’re tracking unproductive hours manmonthly.com.au

Software and all the productive hours that we have,” said Worner. “It’s a motivator for them because they know, ‘I might need to walk a little faster’ or ‘I might need to streamline how we’re getting materials off trucks with the forklifts,’ to save time, and make more money.”

Having this visualisation of what was happening on the shop floor has allowed Worner to not only identify areas of wastage, but also products and services that were not bringing in money to the company. For one large, welded product that Pressform were making for a local company, seeing what went into producing this product through Global Shop Solutions enabled Pressform to realise that the cost of production was higher than the price they were selling the product for.

“It was a turnover of almost $500,000 a year and provided our welders, our plasma cutter, guillotine and our overhead 600

Global Shop Solutions has designed the software to be intuitive for manufacturers. manmonthly.com.au

tonne press a lot of work, but we weren’t making any money on it.”

Ultimately deciding to discontinue the product, Worner made this decision based on the calculations that could be done through Global Shop Solutions.

“It was only probably a $3,000 item, but it took many hours to make with lots of heavy steel materials and we had to make it in a really short period of time, which was another factor we weren’t able to assess with our other ERP software.”

Utilising Global Shop Solutions for Pressform has been a process of finding the right information needed to make informed business decisions. One tool that Worner uses is the Dashboards function. Having multiple Dashboards open at once enables users to find information quickly and easily. In addition, when adding new items to the production process, the functionality of Global

Shop Solutions allows for a flexible production system.

“A customer might come in with a new product request, or we might develop something new, so we have all of our standard materials, lengths, shapes and types of materials required to make the product in our ERP software,” said Worner. “So if it’s a new product, you create that work order straight off the bat, or if you’ve got a similar product that you know you’ve made in the past, you can adapt it to suite the new product.”

Throughout the process of adopting Global Shop Solutions, Worner and the team at Pressform have been guided by the support which Global Shop Solutions provides. Via its local offices in Australia and New Zealand and around the world, the company supports thousands of manufacturing facilities in over 25 countries and nearly 30 industries.

With resources available at each stage of the process, Worner has found constant support from Global Shop Solutions.

“To make calls to the US, that’s a really good comfort for us because that’s not what we were receiving from other companies. Sometimes we would wait days and maybe a week until we’d get a response. Support from Global Shop Solutions has been great and has been a big win for us.

Especially when we get stuck, we have an answer from Global Shop Solutions the same day.”

Having now implemented the system, the relationship between the two companies has allowed for the further development of the platform, as Pressform’s system has been migrated to the cloud from a locally-based server, which provides greater security and access.

However, throughout the journey with Global Shop Solutions for Pressform there was one key stakeholder who had to be brought along for the journey.

“As lots of companies may experience, change with staff is sometimes a challenge and we did have those challenges. One of those was the managing director, who is my father,” said Worner. These concerns were allayed, however, when Worner and his father visited Global Shop Solutions’ headquarters.

“Dusty Alexander, the CEO, and other stakeholders at Global Shop Solutions spent two days with us and just talked about their experience and how you handle change and implementing ERP and that was absolutely one of the most rewarding and also successful meetings with a supplier that I’ve ever had.”

Worner was able to then share these insights with staff back in WA, and the first-hand experience of working with Global Shop Solutions made all the difference.

“Suddenly, it clicked. The whole path of Global Shop Solutions implementation and everything just worked. And that’s half the battle because if you don’t have your staff on board, on the same page, well it’s not going to work.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 35

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Manufacturing Strategies Learning from Lean Sensei As a tool to benchmark against the best, the Lean Sensei from AME is a simple way to start asking some tricky questions. Manufacturers’ Monthly finds out.

I

N a global and diverse sector such as manufacturing, it can be hard for each individual business to know where they stand.

The Lean Sensei tool, developed by the US branch of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), provides an individualised assessment process for manufacturers to see where they are in relation to the competition.

Glenn Seaby, co-founder, lean coach and facilitator of training and consulting business Efficiency Works, and past Queensland president of AME, has drawn on the tool when guiding some of his clients on their own continuous improvement journey.

“For some of my clients, it’s raised their awareness and for others it’s a tool for them to improve,” he said.

The tool was initially developed in the US to prepare companies that seek to compete for the AME Excellence Award, which recognises those businesses that operate at exceptional levels of performance. In Australia, those not competing for the award can still set themselves against the best in the business.

“It’ll allow a gap analysis between where you are and what you have to do,” said Seaby.

“Some people like the idea of an award to aim for, but other people just like it as a tool to aid their own improvements.”

When working with manufacturing businesses in Australia, Seaby sees many operating in their own fields, without an awareness of how advanced other businesses around the globe are performing. With manufacturing supply chains criss-crossing the globe, competition is not only interstate, but international.

“Sometimes people think they are going quite well, because when they compare themselves to others locally within the industry, they’re going okay, but we’re competing on a global basis. While you might be going well compared to a company manmonthly.com.au

Rather than determining solutions, Lean Sensei gets leaders thinking about their business.

from another state, sometimes we have a distorted view of how you are going on a world stage.”

Utilising the Lean Sensei tool, whether via its mobile application or Excel spreadsheet version, means getting together a small group of key staff members to give letter grades to all aspects of a business’s operations.

Although subjective, the tool requires proof of each grading to ensure that whatever grade, whether A or F, is based on evidence.

While an important part of the process, according to Seaby, the grade is just the first step in the Sensei process.

“As with all evaluation tools, the grade is secondary. It’s the discussion about the grade that is the more useful thing,” he said.

While the temptation to set the grades as bars to reach can be there, Seaby warns those who would seek to use the tool to return to the purpose of the tool, which is to implement tools and resources.

“My major caution would be, when I talk to senior managers about this, is, ‘Don’t get obsessed with the score.’

A mistake is where companies set all their managers a target to get from score A to score B. The score is a nice by-product of the work that you’ve done and tools like this are a great way to ask the right questions and have the right discussions,” said Seaby.

Focussing on the outcome, rather than an element of the process, has lead Seaby to see the tool used in situations where companies were unwilling or reticent to implement Lean principles.

“I had a senior manager who had come from another business, he had a look at the culture and the performance inside the new company and thought that there was quite a lot to do, but they were in denial or blissful ignorance. He used Lean Sensei as tool about what could be done. There was a lot of opportunity and a lot of room for them to drive improvement. It was used as an inspirational tool to establish the difference between what the best companies in the world are doing and what they are doing.”

While the tool will suggest a range of options once the scores

are inputted, it avoids suggesting a single solution for each situation.

This encourages companies to ask themselves what is the most appropriate in their unique situation.

“It says, ‘here are some options’ and the company has got to make a decision about which one of those is going to be useful for them to implement. So, they, or their guide, then pulls the right tool out of the toolbox to fix the problem. It’s not prescriptive,” said Seaby.

While these are essential steps with the Lean Sensei tool, a major test comes after a company has done the first round of implementation. In Seaby’s experience, this can be the highest hurdle to leap over.

“Companies like the initial assessment, but it takes a fair bit of focus to make sure they come back and reassess. But as they learn more, and start to understand more about their business, you can go back and some things that they might have been really convinced of, when they have more information and a bit more understanding, they’re not as convinced of.

