From the Publisher

Publisher

Scott Filby

Remember our blessings this Christmas. In the Western tradition, Christmas has long been a time of joy and celebration. But this year should be particularly special. After two long years we’ve finally seen the back of the pandemic.

Australian businesses and Australians across all walks of life worked together to defeat the spread of the disease while keeping the economy running. Average Australians showed their basic decency, taking sensible precautions and looking out for each other.

Governments across all states and territories also worked together – not always perfectly, but better than in many other countries.

Aussie manufacturing not only survived; it thrived. The fiscal years 202021 and 2021-2022 marked the first back-to-back years of annual growth in manufacturing by value in 14 years.

Manufacturing has turned a corner – not just in output but in the national consciousness. The pandemic made clear to everyone just how much is riding on the shoulders of manufacturers.

The onus is now on the Albanese Government to deliver manufacturing policy settings that are as capable and resourceful as our manufacturers themselves.

At Industry Update, we believe the best of Australian industry is yet to come. The industry of the future will look very different to the industry of the past. It is increasingly high tech, and increasingly research-driven. This year saw Industry Update launch a ‘Universities, research and collaboration’ section to reflect and promote that transformation.

The year also saw a change in federal government. We thank the Morrison government and wish the new one the best. More needs to be done for manufacturing, whoever is in power.

While the budget’s $293 million cuts to industry are disappointing, we sincerely hope the government delivers on its big promises, including the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund.

At Christmas, let’s also think of the less fortunate.

Most of the world isn’t as lucky as we are in Australia. This Christmas let’s be grateful for all that we have and pray for those in need. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. Luke 2:11 T he importance of tech for manufacturing is becoming more and more apparent with every issue of Industry Update. BOC gas and engineering has opened its second smart welding and gas tech hub, this time in south-west Sydney. And, backed by a Defence Department grant, SoftIron has opened a manufacturing hub to produce Information, Communications and Telecommunications components for its cloud-building technology. Making the ICT componentry in Australia will protect UK-based SoftIron’s customers from disruption to their supply chains and boost our manufacturing sovereignty (see story p 12).

While we’re on the cloud, RMIT in Melbourne is using Amazon Web Services’ Cloud Supercomputing and AARNet to host a supercomputing capability engineered for up to 400 Gbps. Called RACE, it’s already being used by industry and RMIT researchers to create new battery technologies, photonic microchips and medical devices among other things (see story page 14).

Robotics are at the fore, too. Queensland’s Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing Hub has partnered with a venture capital firm to find backers for emerging technologies and advanced manufacturers to help them enter the US marketplace.

Uni of NSW has been busy perfecting its R&D spin-offs: the latest from this leader in solar cells is successfully using copper rather than silver on cells and it’s now being commercialised by SunDrive (see story page 27).

East-coast steelmaker, recycler and services firm InfraBuild says it’s slow to come to the robotics party but, with much R&D from the Australian Cobotics Centre (ACC), their teams have created a cobot to remove ‘off-spec’ steel items from the production line and get its staff onto less monotonous, less risky work (see story page 24).

The moral of several stories is that employees should not fear tech. As ACC Director, Jonathan Roberts says, that old conversation about tech taking jobs has been “flipped around because many businesses can’t find enough people for jobs so we need to use new technologies to keep companies competitive and running.”

Editor

Christine Powis

The Olympics are coming — and so is the WH&S show!

by Marie Kinsella, CEO, International Exhibition & Conference (IEC) Group

For the first time the Workplace Health & Safety (WHS) Show will be held in Brisbane from 31 May to 1 June 2023 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. There has never been a better time to take the show to Queensland.

Applications to exhibit at the Brisbane show are now open for everyone wanting to reach a new audience of industry professionals eager to learn about the latest in health and safety.

Prospective exhibitors at the twoday event will capitalise on regional opportunities that have opened up following news of the location for the Brisbane 2032 Summer Olympics (23 July-8 Aug). Research by KPMG estimates the 2032 Olympics will deliver $8.1 billion in economic benefits to Queensland’s economy and create 91,600 jobs in the next 20 years.

As Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says: “Hosting the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games was never about a few weeks of competition, it’s about the next decade of investment and development for the games.”

Show organiser, IEC Group, anticipates a huge boost in construction and development in the region, with many significant infrastructure projects already underway. These projects cast a spotlight on the increased need for workplace health and safety standards in these labour-intensive sectors and ensuring that the measures taken in preparation will reflect well on the global stage.

With a significant spike in new employment opportunities comes the need to boost skills and business readiness to ensure that the local workforce is able to meet this demand.

These skills include a crucial understanding of new safety techniques and technologies in the workplace which are the foundation of the WHS Show, and the huge appetite of companies in Queensland, which ain to ensure their readiness in these fields, is significant.

As Australia’s only dedicated trade WH&S show, the Brisbane WHS Show is the perfect platform to reach this market.

We are also hugely excited to bring the show to Queensland because of the region’s large mining industry, where adherence to health and safety procedures is paramount. Bringing the WHS Show to this location makes it easier for mining managers operating in rural and outlying areas to attend, whereas previous shows in Melbourne and Sydney may have been inaccessible.

This means many of the attendees will be face to face with cutting-edge and targeted work and safety solutions in this type of exhibition for the first time. This gives exhibitors a rare and exciting marketing opportunity to introduce safety professionals to a range of offerings under one roof, where they can discover, buy and stay updated on the latest products, resources and policies.

Thousands of occupational health and safety managers are expected to attend. Exhibitors who wish to position themselves as thought leaders are invited to take advantage of the limited speaking opportunities available at well-attended seminars.

After successful 2022 events, this WH&S Show expects hundreds of exhibitors in 2023. It’s an opportunity to shape the future of workplace health and safety in Queensland – apply early or risk missing out!

Marie Kinsella, CEO, International Exhibition & Conference (IEC) Group

WH&S Show whsshow.com.au