Best of the week — the five most popular stories among @AuManufacturing’s readers

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to this site were reading.

5) RAIL PROCUREMENT SHAKEUP TACKLES $2 BILLION WASTED ON IMPORTS

Assistant Minister for Manufacturing Tim Ayres has stepped up reform of rail sector procurement in response to a damning report suggesting importation has cost governments $2 billion and lost local opportunities.

Ayres told ABC News Afternoon Briefing that the cost to the taxpayer over the past decade of not having effective national procurement strategies was more than $2 billion.

Ayres said: I can tell you it’s cost thousands of jobs, it’s cost hundreds of apprenticeships.

4) ROBOTS AND RADIOTHERAPY AMONG PROJECTS AWARDED $18 MILLION IN ACCELERATING COMMERCIALISATION GRANTS

More than 30 projects were awarded grants under the federal Accelerating Commercialisation program last week, ranging from pilot-scale superconductor manufacturing to an autonomous vehicle to assist blasting at mine sites.

Jevons Robotics was awarded the maximum amount to support ROEVA, which CEO and founder Todd Peate described in a statement as “a world first, autonomous, electric battery vehicle which will initially be used in the delivery of explosives, blast quality assurance and delivery of stemming.”

Other companies sharing in the March round totalling approximately $18 million include HVAC and cooling system developer and manufacturer Glaciem Technologies, awarded $516,165 for a project titled Climate Friendly Cooling System for Supermarkets and Fast Food Outlets.

3) PC REPORT ON PRODUCTIVITY UNDERLINES ITS UTTER FAILURE

The utter uselessness of the Productivity Commission’s latest report and recommendations on productivity just released, and the utter uselessness of the PC itself, can be seen in what it says about industry extension services, writes Peter Roberts.

These services are the expression of the idea that small firms, as are common in Australian business, have trouble identifying and adopting the latest technologies from overseas, and by definition 98 percent the world’s innovation occurs overseas.

The idea is that a federal government can act as an early identification and warning service for useful innovation, and back home act as an honest broker disseminating it to the many SMEs that make up industry, helping them understand and implement change.

2) BUILDING A SUBMARINE INDUSTRIAL BASE

SME manufacturers are sizing up what they know about plans for Australia to use US Virginia class submarines, then construct a UK design in Adelaide.

Here Michael Slattery navigates what we know, and don’t know, only to emerge concerned that local manufacturing activity has been put off into a distant future.

1) CELEBRATING AUSTRALIAN SOVEREIGN CAPABILITY – 2023 IS THE YEAR FOR LIFTOFF

To begin the second week of @AuManufacturing’s Celebrating Australian sovereign capability series, Brent Balinski spoke to Adam Gilmour from Gilmour Space Technologies about the company’s planned orbital launch.

“My personal concept of sovereignty is based on what I see around the world. A lot of other countries feel sovereignty has a lot to do with ownership of the organisation and control of the organisation,” explained Gilmour.

“For example, in the United States, if you’re going to launch any Department of Defense mission, you have to be from a company that is more than 50 per cent owned and controlled by US citizens. And that’s codified in the law. And so you have versions of that across the world, in all of the nations that launch rockets. Except Australia right now.”

And in case you missed our podcast…

In episode 53 Miheer Fyzee from Workspace Commercial Furniture — which is part of our Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers list — told us about efforts to keep their productivity high by investing in new machinery, the importance of trade skills, and — of course — their approach to innovation.

Picture: credit Gilmour Space Technologies