Comment by Peter Roberts The New South Wales government has confirmed its love affair with importing expensive transport equipment with the purchase of 13 Sydney harbour ferries for a reported $1.3 billion. Writing in MichaelWest.com, maritime commentator Neil Baird said Northern NSW company, Birdon had contracted to build the ferries in China and Indonesia. The…
Development capital interests have agreed to buy leading South Australian supplier of precision components and assemblies for defence and aerospace industries, Levett Engineering.. CPE Capital subsidiary ASDAM will add Levett to a growing portfolio of manufacturing interests, focused on high tecnology suppliers to defence prime contractors. Levett provides complex parts for naval and air force…
Technology giant Microsoft has joined rival Google in announcing important advances in quantum computing, the next stage in smaller and ever more capable computers. Yesterday Microsoft chief executive officer Satya Nadella announced the technology company had developed a “full-stack, open cloud ecosystem” to bring the benefits of quantum computing to developers around the world. He…
Advanced materials group Talga Resources (ASX: TLG) has begun a large scale commercial trial of a Talga graphene enhanced coating for ships hulls. Over 700 square metres of the coating is being applied to the Algarrobo (pictured), a 33,000 tonne container ship as a performance booster for conventional marine primer. Talga managing director Mark Thompson…
Defence manufacturer BAE systems demonstrated two fully autonomous armoured vehicles for the Australian Army this week, providing insights into autonomous technologies on future battlefields. The ‘battlefield simulation’ demonstration was held at the Majura Training Site where the Chief of Army was shown two customised M113 tracked armoured vehicles (pictured) in operation. BAE Systems engineers and…
Comment by Peter Roberts This week the seamier side of Australian business was again in the spotlight as supermarket group Woolworths admitted to underpaying staff by as much as $300 million over a decade. There were the usual explanations that this was all the fault of our complex industrial relations system. This is a ridiculous…
Metal 3D printing company Titomic’s (ASX: TTT) Melbourne production bureau has been busy manufacturing test parts for prospective customers using its Titomic Kinetic Fusion process (TKF) 3D printers. In his monthly investor update, Titomic managing director Jeff Lang listed a number of cases where the company’s strategy of producing test parts for customers was leading…
EMVision Medical Devices (ASX: EMV) has completed building its first portable brain scanner (pictured) which is now ready for trial in a clinical environment. The Brisbane company, which listed only a year ago, said the device was now undergoing calibration and testing for delivery to Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital later this month. A further two…
Explosives and chemical manufacturer Orica (ASX: ORI) has returned to protitability after a period marred by writedowns for plant breakdowns and writedowns following new IT implementations. The company announced statutory Net Profit After Tax for the year ended 30 September of $245 million, compared to a $48 million loss in 2018. NPAT before individually significant…
Barely half of employers are making use of nationally accredited VET training for their staff as the system continues its long-term decline. New figures from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), show 50.9 per cent of employers made use of the VET system in 2019, down 3.5 percent from the year before. And…
