NMW 2019 Wrap Up

Innovation and evolution for the future

With economists reporting on the continued growth on the Australian economy, one had to see it to believe it and NMW 2019 was testament to that fact. Manufacturers’ Monthly reports.

The theme for this year’s event was Industrial Evolution.

FROM the opening hour of day one at 10am to the final day, National Manufacturing Week (NMW) 2019 had long queues reminiscent of mega sales events. With industry-led sessions by industry stalwarts and experts from the field, the event showcased Australia’s role in the industrial evolution. In addition, this year’s event saw an increase in the number of suppliers who displayed their latest products and services on the exhibition floor.

The 20th edition of NMW, co-located with Austech, held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from May 14-17, saw more than 11,000 attendees and 200 companies displaying the latest technology advancements with leading suppliers in attendance.

The theme for this year’s NMW was Industrial Evolution. The event had a strong focus on advanced manufacturing processes during the exhibition, particularly in the automation and robotics that had an expanded section of exhibitors, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and engineering zones that will carry over into 2020, according to the organisers.

Within Australia, since the call from the Federal Government to have manufacturing companies adopt more advanced technologies into their processes, there has been a shift in Industry 4.0 from operational concept to reality and this has resulted in manufacturing requiring high-level engineering to re-design processes to support ever-increasing smart manufacturing facilities. The Australian Government’s $100 million investment into the Advanced Manufacturing Fund in 2017 has provided support to the manufacturing industry in the creation of new jobs, growing of businesses, improving of productivity, and seen the increase global investment into the country.

According to the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre’s (AMGC) research, the most successful manufacturing companies in Australia have an automation rate of 1.3 times that of less successful companies. The Australian Centre for Robotic Vision predicts that automation is forecasted to boost Australia’s productivity and national income up to $2.2 trillion by 2030,

NMW 2019 Wrap up

while the global market for robotics and autonomous systems is forecast to be worth $23 billion by 2025. Hence, this year there was a big focus on the next industrial revolution and artificial intelligence in manufacturing. There were a large number of visitors from learning institutes that were interested to find out where the industry is at in terms of advanced manufacturing techniques and the tools/equipment that will support it.

Featuring over 90 industry leading expert speakers and panellists, NMW’s conference program opened with a welcome from Dr Jens Goennemann, managing director of AMGC, and Martin Pakula, Minister for Jobs, Innovation and Trade, in the Industry 4.0 Theatre. Pakula reiterated to attendees about the strength of the Australian manufacturing sector and the commitment of the Victorian government to its continued growth. The keynote was then delivered by Australia’s chief scientist, Dr Alan Finkel AO, “Reversing the flow – what manufacturing can teach AI”, focussed on the challenge of responsibly deploying AI in manufacturing, what AI developers need to learn from previous industrial revolutions, and how to integrate with manufacturers’ evolving systems.

These were followed by numerous insights focussed sessions across the two conference theatres of Industry 4.0 and Connected Manufacturing, including the Ai Group’s director, Mark Goodsell, on “Australian Manufacturing 2019 and beyond”. Goodsell mentioned in his presentation that Australia has had more than three years now of solid growth. He said that although there is “the odd month now and then” when this growth has slowed down to 50 (anything above 50 in the Australian PMI is considered positive growth), but the story has been one of “unambiguous optimism” in the industry.

“If you look at the 10-year cycle since 2008, we had a period of decline, and that coincided with the dollar going very high in the mining boom, and it was difficult to do onshore manufacturing during that period – our labour got sucked into Western Australia to work on mines, it was hard to compete because of

Manufacturing Academy takes off at NMW 2019 National Manufacturing Week 2019 included the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC) launching its Manufacturing Academy, an online resource that is designed to equip Australian manufacturers with the knowledge to prosper and comprises of over 500 pages of in-depth research, interviews with more than 20 Australia manufacturers, and over 50 hours of video content that is broken up into five modules. The launch of Manufacturing Academy was spread over two days of NMW 2019. Both days of the workshop were well received, with many of the manufacturers getting featured in the Academy’s videos and participating in highly engaging panel discussions. During day one, Chris Bridge-Taylor (general manager, B&R Enclosures), Ty Hermans (managing director, Evolve Group), Ross George (director, Austeng), Lyn George (director, Austeng), and Sean Hyde (sales development manager, iOrthotics) offered delegates insights into how to become

