13 minute read
FROM THE EDITOR
A WELCOME RETURN ON THE CARDS
Funny, isn’t it? All those things that online media were going to sentence to the spam folder of history, and they are still there. Daily newspapers, trade magazines, books… the list is almost endless.
Advertisement
One thing that has certainly changed in the digital age is the mail.
It really wasn’t that long ago that we would all receive a mailbox full of “snail mail” each day, both at home and at work. But how many letters do you receive now? I’d wager it was only a tiny fraction of days gone by.
This got me thinking, and last year we revived the idea of actually printing our media kit and mailing it out to all our advertisers, rather than just posting it online and sending out a link via email.
The results were fascinating. People remembered receiving it. And they kept it for reference – which was exactly the object of the exercise.
Just like Industry Update magazine, which arrives on the reader’s desk at work and is kept for future reading, physical mail is perceived as having a greater value than electronic communications that pop up in an in-box.
And, as a sidebar to that, of late I have spoken with several companies who had thought they could avoid the cost and palaver of printing a physical catalogue only to find that customers complained that searching an online catalogue was nothing like having the real thing in their hands.
Suffice to say, the print catalogues have returned.
And now I’m delighted to announce that another printed communication is making a long-overdue comeback – and this too is by popular demand. Industry Update Manufacturing Product Cards will be mailed to our magazine circulation in May this year.
For the benefit of those too young to remember them (because it is several years since we’ve produced them) product cards are individual postcard-sized promotions, mailed out in a pack of 28.
These unique cards are designed to grab the reader’s attention immediately, guaranteeing maximum response.
How much response?
Well, past product card advertisers have reported hundreds of responses. And one, an advertiser producing safety glasses reported more than 1000 responses.
Product cards are great for promoting new products, special offers or new services. They are particularly useful for communicating things like company name changes or changes of contact details as readers are likely to pin them up on a noticeboard.
We still have a few vacancies in the next pack of Industry Update Manufacturing Product Cards that will be mailed in May. Your name could be on one.
IS IT SAFE?
It’s one of the most chilling lines from the movies of the 20th century. My namesake and hometown hero Sir Laurence Olivier repeatedly asked Dustin Hoffman “Is it safe?” while torturing him in a dentist’s chair in the movie classic Marathon Man.
Hoffman’s character’s problem was that he didn’t know what “it” was. So how could he answer?
The recent story that reminded me of this particular movie scene was one from the world of cybersecurity. And it’s a story that just goes to show that in today’s IoT world, that unsafe “it” could be almost anything.
It seems that last year, hackers from Check Point Research (fortunately the “good guys”) found that there were vulnerabilities in the ZigBee wireless protocols used to control a very mundane object – a smart lightbulb.
The lamp in question, the Philips Hue, offers users the ability to control not only the brightness but also the colour of the illumination from a wirelessly connected control bridge.
The Check Point hackers went on to demonstrate that it would be relatively easy for a malicious actor to take control of one of these devices wirelessly from anything up to 100m away.
Once in control of the lightbulb, they simulated a malfunction in the lamp while injecting malicious code that could be used to take over the control bridge for the lighting network once the user had rebooted the lamp to clear the fault.
Once the control bridge had been taken over, they could than target any connected computer network.
This would give them the opportunity to inject malware, ransomware and any other form of mischief into computers that might later be connected to a work network, or even a control system.
So could a compromised lightbulb shut down a production line? It hardly seems likely, but it is certainly possible.
Needless to say, the Check Point team revealed their findings to the manufacturer of the lightbulbs, which closed the loophole and issued a firmware security patch that would be automatically uploaded to all devices in the field.
While that particular vulnerability has been resolved, it does go to show exactly how a security weak point in any connected device – however insignificant – could be exploited to attack major IT and OT assets.
With more and more devices joining the Internet of Things each day, we really should all be asking ourselves “Is it safe?”… just as soon as we can work out what “it” is.
