THE Federal Government is basing its new $14 million Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre in Geelong, Victoria – and setting up a new TradeStart Office to accelerate utilisation of the new free trade agreements with Japan, South Korea and China.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the move would support the Greater Geelong region’s transition from traditional manufacturing to a centre of innovation. 

He said the centre would be integrated with a network of innovation centres across the country and would develop a “sector competitiveness plan to link local businesses with global companies”.

“The plan will identify jobs and skills needs, provide a pipeline of innovations ready to commercialise, and consider areas for reforming regulation, manufacturing transformation and growth,” Mr Abbott said.

As part of the announcement – made in conjunction with Federal Industry Minister, Ian Macfarlane, Assistant Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, and Federal Member of Corangamite, Sarah Henderson – Newcomb Secondary College is also to introduce an industry partnership to better prepare students to enter the workforce. The Federal Government has committed $500,000 towards establishing the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) model at the college in 2016.

“The P-TECH school programme will focus on the jobs of the future in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, partnering with local industry, and providing vocational pathways,” Mr Birmingham said.

To complement these announcements, a further $1.3 million has been allocated to extend the role of the Geelong Employment Facilitator.

The Government will also establish a new Job Connections Office and Geelong Region Future Jobs Taskforce.

“The Geelong Employment Facilitator will continue to assist people affected by Geelong’s economic transition and work to identify and deliver new job opportunities across the Geelong region,” Mr Birmingham said.

A new local Geelong Region Future Jobs Taskforce will also be established to identify and promote job creation opportunities. It will be supported by the Employment Facilitator in a new Job Connections Office housed in the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre.

“The Employment Facilitator and Geelong Region Future Jobs Taskforce will work closely with the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre to identify jobs and the skills needs for the region,” Mr Macfarlane said.

Mr Abbott said to build on the free trade agreements with China, Korea and Japan, access to Austrade’s export advisory service would be provided through a TradeStart Office in Geelong.

“This will give local businesses in the Geelong region access to Austrade’s export advisory services across all sectors, enabling them to access these key export markets for future jobs and growth,” Mr Abbott said.

“These new measures build on the $15 million investment in the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund.

“Geelong is a great city with a great future. The Commonwealth Government is helping Geelong forge a stronger future.”

www.industry.gov.au

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GRIFFITH University is embarking an ambitious venture to ‘transform the very nature of Australian manufacturing’ as part of the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC) and with a focus on ‘additive’ manufacturing..

Bringing together a powerful coalition of businesses and researchers from across the country, the collaboration has recently been approved for Federal Government funding of $40 million to accelerate Australia’s transition to new design thinking and manufacturing processes, including additive manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing. 

IMCRC interim chair, Peter Jonson, said the Federal grant would be matched by more than $210 million of cash and in-kind contributions from industry, research institutions and state governments to lift the total budget to over $250 million and seed the process of transformation.

Jennifer Loy, program leader of industrial design at Griffith University, said the initiative would help stimulate small-to-medium-sized businesses to adopt the latest wave of technology in additive manufacturing.

“Making the transition from conventional technology to innovative manufacturing is more than just investing in the technology, it is also about understanding the opportunities technologies such as 3D printing are providing, and how to maximise it your business,” Dr Loy said.

“The investment of over $85 million in cash by government, industry and research will allow us to support a host of businesses from film to construction, lighting and furniture, mining through to medical devices, as they transition to 3D printing technology over the next seven to eight years.

“Griffith’s expertise is in the redesign of products to utilise the advantages of innovative manufacturing technologies,” she said.

“We have researchers working in disciplines as diverse as regenerative medicine and fashion, dentistry and industrial design who all bring experience in these technologies, which means we have the expertise available to work side by side with the IMCRC to regenerate our manufacturing industries.”

The goal of the IMCRC is also an ideal fit with Griffith’s “outward looking focus” according to Dr Loy.

“It’s the perfect synergistic relationship as Griffith University has a collaborative working model and are particularly good at cross disciplinary projects – which innovative manufacturing creates – and we are keen to work with industrial partners on pushing the capabilities of innovative manufacturing for their new applications.

“Griffith is working hard to develop graduates who have the specialised skills needed to help industry and maximise opportunities for growth.

“Our industrial design and 3D design digital media students are learning world leading software for additive manufacturing, and gaining hands-on experience of designing with advanced digital technologies, including 3D printing, scanning and electronics for new design applications.

“We envisage that the students of today will have the jobs of the future – ones that may not even exist yet, but that are clearly on the way, with 3D printing alone being forecast as a $7 billion dollar a year sector by 2020,” Dr Loy said.