The Manufacturing Academy would enable Australian manufacturers to find time to engage and apply research outcomes by the AMGC.

resilient and able to compete within the global marketplace to generate long-term success. On the second day, Paul Bocchi (general manager, ANCA Motion), Peter Cull (director, ICT International), Sally Pointon (business development manager, Trubuilt Kitchens), Peter Sutton (managing director, Sutton Tools), and Professor Veena Sahajwalla (University of New South Wales) engaged with the attendees with discussions on subjects such as competitiveness, market reach, resilience, product value, and the circular economy. Jens Goennemann, managing director of AMGC, said, “AMGC has produced pages and pages of respected research. However, in practical terms, it is difficult for Australian manufacturers to find the time to engage and then apply these rich research outcomes to their daily business operations. We needed to find a way in which to make these insights more accessible – Manufacturing Academy has been created to achieve exactly that.” “We have distilled our research insights, supported by tangible evidence of project examples, into a concise, easily digestible format that is available for anyone, at anytime, anywhere, on any device. Australian manufacturers can delve into real-world examples and discover – from their peers – what has delivered successful commercialisation and innovation outcomes. “Australian manufacturers will learn how others have found success, why their process works, and how to begin incorporating similar processes within their own business,” said Goennemann. The AMGC said that the free-to-use online platform offers manufacturers the opportunity to discover how to compete on factors such as quality, innovative and service (– not cost); ensure their workforce adds value across their entire value chain; and increase the value of their product offering throughout all phases of manufacturing, including pre- and post-production.

NMW 2019 Wrap up

Visitors were able to try out their “VR skills” in welding with Soldamatic Augmented Training at the Weld Australia booth.

the dollar, and there was a lot of negative talk about the industry. It was a tough time, and probably only the tough survived.

“However, over the last five years, it has been a different trajectory through to the end of last year. Towards the end of last year and through into the beginning of this year, we’ve had some sogginess. It is not drastic,” Goodsell said.

Goodsell, however pointed out that the structure of manufacturing is changing where food is now what he calls the “spine” of manufacturing.

“It may have been automotive and machinery manufacturing in the past, but food and beverage has overtaken these. And this is particularly driven by exports into Southeast Asia and China, where they really do trust the supply chain that we bring from farms, through production, and to those markets,” said Goodsell.

He also made mention of other subsectors within manufacturing that are doing well. One of these sectors is textiles, which he said many had written-off.

“The textile component of manufacturing has put on jobs in the last year or two. This is driven by new business models, the need for retailers to get really quick service out of their suppliers; and the models that are working in other manufacturing sectors are also working in textiles,” said Goodsell. Goodsell mentioned that when people talk publicly about manufacturing, they often precede it by saying ‘the declining’. He observed that the story is not so straightforward with the available eveidence showing that manufacturing is in an era of growth - albeit with some recent wobbles and it is still a good generator of jobs and wealth.

The Advanced Welder Training Hub, on Weld Australia’s stand, received a lot of visitors. Over there, they were able to try out their “VR skills” in welding with Soldamatic Augmented Training.

NMW 2019 attracted over 200 leading companies showcasing the latest technology advancements, with industry-leading suppliers in attendance including Air Liquide, Axelent, BOC, Cadgroup, ECI Software Solutions, Epicor, Excision, FARO, Hiwin, Intelli Particle, Kemppi, KOBOT Systems, Linak, Lincoln Electric, Lorch South Pacific, Peak Industrial, Pilz, Profifeed Technologies, Prytec Solutions, SaintGobain Abrasives, Supagas, SYSPRO, Tesuco, Trotec, Universal Robots, WAGO, and X-Pak.

