Project description and overview:

Air Tip is partnering with Ross Engineering and the Complete Group to create the first robotic steel fabrication ecosystem in Alice Springs. This service will not only improve local manufacturing efficiency and empower innovation, it will remove the issues associated with using similar interstate services.

Air Tip’s pneumatic Air tipping design is the first major innovation in side tipping technology in forty years. The design reduces the number of haulage trips a truck needs to make for the same volume of bulk commodity saving on fuel, tyre usage, trailer wear and carbon emissions, ultimately presenting an economic value of $173,000 per trailer over a 10 year period.

Air Tip will lead the way, and use the collaborative fabrication ecosystem to take its pneumatic trailer design from beta phase to full commercialisation and sales. There are ongoing engineering refinements that need to be made to the AirTip airbag system during this project, which will enable a faster fill of the airbag. The redesigns will enable the product to be comparable to the hydraulic tipping system in terms of response/lag times.

The project will result in a scalable and efficient steel fabrication and manufacturing service in Central Australia and produce an innovative product for the national, and potentially international bulk commodity sector.