CLOUD CONNECTED FLEXIBILITY
TECHNICAL CUSTOMER SUPPORT (TAC)
Data Reporting Insights
CUSTOMISED DATA INSIGHTS
T7AMR CLEANING AUTONOMOUS
1800 226 843 Book an ROI Presentation
workbenchwarehouse.com.au (03) 9580 5029
WORKSTATIONS
$ 3,290 +GST
$ 4,190 +GST
1800mm
X Series WB1-PB6+POWER SAFE WORK LOAD 1300kg 3mm Folded Top Vice Plates under each Corner Slide out Keyboard 2mm Steel Pegboard 240V Power LED Lighting +Data + Circuit Breaker All Drawers on 125kg Capacity Ball Bearing Drawer Runners
WORKBENCHES
$ 3,290 +GST
2400mm
X Series WB2-PB6XXL+POWER SAFE WORK LOAD 1200kg 3mm Folded Top 2mm Steel Pegboard Vice Plates under each corner Drawers on 125kg Ball bearing runners 240v Power+ LED Lighting+ Data+ Motion Sensor
$ 1,440 +GST
2400mm
S Series WB2-10D SAFE WORK LOAD 1300kg 3mm Folded Top Vice Plates under each Corner 10 x Drawers on 125kg Capacity Ball-bearing Drawer Runners Adjustable Self -levelling Feet
2400mm
S Series WB2-SRB SAFE WORK LOAD 900kg 3mm Folded Top over 1.5mm Stainless Cover Full Swivel 150kg Capacity Lockable castor wheels 2mm Steel Shelf Vice Plates Under each Corner
New HQ for Vega Australia............................... 24
A Brief History of Compressed Air.................... 28
ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION .......................44
ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY & WASTE MANAGEMENT.............................50
FOCUS ON MANUFACTURING IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA & THE NT..................... 52
100 Years of South Australian Engineering....... 54
INDUSTRIAL DOORS & SECURITY .............60
COMMUNITY...................................................68
14 INDUSTRY POLITICS
22 WHAT DOES 2020 HOLD FOR MANUFACTURING?
40 SILENCE IS GOLDEN IN PALLET HANDLING
ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR SCOTT FILBY scott@industryupdate.com.au
ADVERTISING SALES REP GLYN SMITH glyn@industryupdate.com.au
EDITOR LAURENCE MARCHINI editor@industryupdate.com.au
CREATIVE DIRECTOR MATTHEW LAM production@industryupdate.com.au
PRODUCTION MANAGER JULIET NELSON copy@industryupdate.com.au
VIDEO EDITOR & PRODUCER video@industryupdate.com.au
OFFICE MANAGER NICOLE CHARLES nicole@industryupdate.com.au
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR JULIET NELSON copy@industryupdate.com.au
WEB DEVELOPER JINI M R
FINANCE & ACCOUNTS MICHELLE ALCOCK michelle@industryupdate.com.au
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE LYN SLIGAR lyn@industryupdate.com.au
SUBSCRIPTION ASSISTANT MARK ZAKOSHANSKI info@industryupdate.com.au
CIRCULATION ASSISTANT circ@industryupdate.com.au
PRINTER OVATO
INDUSTRY UPDATE MEDIA PTY LTD Suite 403, Level 4, 116-118 Christie Street, St. Leonards NSW 2065 Phone: 02 9439 1288 Fax: 02 9439 3233 Email: sales@industryupdate.com.au
56 AMX PREVIEW
MANUFACTURING MAGAZINE
All material in this publication is copyright to the publisher and/or its contributors. No material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the written consent from the Publisher. It is a condition of purchase or acceptance of this magazine that the Publisher does not assume any responsibility or liability for any loss or damage which may result from any inaccuracy or omission on this publication or from the use of the information in this publication or from the use of the information and illustrations contained herein and the Publisher makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to any of the material contained herein.
© Copyright Industry Update Media Pty Ltd 2020
Circulation 19,242 as at September 2018
Readership 76,968 as at September 2018 ABN 25 083 502 783
www.industryupdate.com.au
A radar beam focused like a laser!
The latest cutting-edge technology from the world leader: the unsurpassed focusing of VEGAPULS 64. This enables the radar beam to be targeted at the liquid surface with pinpoint accuracy, avoiding internal obstructions like heating coils and agitators. This new generation of level sensors is also completely unaffected by condensation or buildup and has the smallest antenna of its kind. Simply world-class!
www.vega.com/radar
IS IT TIME TO BRING MANUFACTURING BACK TO AUSTRALIA? Continued from cover
worth of stock.
Interestingly, on the electronics front in particular analysts are speculating that some companies may be in a slightly better inventory position than they might otherwise have been thanks to stockpiling ahead of escalation in the China-USA trade war.