“Sometimes they can do some work and then realise it’s only really getting to the point where they thought they were already. As you get a better understanding of what the Lean Sensei is really asking, then sometimes you realise we really have to do more work here. We’ve got clients to the point where they’ve used it as a thing to say, ‘This is where we’re at, this is what we need to do,’ and they’ve started on the journey.”

Fundamentally, however, Seaby sees the tool as only as useful as the questions that it can prompt businesses to ask.

“The people who wrote the tool don’t say ‘Do this,’ they’re really saying the Lean Sensei offers some questions, now what are you going to do about it. Then it’s up to the company, in conjunction with their coach, to answer it.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 37

FEBRUARY 2020 – WAREHOUSING Warehousing is an important consideration for manufacturers, even more so as smart, automated systems move into the warehouse and supplement Lean Manufacturing tools to reduce time to distribution.

Xxx

In February 2020 we will highlight leading companies that are providing warehouse shelving and storage solutions for modern manufacturing and logistics operations.

In every edition of Manufacturers’ Monthly, we’re proud to work with our commercial partners on content that helps connect you with your future customers.

Booking deadline: 16 December 2019

To book contact DANILO CORTUCCI now danilo.cortucci@primecreative.com.au | 0434 419 663

Data D61+ Live: Making data drive Australia Characterising discussions at D61+ Live, a two-day event by CSIRO’s Data61, was the potential of data-driven technology for Australia, but also concerns about its implementation in a changing world. Manufacturers’ Monthly reports.

W

HILE the aim of D61+ Live, the flagship event of CSIRO’s Data61, was in part to celebrate the achievements of Australian researchers and industry working with data, thought-provoking words opened the event.

David Thodey, chairman of the CSIRO board, highlighted that while across the OECD digital innovation represented 11 per cent of GDP, in Australia, digital innovation represented only 6.6 per cent of GDP. Currently, this figure represents 580,000 people, and $122 billion of Australia’s GDP, but according to Thodey, there is the potential to grow that to $315 billion. Speaking to those assembled in the room, representing the leading edge of data innovation in Australia, Thodey saw this gap as an opportunity.

“We have incredible skills in Australia and we need to capitalise on that.”

With growth towards the $315b target having the potential to create 200,000 jobs in the sector, Thodey highlighted that this would improve Australia’s global competitiveness.

“Science and research underpins any great economy, because it is where you create differentiation and value,” said Thodey.

One area where this pronouncement could be seen to be taking effect is in the space sector.

D61+ Live occurred soon after the announcement of $150 million in funding for Australian organisations to contribute to NASA’s mission to the Moon and Mars. Space was one area where the potential for data-driven growth was felt, as Anntonette Dailey, executive director of operations and communications at the Australian Space Agency pointed out.

“There is an incredible market out there and the Government can see that there are jobs and opportunities in the space sector.” manmonthly.com.au

To meet the agency’s goal of creating 20,000 new jobs in 10 years and tripling the space economy, Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews, pointed to existing areas where Australia is a world leader. These include the use of remotely operated devices in the mining sector and remotely delivered health care as part of Australia’s Antarctic program.

Indeed, as the space sector morphs from being commercially driven by the government to having multiple private sector enterprises launching and operating rockets, there is more potential for Australian businesses.

One company that is taking advantage of this is Gilmour Space Technologies, whose co-founder, Adam Gilmour, highlighted that while government is now only one customer among many, its backing can be used to drive additional investment. For every million dollars of government investment, Gilmour estimates $3-5m flows from venture capital. In this sense, the Australian Space Agency can be a local stepping stone to greatness for Australian space companies.

Closer to home, Thodey emphasised the potential for digital technology to solve the everyday issues that face Australians. For Andrews, this could be seen in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to the construction sector, to increase the accuracy of building certification.

Another example, which Sue Keay, research director of cyber-physical systems at CSIRO’s Data61, pointed to is the development of IoT-enabled ear tags for cattle, which track their health and location.

Another Australian development to achieve international recognition was the BIA5 robot that travelled to the US to compete in the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) challenge, as part of the Data61 team,

Exhibitors and attendees took stock of Australia’s position in the digital economy. the only team outside North America to receive DARPA funding.

Looking at these projects as a whole, Keay spoke of the potential for the technology to improve Australian society, but encouraged quicker action.

“Science and technology will ensure Australia’s future prosperity.

The next science driven technology cycle is ours to capitalise on, but we have to take action now.”

Lurking in the background to these discussions, however, is the community distrust of new technologies, particularly those that have the potential to replace jobs and industries. To counter this, Keay argued, a human presence needs to be incorporated into technological innovation.

“We need to place humans at the heart of technology,” she said.

Bringing up the use of embodied AI, including service and care robots, Keay cautioned that while robots can benefit humanity, they also have the potential to disrupt traditional senses of personhood.

“When we are designing these technologies, we need to ensure they subscribe to our common values.”

These concerns were echoed by

Andrews, who described her position as one of explaining the value of technology to a broad public.

“My job is to work with people throughout our communities to send a message that technology is not something to be concerned about. Unfortunately, not everybody sees technology as exciting, many people can see technology as quite threatening,” said Andrews.

In this context, of speaking to those who are the developers and implementors of such technology, Andrews implored the audience to involve the community in cycles of innovation. Ensuring society has the tools to adapt to changes to work, care, and communication, will smooth the transition to a society characterised by its smart, intelligent use of data, and the resulting economic benefits, said Keay.

“While there will be many jobs that will cease to exist, more jobs will be created than displaced. How we as a society adapt will decide whether our world will become more prosperous or more troubled,” said Keay. “That is a human issue, that artificial intelligence and robotics can’t solve for us.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 39

IIoT IIoT and digital transformation: From manufacturing an input to designing for outputs Seeing how internet connectivity is applied in the harshest conditions puts the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) into perspective. Manufacturers’ Monthly speaks with Orica on how they are pursuing their digital journey.

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HE transformative impact of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is often talked about in think pieces, and conference key notes, but it is not as common to hear from a company

that has adopted its strategies and seen an effective, fundamental shift in their business practices. This is why hearing from commercial explosives and blast systems manufacturer Orica, and how it has

shifted from manufacturing a product to creating an outcome through IIoT technologies, is so revealing of the nature of change that can be experienced by companies when they adopt IIoT technology.

Orica’s FRAGTrack system automates the capture and analysis of post-blast fragmentation data.

40 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

Chris Crozier, the company’s chief digital officer, outlined how Orica has experienced this digital transformation.

“Until three years ago, our customers would drill between every 100 metres and 500 metres and use an average of the hardness of the rocks, and also the chemistry of the rocks, to determine the explosives that we would be using.”

Today, inserting IIoT sensors into the devices, which can measure a rock’s hardness and chemistry, allows Orica to determine the force needed to break up the rock, and the size of the particles needed to effectively extract the ore from the product.

“Based on that information, we can then feed that forward into our mobile mixing units,” said Crozier.

“These mobile mixing units have a series of different compartments with different chemicals that, together, make the explosive.”

With the information gained from the sensors, Orica can refine the product that they are offering and fundamentally alter the nature of what they are selling to customers. It also indicates where manufacturing is being carried out.

“IIoT manufacturing is in the mining pit. We don’t only make explosives, we actually make a particle size,” said Crozier.

