National satellite project announced A national satellite initiative, spearheaded by Optus and a national consortium of industry, academia and government partners, plans to launch a sovereign Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite by early 2028. The consortium includes iLAuNCH Trailblazer, HEO, Inovor Technologies and the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), with the satellite to be designed and built by…
Like-for-like recycling, for example turning a PET bottle into another PET bottle, is a good outcome, believes Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla. The inventor and founding Director of UNSW’s Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) is focussed elsewhere, though. “When materials get more complex you can’t always assume that conventional solutions and conventional manufacturing…
Despite the Industry 4.0 theme emerging from Germany early in the last decade, local uptake of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (or smart factories, 4IR or a handful of other near-synonyms) appears to be slow. The benefits have been spruiked ad nauseum in the intervening years by industrial technology vendors, researchers, manufacturing advocates and others. Yet…
Arafura vessel commissioned The Royal Australian Navy commissioned the first of six Arafura class offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) at Fremantle, Western Australia, on Saturday. According to a statement from Defence, the OPVs (built by Luerssen Australia, which is owned by Civmec as of Wednesday) will improve the “ability to contribute to maritime patrol, response and…
It might be to put a new sales team on the ground in a new market. Or to import some expensive production kit and fly an expert over to teach your staff how to use it properly. Or you might need to bring in outside technical help to bring a tricky project up the last…
By Colette Southam, Bond University The federal government wants to boost Australia’s productivity levels – as a matter of national priority. It’s impossible to have that conversation without also talking about innovation. We can be proud of (and perhaps a little surprised by) some of the Australian innovations that have changed the world – such…
As @AuManufacturing prepares to deliver our 2025 Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers report this week, Simran Gill gives a wrap-up of the recent awards event. There are also video interviews from the day with Rux Energy, the Smartcrete CRC, Allegro Energy, Advanced Navigation, the Australian Business Growth Fund, Mapei Australia, and Australia Wide Engineering. Australia’s…
As this title has written before, there remains a textile, clothing and footwear (TCF) sector in Australia. Its products can confusingly cut across other sectors (for example wound care fabrics or geotextiles) and the companies that contribute to it are regularly on the small side. But it’s still here. An EY report from 2021 estimated…
Rockwell survey finds ANZ manufacturers affected by “technology paralysis”, life sciences benefiting from AI The 2025 State of Smart Manufacturing (SoSM) Report from Rockwell Automation, released last week, surveyed 1,560 manufacturers from 17 countries (including 85 organisations in Australia and New Zealand) and has found the local health and life sciences sector leading AI adoption.…
By Gediminas Lipnickas, University of South Australia In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken centre stage across various industries. From AI-generated art to chatbots in customer service, every sector is seemingly poised for disruption. It’s not just in your news feed every day – venture capital is pouring in, while CEOs are eager to…