The Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020 was a shocker for apprentices in Australia, with the pandemic hitting apprenticeship starts and completions hard. Commencements plunged 18.8 per cent to 126,665 as at 30 September, 2020 while completions were down 14 per cent to 73,205. There are now 264,425 Australians in apprenticeship training according to new figures…
ASX-listed metal additive manufacturing company Titomic has announced a UK joint venture with Neos International for production of Invar 36 faceplates using Titomic’s technology.
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s advanced X-ray techniques have revealed new structural details about the arrangement of atoms in conjugated polymers, an important class of materials that are used in LEDs, organic solar cells, transistors, sensors and thermoelectric power devices. The research, conducted at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne, offers the possibility of…
The federal government has launched a ‘smart buyer’ process to select the company that will develop an Australian Guided Weapons Enterprise as foreshadowed in @AuManufacturing. The Enterprise will operate a guided weapons manufacturing capability as part of planned purchases of a suite of long-range strike and defensive weapons under a $1 billion plan. BAE Systems,…
Australian manufacturing’s strong start to 2021 has continued according to the Australian Industry Group’s Performance of Manufacturing Index, which recorded its best result since March 2018 and the sixth straight month of strong recovery since the lows of the pandemic.
The second call for applications this week under the federal Modern Manufacturing Initiative has been made, with these now open for defence projects.
Defence contractor Raytheon Australia has inaugurated a new Centre for Joint Integration in Adelaide (pictured) which will include the company’s first major production facility in Australia. The new facility at Mawson Lakes, billed as one of the world’s most advanced integrated air and missile defence centres, was opened by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and SA…
Prestige food producer Maggie Beer Holdings is to further its move into digital and e-commerce businesses through the purchase of a leading hampers and gifts business for $40 million. The Barossa Valley company, which grew its e-commerce sales by 167 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic, is purchasing 100 per cent of Hampers & Gifts…
Australian Manufacturing Forum member Shane West saw the news headline that Christian Porter had been ‘demoted’ to the industry portfolio. Here he argues that this says it all about what is wrong with Australia today. The ministerial reshuffle fundamentally shows what is wrong with the Australian federal government – a disregard for Industry, Science and…
Fleet Space Technologies and Gilmour Space Technologies have announced plans to put six nanosatellites in orbit in 2023. The contract signing announcement follows news last week of the launch of Fleet’s fifth nanosatellite, aboard Rocket Lab’s They Go Up So Fast mission from New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula. Fleet plans to eventually have 140 such satellites…
