Australian Manufacturing

[sn1987a (Barry)]

I'm in manufacturing, we take big rocks and make little rocks which are then exported all over the world.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Peter

I worked for the alternate tenderer back then. Most we shell shocked when IKEA got the contract.

What part of the alternate tenderer????
I was originally with Lego Engineering, and spent a year in Germany doing facility design etc for the Pt Adelaide site,
only to see the pollies wimp it at the end and choose the other mob.
The Germans had a proven model and proven overseas build techniques, but that didnt seem to matter.
Sometimes i suspect our Govt operates a bit like the pointy haired boss in Dilbert

Andrew

[Bassnut (Fred)]

I worked in Manufacturing automation service, got out just as practically all my customers shut down. As wages in China grow, manufacturing will move to Indonesia, India and Africa, chasing low wages. The answer for Australia is in IP. China essentially has no IP, they are a factory for Wallmart. Australia is good at IP. Our very own Mike Berthon-Jones (Placidus) was a founding member of Resmed, the biggest sleep apnea ventilator machine manufacturer in the world. Mike invented adaptive respiratory ventilators and has some 50 patents to his name. We need more like him with unique IP and we have them lurking awaiting to be supported. The gov does need to provide support though, which is sadly lacking, unlike in the US for instance which has Venture Capitalists willing to take a risk.

I developed a high speed PCB tester in the 90s which beat everything on the market at a fraction of the cost of imported models. It sold very well in OZ, but when I approached the gov for export support, I was basically told to bugger off, so that was the end of that, I just didnt have the rescources to procceed. It may not have come to anything anyway, but the point is if Oz doesnt manufacture anything, then gov support (given we just dont have the size or culture for risky commercial investment) is essential for IP development.

The other factor in manufacturing is automation. The more automated manufacturing becomes, the less manual labour costs count. So automated manufacturing in the future may well return to Oz.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Fred

So automated manufacturing in the future may well return to Oz.

And maybe a new generation of luddites will then rise to "destroy the mills".
The current economic theories still need millions of little people with disposable income to buy their products.
Automation is a great idea, but unless meaningfull jobs can be found for all the people displaced by the machines, it will eventually come a cropper.


Andrew

[casstony]

Not all young people have the aptitude or interest in going to university. There need to be some middle level jobs between professionals and unskilled and I'm personally happy to have modest subsidies for manufacturers which employ large numbers of workers in order to have a fairer society.

[DavidU (Dave)]

As a manufacturer/ designer it is very difficult to produce tube amplifiers in Aust, I got the same treatment as Fred with Govt grants/ export assistance.
The huge private capital investment was all I ever got.
I doubt I will ever setup another manufacturing factory again. As for getting my designs made in China....... no thanks.
As for my recent Patent, again the Govt could not care less.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

No matter what, consumers in Australia are not focused on buying Australian made or Australian supplied or Australian modified solutions.

I attempted to make something that was close to overseas prices but a slight bit more. in a thread which I believe is now archived, the first answer was to support an overseas product .

So I kept going for a little while and then can the whole astronomy supply industry.

Is it worth making things, possibly but essentially Australia still have to live on the poverty line to make consumers happy. Will I continue to try? I am not sure. I would like to, but am not confident to pursue it too far.

For the meantime I will make products for myself and that will be about all for the moment.

[Kunama]

It is too easy not to work here in Oz.......
My son-in-law has been advertising for a painter to work for him......
He pays above award rates and is a very easy going boss.

The current guy turns up 3 days out of five,
the previous guys stole tools from the business,
An advertisement on Saturday ..... got one reply and the guy stated that he "was not looking to work too hard and was just fishing about .... "

Yet I hear continually people saying they can't find anything....
I am doing a job at the moment and have a 60 year old assistant who would run rings around any 20-30year old on a building site.

[PeterEde (Peter)]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

Gday Peter


What part of the alternate tenderer????
I was originally with Lego Engineering, and spent a year in Germany doing facility design etc for the Pt Adelaide site,
only to see the pollies wimp it at the end and choose the other mob.
The Germans had a proven model and proven overseas build techniques, but that didnt seem to matter.
Sometimes i suspect our Govt operates a bit like the pointy haired boss in Dilbert

Andrew

Ditto Andrew
I was a pleb in the dwg office and general office boy. My first job after school. I was there for the Island Seaway as well.
Even now given my current employer there are lots of questions over how ASC/Kokums got the contract.
I've been told of under handed deals since between the then Swedish government and ours. Both of the same ilk at the time.

Now we have Collins and would rather see that evolved instead of risking the same night mare again.
Collins today is a world leader. It's quiet. What people call a noisy sub is still quieter than most of the subs. I cold tell some cool stories I've been told but due to sensitive nature of submarines I can't.