“What our customers are interested in is not an explosion; they want a rock of a particular size and we are able to, using IIoT technology, match the blast to the chemistry of the rock to be able to create a particle size for our customer. We move from selling inputs, selling ammonium nitrate and boosters and detonators to manmonthly.com.au

IIoT actually selling an output, which is a particle size.”

From product to service Such a shift in thinking enables Orica to expand its product offering beyond selling a particular product, to providing a service at multiple points of the process chain. This has not only been enabled by having the IIoT sensors that determine an explosive’s chemical composition, but utilising IIoT technology to synchronise stages in the mineral production process.

“For every hole that’s being drilled, we’re customising the blast that’s occurring,” said Crozier.

“There are IoT sensors in the drill, the truck, and then the final element here is the digital explosives. The detonators that are in our explosives have computer chips in them, which means we’re going down to the millisecond timing. The explosions start at one end and propagate through the rock.”

Once that process has been completed, Orica has developed digital products, named OREtrack and FRAGtrack, which automatically analyse the rock that is produced after the blast to determine what will happen to the material. Using optical sensing technology, which takes 200 pictures a second, the characteristics of the rock can be determined and waste rock can be sorted from the valuable ore. Built into these tools are machine learning algorithms that improve the software that is driving the detection of minerals, taking Orica from an explosives manufacturer to a digital services company for mineral extraction.

These advances in product offering have been driven by the advances in technology that have opened upon the potential of IIoT for Orica and other companies like it. As Crozier highlighted, this system would not be possible without certain technological elements.

“The first one is the application of IoT sensors in the pit. The second one is the ability to be able to aggregate that data with edge manmonthly.com.au

computing, so you do the bulk of the data analytics at the edge rather than in the cloud. Finally, the platform that underpins all of that is developed on the cloud.

It’s fundamentally been enabled because of the high capability, low cost, high performance that cloud computing brings.”

about human beings”.

“Anyone can go to Google – there are plenty of platforms that can do this. The technology is not the issue here, it’s the human beings. It’s the foresight of the executive and the board to see how it all comes together, and then put the right people in place to make it happen.”

across the board.”

These insights, which instead of being driven by a hypothesis, analysis model of analysis, are driven by correlations in the data derived from Orica’s operations.

Increasingly, Orica has been able to create microservices that leverage the data they have generated for Orica’s Bulkmaster 7 Smart Connected Explosives Delivery System.

Managing the transition At the same time, while advances in computing capabilities have enabled the development of Orica’s software and hardware, there has been institutional support, which has been essential for the successful implementation of the IIoT system.

“Our CEO and executive committee are aware that technology is the future for the organisation and then our board embrace it. We’ve seen some changes in our board dynamic with new board members coming in with a digital background, who have seen the disruptive influence of digital in other, more mature environments and want to be part of the self-disruption here in Orica,” said Crozier.

Emphasising the role that having a supportive executive is in the implementation of IIoT, Crozier made the point that, “This is ultimately all

Having been part of this transformation, Crozier is aware of other issues in implementing IIoT technology that a traditional manufacturer would not have had to confront when selling a product.

This includes controls around the data generated during the operation of the Orica system at a client’s site, which is essential for the machine learning algorithms to improve their results in future.

“The data ultimately is the customer’s, but we want customers to respect that we are learning from them and the insight gained from that is important for them and Orica to be able to improve our service offering going forward.

“My catchcry is we’re the Switzerland of data; we want to be data neutral, but we want to be ensuring that we generate insight that is beneficial to our customers

products built on the core platform that Orica has developed.

“It’s about building out that ecosystem,” said Crozier. “It’s almost like Andoird and the Google Store.

Those microservices are our Google Store.”

Differentiating these services into discrete offerings also allows Orica to scale its platform for the individualised needs of each customer. With automation, an unavoidable wave sweeping across Orica’s core business areas of mining, construction and agriculture, preparing for the future means embracing the digital disruption.

“It sounds cliched, but it is real, and organisations need to understand there is a massive disruptive influence in their value chain,” said Crozier. “You either need to embrace it, or someone else will embrace it on your behalf.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 41

Drives Riding the wave: Harmonics in industry ABB introduces its expanded range of Ultra Low Harmonic Drives, and how they are a solution to distortion in electrical networks. Manufacturers’ Monthly explains.

ABB’s range of Ultra Low Harmonic Drives are designed for specific applications in industry.

H

ARMONICS in the electrical network are increasingly common, yet largely unseen.

Fundamentally defined as waveforms at frequencies that deviate from the pure sinusoidal AC 50 Hz waveform, harmonics can be understood as pollution in the electrical network, as Christopher Probst, product manager, drive products at ABB Australia, described.

“If you consider harmonics as pollution in the electrical network, then the problem is that they can make connected equipment behave erratically” said Probst.

Despite being a widespread phenomenon of electrical networks, until recently, harmonics have been largely ignored.

“If you bring up the topic of harmonics, the average person 42 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

may think you’re talking about a musical instrument, however, power line harmonics appear due to electrical devices which draw current in a non-linear way.”

Harmonics are typically measured as a percentage value, called total harmonic distortion (THD). As the amount of harmonics increases, the THD percentage increases as well.

Power Line Harmonics are not high frequency (MHz, GHz), audible, radiated great distances through the air, instead harmonics are conducted.

Common devices which draw nonlinear current include computers, photocopiers, and energy-efficient lighting systems.

For manufacturers, some significant contributors are motor starters, variable speed drives (VSDs) and Electronically Commutated

Motor (ECM) powered fans. In fact, almost all electrical equipment is a “non-linear” load.

While VSDs provide energy savings, as well as better control performance of motors, the advantages of using a VSD far outweigh the negative effects of harmonics, but it is important to be aware of the potential problems they cause, and mitigation solutions that are available.

“Harmonics can cause things like interruptions, interference, and downtime,” said Probst. “Electrical components like cables, transformers, and circuit breakers can overheat, nuisance tripping can occur and measurement devices can give false readings. Sensitive electronics that require a pure sinusoidal AC waveform become unstable. The more

non linear power there is, the bigger the harmonic currents” The consequences of excessive harmonics can lead to overheating of cables, premature equipment failure, shortened life span and increased life cycle cost.

“It becomes more important in data centres or hospitals where a reliable electrical network is required for stable operation of sensitive electronics. Electrical supply equipment such as transformers and backup generators need to be oversized due to effects of harmonics.

“Oversizing results in underutilising capacity, and increased costs,” said Probst.

However, accounting for harmonics has its own costs involved, as Probst highlights. manmonthly.com.au

Drives “When you’re designing an electrical system, you need to take into account harmonic distortion,” said Probst. “One way to deal with harmonics is to simply oversize portions of the electrical infrastructure. Transformers and wire size may be upsized to handle the added harmonic content and heat.

Backup generators also need to be oversized in systems with significant harmonic loading.

For manufacturers, disturbances in electrical power quality lead to higher power prices, and with energy an increasingly significant cost factor, harmonics can be a contributor.

“Harmonic distortion is wasted energy, and because you’re wasting energy, you’re not using your electrical supply efficiently, and there’s a cost on the electricity bill that you pay. Harmonic currents increase the total line current,” said Probst.