“National Manufacturing Week 2019 opened with a fantastic first day. It was great to see the eagerness and excitement of visitors lining up ready to enter this year’s exhibition and conference,” said Robby Clark, exhibition director, National Manufacturing Week.

NMW 2019 also saw WorldSkills Australia host the Victorian Regional Mechatronics and Welding competitions across all four day of the exhibition.

WorldSkills Australia CEO, Brett Judd, had earlier said in a press statement on their official website, “We have been committed to empowering excellence in young Australians since 1981 and competitions continue to identify and celebrate outstanding young apprentices and trainees. Through our national program of skills competitions, WorldSkills creates lifechanging opportunities by promoting a skills-based culture and showcasing vocational training”.

The numerous conference sessions at NMW 2019, spread across the Industry 4.0 Theatre and Connected Manufacturing Theatre, were developed in partnership with Austech and the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC).

Robby Clark, exhibition director of National Manufacturing Week, said, “NMW 2019 focussed on supporting manufacturers in their adoption of high-tech solutions, advanced manufacturing processes and integration of Industry 4.0 into their operations, with visitors’, exhibitors’ and conference speakers’ eagerness to celebrate recent successes and generate further momentum characterising this year’s event.”

In terms of exhibitor satisfaction, Air Liquide, a top end manufacturer of gases, technologies and services for industry and health, experienced good traffic to their booth at NMW 2019.

Arnaud Voisin, marketing manager of Air Liquide, told Manufacturers’ Monthly, “We had a lot of people come by our booth, especially tradies, welders and people who work in the field of fabrication – mostly from smaller businesses. We, having a lot of expertise in those fields (welding) as well, were well placed to answer all those questions that came forth and we were also able to highlight the key differentiating features of our products to all who came by.”

NMW 2019 Wrap up

Exhibitor Highlights from NMW 2019

Lorch: Designed to be future proof German welding manufacturer Lorch Schweißtechnik launched into the Australian market during National Manufacturing Week (NMW). Manufacturers’ Monthly was there to catch meet up with David Wilton, managing director, Lorch South Pacific and had chance to see the range of its products at its booth in the Welding Technology Zone.

Lorch has a long and successful history of welding equipment sales in the South Pacific region (Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands) under private branding arrangements.

“We are quickly gaining success across the South Pacific with cutting edge welding technology, made in Germany. Lorch offers leading new welding solutions fully optimised for South Pacific major industry sectors including mining, general fabrication, structural steel, and ship building,” said David Wilton, Lorch managing director and co-owner. Wilton told Manufacturers’ Monthly that the welding equipment Lorch engineers manufacture is considered “future proof”. They are designed for the Industry 4.0, to meet the demand of intelligent, digitalised systems, and networking solutions.

“We have the best people on the job here and some of the best R&D capabilities in the world. Lorch is all about smart welding. This is about leading, cutting-edge innovation that is raising the bar, bringing next-generation products that drives users’ capabilities to the next level,” said Wilton.

Wilton mentioned that Lorch aims to make their customers more productive in their welding processes with the products that they are offering.

“We want to be a game-changer for our customers in driving productivity for them. This is about

Lorch products are made to be future proof. Peter Hern, ANZ country manager, Universal Robots.

making them more competitive, be able to weld about 30-40 per cent faster,” said Wilton.

Universal Robots: Cobots add value to the workforce Peter Hern, Universal Robots (UR) country manager for ANZ, explained that in order to keep up with dynamic market conditions there needs to be faster integration and more agile procedures within production processes. The market demands higher quality products at a quicker pace while being produced safely and ethically. And using collaborative robots within the manufacturing process can help with that.

Replacing jobs is one of the concerns that some people have, and UR assures people that this is not the case with collaborative robots. The robots are all about improving productivity for small and medium businesses.

“Collaborative robots take away the strain of doing the dull and repetitive jobs that may induce physical stress or injury. Workers can then focus on more meaningful and enjoyable tasks,” said Hearn.