[RickS (Rick)]

Originally Posted by Bassnut

The gov does need to provide support though, which is sadly lacking, unlike in the US for instance which has Venture Capitalists willing to take a risk.

Governments are not noted for their ability to pick winners (although they are pretty good at creating losers.) At best they will create an environment conducive to start-ups with reasonable tax treatment of speculative investments and employee stock options.

Cheers,
Rick.

[PeterEde (Peter)]

Agenda 21? Is it real?
It seems to me most western democracies are keen to forgo the employment of their own people to assist in the employment and economic growth of less fortunate countries.
Why all the FTAs if we produce nothing but raw resources and livestock.
In time as these economies catch up 50-100 years, maybe jobs weill come back to Australia. But we'll be the under dawg by then.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Peter

Ditto Andrew
I was a pleb in the dwg office and general office boy. My first job after school. I was there for the Island Seaway as well.

Ahhh, memories. I almost came back to work on the Seaway, but was stuck in Karratha.
Was "Yobbo" ( G Lear ) still running the drg office then??

Collins today is a world leader.

What, at rusting at its moorings?????

Andrew

[PeterHA (Peter)]

Well this is not an easy topic, but here some of the things which I find worth contemplating about:

• I often read about Australia being "World Class" in particular areas of industry but the world leaders do rarely share that view.
• We have fees for higher education but Scandinavian countries central European countries such as Germany (after a short time with fees) have free higher education and at least in the traditional engineering disciplines outperform us. They learned that payments are associated with an expectation to pass and that money does not equal talent.
• Our trade education system does not produce the same average level of competencies other leading countries do.
• In modern manufacturing methods like LEAN and TPM the majority of our businesses are behind world best practice.
• We have some high performing manufacturers and innovators such as Cochlear but that are our top 5%.

And most important, our remote location and small domestic market makes large scale manufacturing just not viable, not with the current wages.

[PeterEde (Peter)]

Alan Morris was in charge of the Dwg Office. funny the things you remember.

Collins has reputation that is not warranted. Yes it had problems. Not in manufacture but equipment the then government decided to install.

The boats were quiet by comparison to most other subs. Then they made a few modifications and the things disappear. I hear stories for guys who've crewed them and some of the things they've managed to do are amazing.

Today after the Coles report the maintenance issues have been sorted. Today ASC are a world leader in Sub maintenance. Their biggest let down was in the government over thinking them and buying cheap crap equipment to fit them out with.

Collins in operations is the world beater of conventional submarines and quieter than most nuclear subs

[AndrewJ]

Gday Peter

Alan Morris was in charge of the Dwg Office. funny the things you remember.

Hmm, the name rings a bell, but its very dim. Yobbo was in charge when i was there in the early eighties.( He was a grumpy so and so :-) )
IIRC Eric Fletcher was running a lot of it at the time of the Island Seaway.

Collins in operations is the world beater of conventional submarines and quieter than most nuclear subs

Anything is quiter than a nuke, we probably should have kept the Oberons.
When we were in germany, we had a whole group dedicated to getting a design that our pollies would buy. At the same time, IIRC the US sent a few admirals over to see if they might buy a few conventional subs, as they needed some "targets" for their nukes to practice against.
Totally different mentality.

Andrew

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

No matter what, consumers in Australia are not focused on buying Australian made or Australian supplied or Australian modified solutions.

I attempted to make something that was close to overseas prices but a slight bit more. in a thread which I believe is now archived, the first answer was to support an overseas product .

So I kept going for a little while and then can the whole astronomy supply industry.

Is it worth making things, possibly but essentially Australia still have to live on the poverty line to make consumers happy. Will I continue to try? I am not sure. I would like to, but am not confident to pursue it too far.

For the meantime I will make products for myself and that will be about all for the moment.

Hi Malcolm
I am interested, what did you actually make ?
There are I believe lots of people out there who will support an Australian made product & many of them are here on IIS.

[PeterHA (Peter)]

I will support local made any time if:

• The quality is on paar with leading European, Japanese or US products

and

• The price matches

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by gaa_ian

Hi Malcolm
I am interested, what did you actually make ?
There are I believe lots of people out there who will support an Australian made product & many of them are here on IIS.

Cheers Ian,

I made some torches, they were fairly cheap but had Rubylith filter instead of red LED.

After closing operations I made a Bluetooth module for scope connectivity. Considered selling it, although after the response I got from the original message I decided whether dealing to the Australian public was a good option. Canned the whole idea.

Once I finish my Uni exam, I may look at starting the torch again. I am also considering a new type of telescope heating but summers here so going to be hard to sell. It still may not be effective, I still have some more tests to do.

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Look there is an easy fix stop voting for Polly's who are selling us out so they can make a buck.

[PeterEde (Peter)]

Originally Posted by KenGee

Look there is an easy fix stop voting for Polly's who are selling us out so they can make a buck.

That puts both Libs and Labor out