Australia’s Advanced Manufacturing industry celebrated at Parliament House
Earlier this week, several of the nation’s leading manufacturers gathered at Parliament House for the Industry Growth Centre Showcase.
The Showcase was part of the Industry Growth Centre Initiative, established by the Federal Government to drive an industry-led approach toward greater innovation, productivity and competitiveness. The Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC) is one of the Government’s six Growth Centres.
An opportunity to celebrate not only industry success, but the Growth Centres and their achievements, the Showcase highlighted the groundswell of inspiring, innovative ideas that are helping Australian manufacturing to flourish.
AMGC Members ANCA, Tradiebot Industries, Evolve Group and the baby essentials company, b.box, were on hand to illustrate how local manufacturing continues to thrive through collaboration, commercialisation, and export opportunities.
ANCA demonstrated their custom designed and built industrial robotic arm. When ANCA could not source a tool loading solution with a small footprint, their engineering team designed one in-house. With nothing like it available anywhere else in the world, ANCA is the first company to commercialise a compact robotic arm at a competitive price point.
Tradiebot Industries is developing Industry 4.0 technology platforms and automated systems that fast track routine jobs, repairs, training, and deliver an up-skilled workforce. Their technology—which was on display at the Showcase—is redefining how automotive repairs of the future are undertaken.
Brisbane-based hardware accelerator and product commercialisation experts, Evolve Group attended the Showcase. Ty Hermans (Managing Director, Evolve Group) said that the AMGC is helping to bring manufacturing back to Australia through its proactive approach and dedicated follow-through. “The biggest thing AMGC has done is its proactivity and backing up what it said it would do. We went from co-funding to commercialisation within 18 months – from turning $250K into $25 million,” said Hermans.
b.box demonstrated both their products and business model. Partnering with Evolve Group to bring jobs back to Australia, manufacturing their award-winning sippy cups in the Sunshine State. Not surprisingly, b.box was recently ranked at number 52 in the Financial Times 1,000: High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific and won the 2017 Smart Company Top Exporter of the Year.
Dr Jens Goennemann (Managing Director, AMGC) recognised the Showcase as an important way to reinforce the positive message to Parliament on manufacturing’s bright future. “This Showcase demonstrates that Australia’s manufacturing industry is producing a diverse range of unique and valuable products – from commercial robots and toddler sippy cups to virtual reality auto repair. These manufacturing success stories have really challenged and redefined industry expectations about what is possible to make here in Australia for the global market,” said Goennemann.
The Showcase coincided with an announcement from the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, the Hon Karen Andrews MP that funding to the Growth Centre Initiative will be extended until late 2021.
According to Minister Andrews, the Growth Centres have made incredible progress since they were established in 2015—only three short years ago. “They’ve engaged with over 25,000 firms, research organisations and industry associations. They’ve committed over $46 million to more than 100 collaborative projects – having leveraged over $63.2 million from industry and research partners, together these projects are worth more than $109 million.”
“In addition, the Growth Centres have helped over 150 Australian businesses secure contracts and grow export sales, and they’ve connected many hundreds more to potential markets and supply chains, here and overseas,” said Minister Andrews.