“For this reason they are being equipped to develop new thinking in terms of digital fabrication and design process to ensure Australia is in line with, or ahead of, global trends in 3D technology.

“Even in this last month our PhD students have been excelling in design for 3D printing, with one winning the distinguished paper award at RAPID, the world leading industry and academic conference, and another having a design featured on Today in the US, with 6 million viewers.”

IMCRC’s research will be concentrated on high-growth sectors to help companies build the innovative capacity to develop market-ready opportunities.

The IMCRC is a collaboration of 14 initial manufacturing companies and end users who are already global, innovative and prepared to innovate further including many participants from the successful Advance Manufacturing CRC; four peak industry bodies that will help recruit over 300 additional SMEs as ‘portal partners’; and 16 Australian universities, CSIRO and the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology.

The venture was announced by Industry and Science Minister Ian Macfarlane on May 26.

www.griffith.edu.au

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AN EASING in Australia’s jobless market has largely come about through an improvement in manufacturing.

According to Steve Shepherd, employment market analyst at research group Randstad, the June Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force figures show another positive month for full time jobs and he attributed this largely to the manufacturing sector. 

“Over 24,500 full time jobs were created in June, offsetting the decline in part time work, which lost 17,224 jobs – the first time we have seen a decline in part time work this year,” Mr Shepherd said.

 “From looking at Randstad’s job demand and increases in job ads, we have seen a 24 percent year on year growth in jobs advertised in the manufacturing sector,” he said.

“There are positive signs the sector is having a revival. This is great news, as Australia currently has an oversupply of job seekers in the manufacturing sector. This will help those looking for jobs in this sector where demand has been slow.

“This growth is likely to have benefited from the falling dollar, which has made Australia a more attractive market for manufacturing.

“Looking at the monthly trends and the fluctuations in full and part time jobs numbers, it will be interesting to see how the July will play out. After a big decline in part time work, we often see the numbers correct themselves the following month, so we could see growth in part time work.

“Whether this will impact full time jobs is yet to be seen. However two full months of full time jobs growth is good news for job seekers.”

www.randstad.com.au

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QUEENSLAND is home to one of the world’s most advanced microwave radio and satellite communications manufacturers – EM Solutions – and there are other world-leading manufacturers in that ecosystem.

Yet, laments EM Solutions managing director and CEO, Rowan Gilmore, there remains a public perception that advanced manufacturing is dying in Australia – a myth he wants to dispel. Instead, Dr Gilmore wants to get the news out about certain advantages and challenges in the local manufacturing environment that have led to EM Solutions success, to encourage others. 

“Did you know that one of Australia’s eight new national Science and Research Priorities is ‘high value and innovative manufacturing?” Dr Gilmore asked. He said it was important to set such priorities to assist growth in the manufacturing sector.

“According to the Commonwealth Science Council, ‘setting priorities and aligning a proportion of Australia’s research investment to them will help us build critical mass and scale in areas vital to our future’,” he said.

“Can Australia ever succeed at advanced manufacturing? As an exemplar, Queensland company EM Solutions (EMS) would respond with a cautious ‘yes’.

“EMS has designed and manufactured in Brisbane the world’s fastest microwave radios (used to connect the Nasdaq and New York exchanges at fibre-like speeds) and is supplying maritime broadband satellite terminals for disaster recovery to technological leaders such as Japan, but the manufacturing path has proven far more difficult than any of the company’s founders could possibly have imagined.

“There have been numerous contributors to success. One has been the judicious use of overseas supply chains where appropriate, to take advantage of lower cost materials and labour and to undertake initial product assembly,” Dr Gilmore said. 

“Another has been ongoing collaboration with research organisations such as UQ and CSIRO, to share risk and incorporate intellectual property that has helped EMS move up the value chain.

“A third has been exposure to global markets, where the incessant pressures of both demand and competition have kept alive the hunger to do better. Finally, a lower Australian dollar has undoubtedly improved competitiveness of our pricing in global markets.”

However, Dr Gilmore said the major disappointment has been selling within Australia.

“Too many potential Australian buyers prefer to procure advanced manufactured product from offshore suppliers,” Dr Gilmore said. “Whether they work in telecommunication or utility companies or defence, purchasing officials feel safer buying from a large offshore corporation than an innovative Queensland small business. 

“The attitude that ‘nobody ever got fired by buying IBM’ is pervasive in our culture. But as the Queensland Health payroll fiasco proved, bigger is not necessarily better, nor risk-free,” he said.

“Until our very own procurement people are prepared to themselves innovate, no amount of research in advanced manufacturing will yield Queensland or Australia a good return on its investment.”

EM Solutions is a Queensland Leaders Alumni Member.

www.emsolutions.com.au

www.queenslandleaders.com.au

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