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Manufacturing News




Hybrid rail cars for Adelaide

Forty-five of the state’s 70 diesel rail cars will be upgraded with hybrid energy storage and recovery systems, as part of a $10 million 2021-22 State Budget initiative. It is aimed at reducing the fleet’s fuel consumption, noise, vibration and diesel emissions. The hybrid vehicles are an important step toward a greener public transport system, minister for Infrastructure and Transport Corey Wingard said. Fuel costs will be reduced by up to 20 per cent, with better fuel efficiency resulting in savings in the order of $1.3 million per year. Operational costs are expected to be reduced by $4 million over the remaining service life of the fleet. The Department for Infrastructure and Transport owns and manages a fleet of 70 diesel railcars and 22 three-car electric multiple unit (EMU) trains, consisting of 66 railcars.

New computer storage for Pawsey centre

Perth’s Pawsey Supercomputing Centre is investing $7 million to install 130 PD multi-tier storage to improve data availability, data transfer speed, and overall storage capacity. The nationally funded research supercomputing centre will become home to one of the largest research-focused storage systems in the world as part of the facility’s $70 million capital refresh project. Suppliers Dell and Xenon will install 130 petabytes of online and offline storage. A disk-based system powered by Dell will provide 60PB of high-speed object storage for hosting research data online. Offline storage provided by Xenon will incorporate Pawsey’s current object storage infrastructure, including two mirrored libraries each holding 70PB of data, duplicated for data security.

Breville’s bumper year

Small appliance manufacturer Breville experienced bumper conditions in the latest financial year as consumers at home bought up big on toasters and coffee makers. The Sydney company, which develops its products locally but manufactures overseas, reported revenue of $1.19 billion, up 24 per cent on the previous year. EBIT was $136.4 million, up 39.6 per cent. Breville also expanded to new markets France, Portugal, France, Italy and Mexico offsetting the impact of supply chain challenges. The company boosted R&D, marketing and IT investment by $49 million in the year.

Wellnex signs with Mark Wahlberg

Health and wellness products manufacturer Wellnex Life has signed an agreement to distribute the Performance Inspired range in Australia and New Zealand. Performance Inspired was founded by actor Mark Wahlberg and nutritionist Tom Dowd, a former GM of GNC, and produces nutrition and supplement products.

Picture: CSIRO/Pawsey Supercomputing Centre

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