Brent is a co-founder and editor of @AuManufacturing.

Leadership in factory automation — Wood from waste for a world market

Leadership in factory automation today looks at 3RT, a company that turns wood waste into a product that looks and performs like 100-year-old hardwood. Founder and managing director Peter Torreele says that advanced automation is essential to goals of an affordable product that performs like naturally-grown timber, and can be made and sold locally anywhere in the world. By Brent Balinski.   

A.W. Bell, Riviera Australia named joint manufacturing winners in Australian Export Awards

Winners of the 59th Australian Export Awards have been named, with Northern Territory-based aquarium products specialist Monsoon Aquatics the overall winner in 2021. The 13 category winners and overall winner — selected from among the winners in each category — were named on Thursday.  Precision metal engineering company A.W. Bell and luxury motor yacht builder…

From data to decisions — three game changers explain how to get there

Nowadays manufacturers are, with few exceptions, in the data and analytics game. Data improves their own and their customers’ operations.  Three high-tech Australian startups provide extreme examples. Each is solving a very different problem — quality assurance and control issues in additive manufacturing, the need for robots to grip objects better, and finding the best…

Green hydrogen – steelmaking silver bullet or red herring?

By Brent Balinski Hearing Bob Dylan sing Hurricane for the first time. Stumbling across the TV series Fleabag. Andrew Forrest’s recent announcement that he will build a factory in central Queensland, with capacity to make 2 gigawatts of hydrogen electrolysers a year. Geoff Brooks, Director of Research at Swinburne University’s School of Engineering, insists he…