In some cases, Probst has found harmonics contributing to motors running at 10oC higher, leading to the motor’s lifetime being reduced by half. As devices run hotter, they run less efficiently and are prone to premature failure.

While harmonics may not always be front of mind, a number of measures to reduce harmonics are often used, with varying effectiveness.

Addressing harmonics during the design phase allows for other parts of the electrical infrastructure to cost less. Once harmonics are addressed, further long-term cost savings are achieved through higher efficiencies and longer-lasting equipment.

“There are different methods of adding external electrical equipment to mitigate the effects of harmonics.

Some can reduce harmonic distortion levels at a point of common coupling, however it makes a lot more sense to actually mitigate and control harmonics at the source of the device that’s producing them,” said Probst.

“Instead of trying to tackle harmonics by often ineffective methods, like adding filter equipment, cooling or overdimensioning equipment, why not employ equipment that does not manmonthly.com.au

cause harmonics in the first place?”

The prevention, rather than cure, solution that Probst referred to is ABB’s range of Ultra Low Harmonic (ULH) Drives.

“They have the harmonic mitigation technology built into the drive, and typically reduce the harmonic content to about three per cent. This is because Ultralow harmonic (ULH) drives have an active input bridge that causes very little harmonic distortion,” said Probst.

Limits for harmonic currents are given in several national and international standards. Additionally, many transmission and distribution system operators have issued requirements especially for high power equipment connected directly

Ultra Low Harmonic Drives can improve equipment lifetime and efficiency.

to medium or high power grids.

Certain industries have even set factory-specific regulations.

In addition to ULH drives mitigating harmonic distortion, power factor is also significantly improved, noted Probst.

“When external harmonic mitigation technology is added, such as a passive or active harmonic filter, power factor decreases as load decreases. That’s an undesirable outcome. Whereas a ULH drive keeps the power factor at unity, and also you get full motor control, even in low network voltage conditions the motor still receives full voltage from the ULH drive as well,” said Probst.

ULH drives have been designed to be neutral from the network point of view. The drive also provides

unity power factor. This high power factor indicates that electrical energy is used efficiently, and helps to avoid possible penalty charges from the power utility provider. In addition, this also eliminates the need for compensation capacitors or active filters.

Adding a VSD to a motor will improve the true power factor.

VSDs that generate less harmonics will improve the true power factor better than a VFD with a higher harmonic footprint.

Up until recently, ABB’s ultra-low harmonic drives have predominantly been used in heavy industry. Now, however, energy saving requirements and grid capacity are becoming increasingly important issues for the efficient reliable operation of plants and factories.

For these applications, ABB has expanded its range of ultra-low harmonic drives.

ABB’s existing range of ACS880 Industrial ULH Drives cover power ranges from 4 kW to 3.2 MW, for all industries and applications such as mining and metals, oil and gas, power, pulp and paper, marine, food and beverage.

Released now are drives designed for the specific needs of the heating ventilation and air-conditioning industry (HVAC) and the water industry. The ACQ580 Water Drive and ACH580 HVAC drive are now also available with ULH technology.

“The reason that ABB has focussed on industrial, water, and also HVAC, is that these particular applications are not only susceptible to harmonics,” said Probst. “But also, because of the number of drives used for motor controls on these particular applications, the harmonic content from these sites can be quite large, assets and equipment can be quite expensive to maintain or replace.

“ULH drives provide a lot of advantage in this space, because not only do they lower harmonic content contribution at the source to about three per cent, they also provide unity power factor, extend the lifetime of the assets, and fulfil requirements set by harmonic standards as well.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 43

Vision Systems Safe and reliable product handling using SICK 3D vision A robot must be fed the correct information to handle the products on the packaging line in a safe manner.

W

ORKING with 3D vision in robot guidance projects increases both the reliability of the picking process and the quality of the handled products, as the data is contrast invariant and includes the products’ true height. These benefits have been utilised to build a tailormade Belt Pick SensorApp, which turns programmable 3D cameras from SICK into 3D belt picking sensors, reporting coordinates for more reliable and gentler product handling.

be economically successful, it is important to keep the changeover time as short as possible, as well as to ensure that the equipment can handle products that vary in size, shape, height, colour, and graphic design.

While foods uniform in size and shape are easy to pick with a

robot, products of a more free-form shape can be difficult. Consider, for example, a bag containing mozzarella in a liquid; the ball of cheese can be anywhere within the bag; and the robot needs the picking position at the highest point of the bag, not at the geometrical centre, in order to adequately pick this product.

Changing product features and environmental conditions are challenges the vision system need to overcome. Over the days and weeks, the condition of the conveyor belt can vary due to contamination and wear. Also, wherever there are windows at the packaging facility, the ambient light changes.

Challenges in belt picking applications Robots nowadays more often do the repetitive and potentially dangerous motions needed in a packaging process. Vision systems guide the robots to pick the products from the automated conveyor line and place them into the desired packages. This ensures a consistent output quality both in primary packaging of food products such as cookies, candy pieces, or prawns into the containers we consumers buy, as well as in secondary packaging of smoothie pouches, salad bags, or tuna cans into the trays or boxes that are shipped to the grocery stores.

One important aspect when automating a packaging line for consumable products is safe product handling. Customers tend to reject buying products that are not flawless, which means that these turn to waste. The robot picking process must therefore ensure that no products are damaged, something that presents an extra challenge if the product height varies.

Another important topic is to ensure maximum flexibility of the packaging line. Over the day, the products on the packaging line may change several times. To 44 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

Vision systems guide the robots to pick the products from the automated conveyor line and place them into the desired packages.

manmonthly.com.au

Vision Systems More reliable product detection

Tailor-made 3D solutions for flexible automation

In many cases, 3D vision gives a more reliable detection of the products thanks to the technology’s contrast and colour independence.

Detecting products by height instead of by contrast or colour allows continuous picking, without reconfiguration of the vision system, also when the product design changes and even when the belt and the product have the same colour.

This means that the product design can be in virtually any geometry and colour and still be detected.

SICK AppSpace is an eco-system of software tools, and an expanding number of programmable devices based on technologies such as 2D and 3D vision, RFID, and LiDAR. By using the application programming interface (API) functions

Gentler product handling The programmable 3D camera TriSpectorP1000 from SICK is factory calibrated, which means that the true size and height of each product is included in the image data. With this information, the robot handling can be gentler; adapting the robot’s motion to the actual products on the belt reduces product damage due to collisions or dropped products.

More convenient line handling The height information also means that the need for re-configuration is kept at a minimum. In pictures from a regular 2D vision system, an object looks bigger when it is close to the camera than when it is further away, but in calibrated 3D data no such scaling is seen.

Therefore, even when the product size and height differ among the batches handled on the packaging line, the camera can often work with the same settings.

The TriSpectorP1000 camera uses laser triangulation to capture the 3D data. As a product passes on the conveyor, the camera filters out the laser line projected on the product capturing up to 2000 height profiles per second. The included laser lighting and filter reduces the sensitivity to changing ambient light conditions.

The laser, the camera, and a processor for 3D image analysis all fit in one rugged aluminium housing, which is easy to integrate also in harsh environments. manmonthly.com.au

camera’s coordinate system to the robot’s, and configure the camera to produce the required kind of pick positions for the products to be packed. Although the App is programmed in SICK AppStudio, no programming is required to use it.

also member of the application development team. “Recently, we put our new ABB flex picker based test line through some really tough trials. We literally threw anything we could find in the lab on the belt and the robot just picked it.

