A message from Jens Goennemann

​Victorian-based manufacturer Doftek has launched a world-first Active Wheel Alignment System for passenger vehicles last week. With matched funding from AMGC, Doftek is proof that Australia has a strong and innovative automotive component sector that is not limited to service our local market, but can play on the global stage of automotive supply chains.

Doftek has designed, engineered, and produced a system that allows a vehicle’s wheel alignment settings to be adjusted on-the-fly to maximise handling performance, improve fuel efficiency, reduce emissions, and minimise tyre wear. This is what Australia’s manufacturing industries including automotive must strive for – not competing on cost, but on smarts.

Embracing Digital Platforms

Doftek launched its Active Wheel Alignment System via a virtual press conference. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, this type of digital interaction has become the new normal, and communication on all channels is more essential than ever.

Australian manufacturers should share their successes! To demonstrate what it is to be competitive and illustrate what global reach looks like. The best way to do this is via the raft of digital platforms.

Featured in this month’s Better Together column, Norweld is another manufacturer that understands the importance of a strong online and media presence. Boasting upward of 45,000 followers on both Facebook and Instagram, Norweld secured the company’s American and Saudi Arabian distributors via social media.

Sales and marketing are one of the final, yet essential, aspects of the advanced manufacturing smiley curve. There is little point researching and developing advanced, innovative, high quality products if we fail to demonstrate these benefits to industry, and to the global marketplace. Successful manufacturers embrace all the opportunities that digital platforms afford in order to tell their story to the broadest audience and customers possible.

COVID-19 Manufacturer Response Register Extended

Launched in March 2020, the AMGC COVID-19 Manufacturer Response Register has been extended for six months in its current COVID-19 focussed design.

AMGC believes that the Register is a fantastic vehicle through which to connect industry and capitalise on domestic manufacturing capability—eventually far beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only does the Register enable a reactive response to a crisis such as COVID-19, it fosters proactive growth of Australia’s sovereign manufacturing capability by helping like-minded manufacturers collaborate to produce quality products. On numerous occasions the register has unveiled ‘unknown unknowns’ to our Australian constituents and facilitated domestic connections, translating into revenue growth and job creation.

In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the appreciation for being able, as a country, to make things has increased. This presents the Australian manufacturing industry with the opportunity to further ignite the country’s capabilities, add more value onshore, and become even more globally competitive.

It is my long-held view that a country like Australia must be able to make complex things. The COVID-19 crisis has made this abundantly clear. Government and industry must work together to invest in Australian manufacturing capability, to foster collaboration, networking, and unleash export opportunities. It is only together that Government and industry will be able to build a resilient manufacturing industry, focused on value rather than cost, that is readily able to compete on the global stage.

Manufacturing capability is the single most promising vehicle to transform our lucky country into a smart country.