However, for the long term, companies are already beginning to diversify their supply chains, making them less dependent on China. And it is broadly accepted that this will make the global economy more robust and less vulnerable to such disruptions in the future.
In Australia there have been calls for manufacturing to be brought back onshore.
Serena Ross is General Manager of Australian contract electronics manufacturer Circuitwise. She says: “We know of a number of original equipment manufacturers who are in a world of pain right now.
“Companies that have offshored their printed circuit board assembly to China are experiencing uncertainty and long delays in product being shipped to them.”
“Anyone offshoring their manufacturing knows there are challenges around communication, responsiveness, the manufacturing process labour intensive.
However, new designs increasingly use close to 100% surface mount components and pick-and-place machines now operate at 120,000 components per hour.
unexplained price hikes and hidden costs. The current coronavirus crisis in China simply highlights the existing risks and challenges of offshoring electronics manufacturing anywhere in Asia.”
Interestingly, Ross contends that the reason why Asia was historically cheaper was because old electronic designs had a lot of hand-placed components, which made And she contends that using such highly automated technology has now allowed Australia manufacturers to reach price parity with Asia.
“Circuitwise recently won a manufacturing contract with Siemens against direct competition from a contract manufacturer in Asia,” says Ross. “Siemens’ procurement team analysed all the factors of manufacturing in Asia and found that Circuitwise delivered a lower overall price position over a three-year period.
“When all the factors are taken into account, including the reliability and convenience of a local manufacturer, then the business case for manufacturing in Australia is compelling.”
IGNORANCE OF PRESSURE CLEANER STANDARDS IS NO EXCUSE Continued from cover
years ago, with a view to improving the safety of use of high-pressure cleaning equipment throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Where the standard differs from previous versions is in defining two classes of equipment based on the size and power of the unit – Class A and Class B – with different safety requirements for operators.
While the operation of Class A
equipment is still subject to the need for proper training, the wearing of suitable PPE and the observation of the normal standards of OH&S behaviour, the requirements for Class B are considerably more stringent.
Importantly, Class B machine operators need to be certified by a registered training organisation. Also, the standards say that there should be two operators per machine: one directing
the gun and the other standing by the emergency stop.
While the standards are designed to acknowledge that the potential for damage is greater for a Class B pressure cleaner than for a Class A unit, it is the method of calculation of the output, and the dividing line between the two categories that have left some users of existing equipment in limbo, and potentially in breach of the requirements of the standard.
The important metric is the product of the pressure (in bars) and the flow rate (in litres per minute), expressed in “bar litres”. And the crucial figure is 5600 bar litres: above that and you are in Class B.
Where some users have been caught out is that because the rating is the product of the pressure and the flow, there are some high-flow units at relatively lower pressures that fall into Class B, while a unit with a lower flow and higher pressure would safely fit into Class A.
this type of equipment also are failing to communicate to the market the details of their product range that fall into the Class B classifications”, said Lorenz.
Australian Pump Industries has run a campaign over the last few years to inform users of the need to be aware of the new safety standards. The company has turned the number of pages of engineering jargon into a simple one-page explanation that enables operators to understand the difference between the two classifications.
The company has also moved swiftly to develop bigger machines that are classified as Class A so that even 5,000 psi pressure cleaners fall within the Class A category.
“We seem to be the only ones who are really trying to educate operators about not only the dangers and safety aspects of using Class B pressure cleaners and jetters but also, the legal implications,” said Lorenz.
One manufacturer that has seen this confusion in the marketplace is Aussie Pumps.
According to Managing Director, Warwick Lorenz, “Many pressure cleaner operators using bigger machines, and by that I mean Class B, are in denial about the new safety standards. What’s even worse is that many of the suppliers of “We hear horror stories about injuries that have been sustained using Class B machines, leading to litigation and major penalties”, he said.
This has even led to some industrial users returning their high-pressure cleaners to Aussie Pumps to have a smaller pump fitted to enable the unit to fall back into Class A.
Dust and buildup on the antenna? No problem!
VEGAPULS 69 is designed specifically for level measurement of bulk solids. Even in dusty conditions, it always provides precise readings. Dust in the silo or buildup on the antenna have no effect.
This radar sensor also features unrivalled focusing at a frequency of 80 GHz. Simply world-class!
www.vega.com/radar