“SensorApps” can be developed The SICK Belt Pick Toolkit is a SensorApp specialised for locating products on a conveyor belt. With this piece of software installed, the camera turns into a 3D belt-picking sensor, operating stand-alone. For each detected product, the camera reports location and height, along with orientation and optional features such as product volume and dimensions, to a PLC or robot controller. The web-based user interface is designed so that also an integrator with very limited vision skills can conveniently succeed with the integration and commissioning tasks.

Developing a belt picking sensor The team of application engineers at SICK in Linköping, Sweden have a long experience with robot handling in packaging applications.

“When the new AppSpace programmable 3D camera was released it was a natural step to lift the previous solution to this new platform” said Anders Murhed, head of the team.

“This meant going from a more guided step-programming environment to one much more flexible with a larger API, which requires a higher level of programming skills from the developer. For the robot integrator, however, the change was entirely positive, as the possibilities for making a tailored web-based user interface for commissioning are so much better now.”

It is a simple step-by-step procedure to do the necessary settings in the interactive web user interface. In three different views the integrator can specify environment parameters like belt width and robot brand, align the

Products of a free-form shape can easily be picked.

“We spent a lot of effort making the belt pick toolkit easy to set up and use” said Henrik Wolkesson, application developer at SICK. “There is no need to teach the objects to be recognised by the camera – just enter the size range of what should be picked and you are done.”

“And it works” said Sofia Nilsson,

Adapting the pick point to the actual object height means no mis-picks even when objects are varying greatly, size wise. By also measuring the volume of the object, you can adapt the picking process accordingly. In summary, handling varying and poor contrast scenarios as well as varying object height have never been easier.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 45

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Welding Augmented and virtual reality training: The next wave of digital disruption A new paradigm for training cuts time and costs. Weld Australia explains.

I

N the digital era, disruptive technologies have started to play a key role in education and training. Increasingly, old-school techniques are being complemented by innovative methods that rely on augmented and virtual reality systems.

Augmented and virtual reality training systems are student-focussed, allowing individual students to progress at their own pace. Welding apprentices learn and understand welding procedures and techniques through a more interactive training method, gaining hands-on experience in a controlled, safe environment.

With zero risks involved, apprentices can respond to realistic scenarios without pressure or fear of injury.

Augmented and virtual reality training is enabling future welders to acquire the skills and the selfconfidence they need before moving into real-world workshops.

Augmented and virtual reality training technologies are proven to be efficient and environmentally sustainable, offering significantly reduced CO2 emissions when compared to traditional welding training and slashing consumable usage. These systems allow training centres and industry to save costs and time while training professional welders.

In a bid to bring this disruptive new training method and technology to the masses, Weld Australia has partnered with both Seabery and The Lincoln Electric Company to introduce their augmented and virtual reality welding training systems into Australia.

This disruptive training technology is a key feature of Weld Australia’s national network of Advancer Welder Training Centres.

The purpose of the Advanced Welder Training Centres is to quickly qualify welders to the only industry Standard in the world that is accepted in both Europe and America: ISO 9606-1 Qualification manmonthly.com.au

Augmented and virtual reality training systems are studentfocussed, allowing individual students to progress at their own pace. testing of welders - Fusion welding. ISO 9606-1 is the minimum requirement for working on rolling stock, defence, and infrastructure projects. This will ensure a supply of capable welders to deliver the Federal government’s $90 billion Naval Shipbuilding Program.

To date, Weld Australia has secured over $6 million in State and Federal Government funding for the establishment of six Advanced Welder Training Centres, located at: the TAFE SA Regency Campus in Adelaide; the Tasmanian Minerals and Energy Council Centre of Excellence in South Burnie; Box Hill TAFE; Bendigo Kangan Institute of TAFE and Federation TAFE in Ballarat in Victoria; SkillsTech Acacia Ridge; and Caboolture TAFE Campus in Queensland.

Weld Australia intends to establish several more Advanced Welder Training Centres around Australia to support defence prime contractors and SMEs looking to join the global supply chains of these prime contractors.

Soldamatic augmented reality training Distributed in Australia by Weld Australia, Seabery’s Soldamatic is the first augmented reality welding educational technology solution in the world.

According to Antonio Fernández,

Seabery’s international business development manager, the technology overcomes issues across industries.

“We started applying augmented reality to welding because welding is used across so many industrial sectors, from oil and gas and infrastructure, through to the automotive and energy industries. And yet, there is an enormous shortage of skilled welders worldwide, in both emerging economies, as well as developed nations such as America, where more than 300,000 new welders will be required by 2020.

“Soldamatic enables training institutions, governments, and welding associations to attract young people to industrial careers to close this everincreasing gap between the market demand for qualified welders, and the available workforce,” said Fernández.

Since its inception in 2014, over 1,500 Soldamatic units have been sold in more than 40 countries. The disruptive technology has been used in training by some of the world’s largest manufacturers, including Siemens, John Deere, and Volkswagen, in addition to uptake by both international educational institutions and government bodies.

This rapid, widespread adoption of the technology is not surprising, given the results that the Soldamatic system has already achieved,

particularly in terms of reducing training time and costs.

Soldamatic conducted tests comparing their augmented reality technology to traditional welding training. The results demonstrated that 34 per cent more welders were certified in 56 per cent less time, saving up to 68 per cent on the overall cost of welder training. In addition, Soldamatic increases the time on arc by three to five times, and enables training institutes to educate four times more students while maintaining their existing lab infrastructure.

According to Geoff Crittenden, CEO, Weld Australia, the program offers significant savings.

“This technology is three times cheaper, faster, and more effective when compared to traditional training methods. By using this technology, we will not only be able to upskill existing welders, but also train transitional workers and apprentices to work on rolling stock, defence, and infrastructure projects.

“Without a doubt, the successful implementation of this innovative training initiative will revolutionise welder training in Australia. It will raise the standard of welder education in Australia exponentially, putting our welder training on par with the best in Europe and America,” said Crittenden.

Workforce development training needs to educate tomorrow’s employees and help today’s workers improve upon their existing skill set.

The result – a better trained, more knowledgeable worker at all phases of the employment cycle. This is particularly true when it comes to educating workers in skilled trades such as welding. Incorporating disruptive new training technologies designed to narrow the skills gap helps prepare graduates for realworld work.

For more information, contact Weld Australia on 02 8748 0100 or visit www.weldaustralia.com.au.

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 47

Women in Industry The process to improvement

Nominee Profile: Excellence in Engineering

To create a culture of continuous improvement, Felicity Kelleher has drawn on practical and theoretical knowledge. Manufacturers’ Monthly finds out.

W

HEN speaking with Felicity Kelleher, plastermill, compounds continuous improvement coordinator at building products manufacturer, CSR Lightweight Systems, she is in the middle of driving a 20 per cent rate increase in the company’s dry compounds line. By utilising process mapping, Kelleher can see where the bottlenecks in the process are and is working to identify and implement sustainable solutions to overcome them.

“Focus areas include improving equipment reliability and locking in changes with appropriate maintenance routines, as well as establishing error proofing and standard setups and conditions for our processes.”