Hern explained that workers can also be easily retrained to operate the cobots, monitoring tasks and even programming it to do jobs. “We have found that contract manufacturers are doing shorter runs and they have repurposed the robot from one day to the next and they need the operator to do the programming for the new run – and because it is so easy to program, the operators can quickly learn to do it and get the runs under way,” said Hern.

“More interestingly, we (UR) have found that our customers have told us that their operators have come up with new methods of productivity – passing on older menial tasks to the robots and focussing on better processes in the manufacturing chain,” Hearn added. Hern said that cobots at the moment are most popular among contract manufacturers and small to medium enterprise (SME)

NMW 2019 Wrap up

CRC Industries Australia team.

manufacturers. They are suited to smaller-scale tasks such as pick and place applications and palletising within businesses. Collaborative robots have also seen an increase in popularity in the welding space. “The cobot can help out with repetitive and potentially dangerous tasks with automatic welding and we see growth in cobots in this sector,” said Hern.

CRC Industries: A positive response from NMW 2019 CRC was first established in 1958 in a small Pennsylvania garage. The company started manufacturing in Australia after being incorporated as a propriety company of Australia in October, 1969.

The company has been a top-end supplier of specialty products for maintenance, repair and overhaul professionals across a wide array of industries including automotive, industrial, mining, food and beverage, utilities and defence. Manufacturers’ Monthly managed to catch up with Simon Hatton, national marketing manager, CRC Industries Australia, at the recent NMW 2019 and found out that the manufacturing sector is still thriving with demand ever improving for its products.

“For CRC Industries Australia at NMW 2019, it has been going really well with a lot of leads and interest with a good mix of customers. We’ve been very glad to hear good feedback from our end-users and for us share more about our products – these are mostly tradies, mechanics and people from the manufacturing sector,” said Hatton.

Hatton mentioned that their product range caters for both heavy and light manufacturers and welding – essentially all aspects of the manufacturing sector.

“At this event, we have our lubricant range, smart washer and bio-degreasers for the market. We are 50 years in the market and always have a lot to showcase,” said Hatton.

Pilz: Always looking towards safety Pilz is the pioneer of the Emergency Stop Relay – the control device behind the red button that is seen on machinery everywhere. Today this button is integral to everyday safety – from baggage handling and packaging equipment through to the process lines in manufacturing and automotive factories.

The Australasian base of operations for Pilz is headquartered in Melbourne with offices in Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland, providing sales and logistics, along with turnkey engineering projects to the local market. Pilz Australia forms part of the Asia Pacific region for Pilz, where it has high expectations for growth.

It is therefore no surprise that Pilz was at NMW 2019 in the robotics section to showcase what it is best at – safety in automation. At the Pilz stand, there were the safe automation system PSS4000, the safe configurable controller PNOZmulti 2, guard locking solutions such as PSENmlock and the new area scanner PSENscan were among the high quality products on showcase.

“The stand activity over the few days had been positive with a lot of interest in the products that we have here. We are also pleasantly surprised at the turnout for NMW 2019 as a whole and the good depth and breadth of customers that came through – those who have worked with us before and those who have not who are very interested in the technology of tomorrow,” Rob Stevenson, national sales and marketing manager, Pilz Australia, told Manufacturers’ Monthly. Stevenson also mentioned that there was not only interest around the robotics arena, but also, safe automation.

“We have a lot of solutions that support the robot industry. Our products range from emergency stop push buttons all the way through to PLCs, HMIs and diagnostics and all the services that support them with engineering, training and consulting. We are offering our customers a complete turnkey solution with everything from concept right through to delivery. This direction is where Pilz is headed, along with our range of products that we’re supporting and launching,” said Stevenson.

Stevenson mentioned that it was great to see students and educators from institutes like TAFE, who came in large numbers, to find out more about safety in automation – something which they may be in the process of learning more about. “We always love to take the opportunity to spend some time with the students and educators to find out how we might be able to work with them and help them at the course level. This is better than having the students get out to the working world and only then finding out about the impacts of safe automation,” said Stevenson.

2019

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