From the Publisher

Publisher

Scott Filby

The amazing Australian manufacturing industry

In my thirty-year manufacturing media career, I have been constantly amazed at how resilient the Australian manufacturing industry has been, to not only survive, but thrive.

Australia’s manufacturers have had to manage incredible change; some did not survive, whilst others took their operations offshore to compete with an ever-shrinking world market that made it virtually impossible for Aussie manufacturers to compete with lower cost labour in emerging Asian economies.

Yet, through it all, we have survived and now it is turning full circle. Who would have ever imagined that a worldwide pandemic’s silver lining would prove to Australians that it is essential for our country to have a strong and vibrant manufacturing industry that isn’t reliant on other nations! The onshoring trend will continue to build momentum and Industry Update Media will be here to keep each of you up to date through excellent reporting from our growing editorial department.

Australian Made Week

In 2021, the Australian Made Campaign launched Australian Made Week which was such an incredible success that it will now be held annually. From this edition of Industry Update we will publish an every-edition editorial update about Australian Made Week, so if you have missed out being involved this year, we will keep this great initiative at the front of your mind for 2023. But it isn’t too late to take part via our special Australian Made Week feature that begins on page 24!

Australian Manufacturing Week

There are some great surprises instore for visitors to the highly anticipated reinvention of the National Manufacturing Week and AUSTECH trade shows. AMTIL has taken full control of the two shows and for the first time in ten years AUSTECH makes an exciting return to Sydney so don’t miss this opportunity to checkout this first post COVID-19 trade shows. Stands sold out long ago which means industry is expecting a significant turnout. Industry Update is exhibiting, and you can visit us at stand MT34.

Workplace Health & Safety Show

No one in Australia runs a better safety event than Marie Kingsella & the IEC Group. The first WHSS of 2022 is Melbourne and it promises to be worth the visit. An exciting addition to the safety industry event landscape, WHSS is the official exhibition of #SAFETYSCAPE. This all-encompassing safety event will also include numerous conferences produced by the Australian Institute of Health & Safety and associated partners.

Visit Industry Update’s stand at F10 and see our safety feature from page 58.

Editor

Claire Moffat

Six weeks can be a long time

That’s the period since our last edition and during this time, Australia has endured two extreme flood events, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and most recently the historical signing of a security pact between our Pacific neighbour The Solomon Islands and China.

Then, as we go to print the relentless march of COVID-19 has knocked the Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese out of the election campaign for at least a week.

Through our bi-weekly newsletter and magazine we endeavour to frame these events for our readers through the industry lens, albeit one that is morphing beyond the realm of traditional manufacturing.

You will see this reflected throughout our news pages and our four Features: Women In Manufacturing, Australian Made Week, Health and Safety Show and finally our massive Australian Manufacturing Week coverage which spans 20 pages.

Both the government’s Angus Taylor and the opposition’s Ed Husic - two men with the mammoth task of helming the rebuild of the country’s manufacturing sector echo this theme in their exclusive pre-election interviews with Industry Update. This is further validated by Deloitte’s 2022 Manufacturing Outlook on Page 22.

Both leaders are deeply focussed on the constant mantra of technology and the future and Deloitte validates this when along with the four key trends for the year, it observes, “The fast rise of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors is redefining and elevating sustainability in manufacturing as never before.”

However, it also delivers around the sector of Cybersecurity a warning,“Legacy systems and technology weren’t purpose-fit for today’s sophisticated network challenges.”

And this is the crux, we are a robust, dynamic and innovative country but, until the theory of Smart Manufacturing is translated and applied intelligently, enabling many ‘legacy systems’ to take a back seat, we can’t profoundly transform.

That is what we all need today: transformative thinking that will let us loosen our perspective on what life, work and the world was like yesterday. Then we will have a good chance at mustering the courage to build the industry that must be constructed to withstand the vagaries of tomorrow.

We hope that this important edition of Industry Update informs all our readers with some insight to make that journey.

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