This current project is a result of the continuous improvement philosophy that is imparted through Lean Manufacturing tools to all members of the workforce – from shop floor operators to upper management.

“That encompasses running training on a six-weekly cycle on key Lean tools and techniques,” said Kelleher. “Then running a pilot cell project, which is using all those tools that we learn about and showing examples in the workplace so we can practice what we’re learning as well.”

This “cross-functional” role, as Kelleher describes it, involves her drawing upon both her project engineering skills, as well as mentoring experiences. For the current project, Kelleher is applying the practical tools that have been developed with Lean principles to improve production at CSR. “Together, we did some process mapping using a tool called a SIPOC (suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, and customers), which helps you identify each step of your process to make a product. We did that for each of the processes in our 48 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

Spending time on secondments to the production floor developed Kelleher’s understanding of how the business runs. dry compounds line that helped all of us be on the same page and understand where our improvement opportunities are and what risk factors are associated with each of those,” said Kelleher.

The next step was to complete the analysis using the value vs ease matrix to develop improvement actions and plans.

In pursuing these goals as part of her current position, Kelleher has drawn upon her background as an engineer and her training in the roles that she has had in the past.

“My classic engineering background and my reliability engineering background has definitely helped – an understanding of what causes a failure and how to find the data. Finding not just your

biggest downtime but also being mindful of frequency of downtime has really helped.”

This experience was first developed through Kelleher’s study at UNSW, where she completed a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering with Honours. During this time, Kelleher took advantage of an opportunity to put what she was learning in the classroom into practice with an industry placement.

“As an undergraduate engineer, I completed a couple of placements with Caltex, first at their refinery and then in their bulk distribution network. The first one was in project engineering and that placement helped me develop a lot of my soft skills, and then my second placement was with the reliability

and maintenance departments, which allowed me to develop technical skills in condition monitoring.

Through that I managed to secure myself a full-time engineering role straight out of university. I graduated on a Friday and started my full-time role on the Monday.”

This experience was fundamental to Kelleher’s current position at CSR, however it was augmented in a significant way.

“My knowledge about how to improve the reliability of machines has really helped me transition from a reliability and maintenance role at Caltex into a process improvement role at CSR. Part of the challenge was changing my thinking; you’ve got to look at the machines, but you’ve also got to look at the people, which was a big transitional thought process for me when I joined CSR.” Understanding the role that people play in ensuring a manufacturing process runs smoothly was highlighted when Kelleher completed a secondment as a shift supervisor.

“The shift supervisor secondment allowed me to be part of the team and work closely with our operators.

It allowed me to experience and appreciate what it’s like to work on a 12-hour, 24/7 rotating roster and the strains that it can put on your body and your family. The pressure of having to make a decision at 3am as the senior manager on site was a really great character and confidence building experience.”

The first steps to ensure that this extra load was more equitably distributed was to ensure that their sacrifices were valued.

“One of the things I was very passionate about was walking up to anyone who was on overtime and say ‘Thank you for helping us out.’ They don’t have to come in, but ultimately they’re helping us to continue to run, and that helps us develop a very manmonthly.com.au

Women in Industry I collected some data about our biggest overtime users. Together with Human Resources and our production manager, we sat down and developed a plan to address those issues and put controls in place to manage the fatigue for those people. positive culture,” said Kelleher.

Watching the impact that such work had on them and herself, Kelleher strategised to make the factory run smoothly without compromising the health and wellbeing of those who made it function.

“I collected some data about our biggest overtime users. Together with Human Resources and our production manager, we sat down and

developed a plan to address those issues and put controls in place to manage the fatigue for those people,” said Kelleher.

At a higher level, work was done to reduce the amount of overtime worked by the staff, which in some cases led to production rates slowing, but the payoff for the business was felt in other ways.

“As a business, we’re choosing to lower our production rate on some of

Felicity Kelleher has implemented a Lean program to find efficiencies and improve the workplace.

manmonthly.com.au

our lines, to allow people to recover and manage their fatigue levels appropriately,” said Kelleher.

This change in approach shifted the fundamental nature of work for those doing unsociable hours.

“They’d gone from a team where they said ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ to each other to where they were checking in, and seeing how each other were going, which was really great.”

Acknowledging that always running to full capacity may not always be in the best interest of the business fitted with Kelleher’s approach to implementing Lean principles to reduce waste in supply chains and stock levels.

“Part of Lean is not producing too much ahead of time, so it’s also fitting in with that philosophy of, ‘We don’t need to produce a certain amount right away, so let’s reduce our rates, let our people recover, and just produce what we need.”

It was this experience of working with operators, reducing waste, and valuing the people within the process that Kelleher took back with her to her role in continuous improvement.

Having an improved understanding of what it takes to run a production line has led to better savings to be found in the improvement of processes at CSR, benefiting both the operators and Kelleher herself.

“I’ve drawn on the experience of our operators. They know the process much better than I do, they know what frustrates them on a daily basis, so drawing on their ideas and their feedback we managed to make a structured approach. This improvement project has allowed me to mentor our operators through a structured approach to problem solving but also for them to teach me what they do on a daily basis.”

The value of mentoring, not only in process improvement but more broadly has been part of Kelleher’s success since her time at university and on placement at Caltex. Today, Kelleher mentors a second-year engineering student, and has empowered her to drive her own project.

“I’m letting her run wild and then seeing what she comes back with, keeping a close eye on how she’s going, but having the freedom to explore the different tools that we set out in front of her.”

In this mentoring role, Kelleher shares with her mentee an important lesson that she learnt early on from one of her own mentors.

“It’s alright to get it wrong – as long as we learn from it. But also, when you’re right, back yourself. Get the data to support you and really know that you’ve done your job well.”

Kelleher’s work at CSR and in elevating her profession was recognised by being nominated for the Excellence in Engineering Award at the 2019 Women in Industry Awards.

“To me it was validation that the business appreciated and recognised the work and effort that I was putting in, and to be nominated in a category with such strong individuals was just amazing,” said Kelleher of her experience at the Awards. “To see what people are achieving in the industry was fantastic.”

Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 49

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What’sNew Sullair two-stage tandem screw compressors Since 1965, Sullair has designed and manufactured its own rotors and airend assemblies in Michigan City, Indiana.

The award winning rotary screw design sets the industry standards and delivers the quality and reliability one expects from a leader.

Utilising modern technologies, equipment and advanced manufacturing techniques, Sullair designs, manufactures, assembles, and tests compressed air and vacuum products. Sullair products are known around the world for their universally applicable design, outstanding craftsmanship and superior quality.

Superior end-to-end design Sullair Two-Stage (TS) Series tandem compressors use two sets of rotors arranged in an end-to-end design that achieve higher efficiencies than other two-stage rotor arrangements. This design is based on proven Sullair technology used in its singlestage units, which has set the standards for efficiency and reliability in single-stage compressors for more than five decades.

The industry standard since its introduction in 1984, the TS Series tandem compressors offer unmatched full-load efficiency; providing significant energy savings compared with Single-Stage compressors. With the tandem’s variable capacity control, featuring spiral valve technology, further operating efficiencies can be achieved during part-load operation.

Broad operating range The TS range are available from 75 to 450 kilowatt, with capacities from 434 to 2900 cfm and pressure ratings of 6.9 to 12.1 bar.

Extended bearing life By dividing the compression ratio across two-stages, the two-stage tandem will significantly exceed the life of the average single-stage compressor.

Company: Sullair Australia Phone: 1300 266 773 Web: www.sullair.com.au

Rotary screw reliability Sullair TS tandem models use a two-stage rotary screw air end, featuring Sullair rugged bearing design: tapered roller bearings on the discharge end and cylindrical roller bearings on the inlet for high load carrying capacity.

MSA FRAS Cable-Mate Magnetic Lead Holder MSA Magnetics has added a new product to the MSA Cable Safety Range - The FRAS Cable-Mate Magnetic Lead Holder. The new FRAS Cable-Mate is a high temperature and heavy-duty version of our standard Cable-Mate Magnetic Lead Holder.

Workplace Health & Safety (WHS) statistics show that a large proportion of workplace slips, trips, and falls are a direct result of disorganised cables lying in areas where workers frequently operate or walk around. This is a major WHS concern. MSA Magnetics is serious about safety and has a solution to help you reduce risks such as these and at the same time provide an effective cable storage solution. The new FRAS Cable-Mate Magnetic Lead Holder offers a quick, effective, and inexpensive way to prevent cables from becoming a major trip hazard, and at the same time, keeps cables tidy, protected, and easily removed and replaced.

This new product features a high-strength rare earth magnet which will hold to any magnetic steel surface. Simply attach the magnet to the magnetic surface and direct your cables and leads through the yellow strap.

• Fast, no-fuss rerouting of cables; • Strong yet easy to remove and place elsewhere.

• Supports: 6+ cables; • Support weight: 25kg (±5%); • Dimensions: 100mm W x 220mm H. Company: Magnet Sales Australia Polymers Pty Ltd Phone: (02) 4272 8180 Web: www.magnetsalesaust.com.au

Product features • Complies with Fire Resistant Anti-Static (FRAS) requirements for mines and confined spaces; • Suitable for high temperature and heavy-duty applications; • Highly visible safety yellow strap with reflective sticker; • Keeps floor spaces and work areas tidy; • Reduces risk of electrocution by holding cables up and out of wet areas; • Reduces maintenance costs in repairing/replacing damaged cables;

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Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 51

What’sNew Sciencetech solar simulators Company: Scitech Pty. Ltd Phone: (03) 9480 4999 Web: www.scitech.com.au

Sciencetech Inc. manufactures light sources, solar simulators, monochromators, and other optical spectroscopy instruments. In addition, far infrared Terahertz spectroscopy systems, photovoltaic testing equipment, and custom-made instruments.

Sciencetech solar simulators produce high intensity, uniform illumination on a target area. Typically, high power solar simulators use an ellipsoidal reflector to capture light from an arc lamp source inside the reflector, an arrangement that results in a light pattern with a bright outer region and a dark centre. This non-uniformity is unacceptable in many solar simulator applications and as a result, forces many solar simulator competitors to use designs involving diffusers to reduce the non-uniformity. This results in a reduction of intensity and a distortion of the spectrum on the target area.

Sciencetech’s solution to these problems is to use a unique system of mirrors that “fold” the light onto the target plane, effectively reducing the light that is lost with little to no spectral distortion and also ensures no chromatic aberration in the output beam.

In addition, each of Sciencetech’s solar simulators are customisable to best suit your requirements. The design of the fully reflective solar simulator permits a trade-off between power and uniformity. Higher uniformity can be achieved with lower power; or power can be increased when uniformity is reduced.

Sciencetech designs and fabricates more than 30 different variants of solar simulators.

Winmate’s IP69K stainless P-Series with conduit pipe in panel PC Backplane Systems Technology has introduced Winmate’s new IP69K stainless P-Series with waterproof conduit pipe panel PC. The IP69K P-Series panel PC features screen sizes ranging from 15 inches to 23.8 inches, with a P-Cap touchscreen to ensure a user-friendly multi-touch experience and a waterproof conduit pipe for extra cable protection. This P-Series with conduit pipe is engineered to be the perfect terminal for operations in demanding environments that call for uncompromising hygiene requirements, such as in the food, chemical, or pharmaceutical industries IP69K P-Series panel PC consists of SUS304 stainless steel, the housing is full IP69K-rated water, dust and corrosion-proof, withstanding extensive wash downs with corrosion resistance against cleaning agents, especially against close-range high-pressure (up to 30 bar) and high temperature (up to 80°C) wash downs.

The custom-built waterproof conduit pipe is preinstalled to give an additional layer of protection for the peripheral cables connected to the device. The included air vent valve comes with an automatic mechanical system to act as a safety device that controls and maintains pressure without the user’s assistance in order to avoid air related problems.

The P-Series delivers excellent responsive performance, even in extreme environments, by supporting multi-touch and allowing for the user to operate it easily with their fingers.

The P-Series boasts versatile mounting options, including panel, yoke and VESA mount, for installation in all industrial scenarios.

The P-Series IP69K panel PC is equipped with a high performing Intel Core i5-7200U Kaby Lake processor, meaning it can easily handle multimedia content.

The wireless connectivity is not compromised thanks to the support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for real-time communications and data transfer.

52 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

Key features: • Custom-built waterproof conduit pipe, • Close-range high-pressure (up to 30 bar), • High temperature (up to 80°C) wash downs, • Intel Core i5-7200U Kaby Lake 2.5GHz processor, • 4GB DDR4 2133 (optional up to 16GB), • Screen sizes ranging from 15 inches to 23.8 inches.

• Support multiple mounts: panel, yoke, VESA.

Company: Backplane Systems Technology Phone: (02) 9457 6400 Web: www.backplane.com.au

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Bosch flow-wrapper designed for hygienic requirements in food industry Bosch Packaging Technology has developed a new version of its fully automated horizontal flow wrapper Pack 403, which is specifically designed for harsh environment use.

The Pack 403HE comes with all the features of the Pack 403 and is suited for medium to high-speed wrapping. The machine is able to wrap a wide variety of products ranging from biscuits, chocolate, cookies, and crackers to frozen foods or meats.

“We have designed the new Pack 403HE to meet the growing need of customers with strict hygienic requirements. To avoid contamination with allergens, germs or unwanted ingredients, food manufacturers need machines that are easy to clean,” said Kelly Meer, product manager at Bosch Packaging Technology.

Optimised for deep cleaning Today, food manufacturers often produce different products on the same machine.

“Keeping the products free from unwanted substances such as traces of peanuts or wheat can be a challenge in terms of cleaning. The Pack 403HE provides improved features to facilitate particularly intensive cleaning,” Meer said. It differs from the standard version in terms of product design and material. Customers can apply aggressive cleaning agents including alcohols or acids, and easily wipe them off with water after they have taken effect. Water and cleaning agents will simply run down the drain.

“We call this the foam-and-rinse concept. In contrast to high-pressure cleaning with air or water, customers avoid the risk of spraying substances or germs. The foam-andrinse method guarantees an easy and reliable washdown,” said Meer.

Stainless steel guarding, robust plastics, removable parts, sloped surfaces, and easyto-clean gaps between machine components further simplify the cleaning process.

The machine’s cable connection to its electrical cabinet has been sealed to prevent the penetration of moisture or unwanted substances. Clear tubes help to detect any contamination. The wrapper is also equipped with a washdown infeed and stainless steel etched and stand-off labels to also support convenient cleaning.

Fast and easy handling The Pack 403HE produces up to 400 packages per minute, reaching a maximum film speed of 76 meters and includes all of the same features offered in the Pack 403. The automatic film splicer allows for fast film changes without interrupting production.

The machine is equipped with servo-driven power feed rollers to optimise film tension and tracking. It also has cantilevered and removable discharge belts that reject faulty packages with compressed air.

Company: Bosch Packaging Technology Phone: +65 6746 0600 Web: www.boschpackaging.com

Improved washdown features The Pack 403HE also features washdown motors and gearboxes meeting the BISSC standard, sanitary feet, and a continuously-welded stainless steel main frame plate.

Think outside the box with an integrated enclosure solution When defining an enclosure system, the highest value of an enclosure lies with what is inside it. Integrating important parts into the enclosure can greatly enhance the system by both protecting electronics and determining how the end user will interact with it.

The ability to assemble, fabricate (via machining or additive manufacturing), and verify can offer a high level of integration.

Advantages of such integration include: • System reliability, • Value-add features of existing enclosure, • Risk mitigation, • Lower total cost of ownership, • One-part number for customised fully qualified system.

One such example of this type of integration is the design, fabrication, and assembly of additional features for plastic case used for a medical device, as pictured.

components; • Maintenance of protection class of case; • Electrical testing and compliance for all PDUs; • Delivered fully assembled and verified as single part number.

Erntec can employ our experienced assembly, design, and fabrication capabilities to integrate your system with a single part number ready for shipping.

Company: Erntec Pty Ltd Phone: (03) 9756 4000 Web: www.erntec.net

Features of the system are: • Additive manufactured parts to merge with existing look of the case; • Metal fabricated parts designed to add a telescopic mount, power chord compartments and a lockable latch; • Complex inner mounting frames to fit a wide range of electronic and electrical

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Manufacturers’ Monthly NOVEMBER 2019 53

The Last Word

INNES WILLOX – Chief Executive, Ai Group

Using innovative approaches to deliver value for money through outcomes-based procurement Thinking about outcomes when supplying can lead to innovation, writes Innes Willox.

O

UTCOMES-BASED procurement has attracted significant attention over recent years both internationally and across Australia.

It has, for instance, been incorporated into Queensland’s Procurement Policy which now requires Queensland government agencies to pursue opportunities to develop innovative supply solutions, either through innovation in the procurement activity itself or by fostering innovative solutions by suppliers. Other similar initiatives have been adopted in other jurisdictions.

In brief, the reasoning is that by adopting less prescriptive, outcomesbased approaches where appropriate, suppliers can propose innovative solutions that may otherwise be excluded from conventional procurement processes.

To this end, outcomes-based procurement seeks innovation from the market by focussing on the agency outcome required rather than defining how the outcome should be achieved.

Outcomes-based procurement may not be suitable for all publicsector procurement and, where it is appropriate, how outcomesbased procurement can best be operationalised can vary considerably across different types of procurement.

A factor essential to the success of outcomes-based procurement is deep engagement between industry and government agencies – engagement close to the coal face where solutions can be built around the features of actual exchange and the specifics of different sorts of risks and outcomes.

For our part, Ai Group is currently involved in two exercises to develop approaches to more complex procurement arrangements.

The first of these is a very promising alliance that has been 54 NOVEMBER 2019 Manufacturers’ Monthly

forged between Victorian and New South Wales agencies and the Australian Constructors Association, with which Ai Group is very closely affiliated.

The second reflects the procurement work Ai Group’s Defence Council has been engaged in with the Department of Defence among others.

Construction There is a significant pipeline of government infrastructure projects in NSW, Victoria, and other states.

This is driving the need for new approaches in procurement and project execution to ensure the industry remains sustainable and able to effectively and efficiently respond to the community’s infrastructure needs.

The emergence of “mega projects” has resulted in increased complexity and high-risk project portfolios.

There is a very low success rate (measured by achieving budget, schedule and economic business case) for complex megaprojects.

This is not confined to Australia.

The global success rate is less than 15 per cent while Australia’s is noticeably better than that – between 40 and 50 per cent, although we should clearly be aiming much higher than that.

To successfully deliver on the current pipeline, a new approach to project structure and risk is required.

The unprecedented pipeline of public investment across transport and social infrastructure will place significant pressure on government and industry to respond without driving up costs and stretching out delivery timeframes.

Existing procurement methods are costly both in time and resources and may not deliver the best for project outcomes. Such a large program of work increases pressures on capability and capacity in both the

private and public sectors.

Accommodating a pipeline of this magnitude at a time when skill shortages are already acute in some areas requires new thinking, processes, and partnerships to deliver successfully.

Innovative solutions are being sought through a partnership approach that has brought government and industry together to define the major challenges in procurement and project delivery as early as possible.

The Construction Industry Leadership Forum which kicked off almost two years ago is a joint forum of leaders from industry and the Victorian and NSW public sectors to drive improved collaboration and action around procurement and delivery of major government infrastructure projects.

It has broad support from chief executives within the key agencies in the NSW and Victorian governments responsible for the delivery of the pipelines for each state. It also has representation at CEO level from the largest infrastructure contractors operating in Australia. It aims to: • Reduce the time and cost of tendering; • Optimise risk allocation; • Identify innovative procurement models and forms of contracting to achieve best value and greatest long-run benefit; • Harmonise contractual and commercial terms; and • Maintain a sustainable construction industry.

Not unsurprisingly, the Forum is putting in a lot of work identifying key risk areas and collaboratively identifying principles and options for addressing these risks. Through its work program, it is building much greater shared understanding of the outcomes being sought, the risks involved and how these can be mitigated.

Defence The second area of work that Ai Group is involved in comes from our Defence Council, which is a collective of private-sector businesses involved in the defence industry.

Ai Group’s Defence Council includes the vast majority of the primes, many of the second and third tier defence suppliers and we are currently bringing together smaller businesses through an alliance between ourselves and other associations (AIDN and DTC).

We have been working closely with Defence to lift procurement performance both for Defence and for the industry. Defence has put in place significant risk management processes, including a stronger internal contestability function and staged approval processes.

Other key factors in risk management, particularly from an industry perspective, include: • Early consultation with industry on the requirements to determine “the art of the possible” and industry capacity; • Ensuring cost and schedule estimates are realistic and achievable; • Identifying and putting in place risk management particularly for capabilities requiring high levels of developmental activity and integration; and • Working in close partnership with industry to develop capability – underpinned by new “Engagement and Negotiation Principles” that Ai Group and the Department of Defence signed together on 31 July.

Ultimately, ongoing collaboration and engagement between governments and industry is necessary to reform the procurement process, drive value for money outcomes and secure the ongoing sustainability and viability of industry and its supply chain.

There has never been a better opportunity to change the game. manmonthly.com.au

Shaping the future.

Together.

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As Quaker Houghton, we are proud to partner with metalworking industries around the world that are driving a sustainable, more prosperous future. We work with your teams to deliver expertise, service, and advanced technology related to industrial process fluids.

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