November 2014

How Life Cycle Engineering can make manufacturing more competitive

By Professor Sami Kara Director of Postgraduate Research Faculty of Engineering University of New South Wales Manufacturers in New Zealand and Australia are hearing a constant refrain: to remain competitive in the global manufacturing marketplace, companies must become more productive with fewer resources and must find ways to differentiate themselves from the competition. As well as becoming more ‘lean’ there is increasing pressure to become more environmentally sound. The answer, according to our research at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, could be Life Cycle Engineering (LCE). LCE is an approach to product design and manufacture that takes into account the entire product life cycle from beginning to end. With increased resource scarcity there is an opportunity for manufacturers to minimise their environmental impact and improve return, by controlling the entire product life cycle. This is a dramatic departure from the traditional manufacturing approach, which generally concerns itself with the product’s life cycle only up until the end of its warranty period, which has resulted in a disposable society, where many products are simply sent to landfill. The world has limited resources to sustain production. Approximately 89 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels were consumed per day worldwide in 2011 . By 2030 China alone is expected to consume 17.5 million barrels per day . Limited copper resources will cause similar issues. With this increased pressure on resources, manufacturers will eventually have to find alternatives to using high levels of raw materials. If products were designed from the beginning to be dismantled at the end of their lifespan, it would make the recycling process much easier and more cost-effective, and significant resources would not be wasted. LCE would go some way to addressing this issue but to be truly viable it must […]

A Trade Agreement, but not a Free Trade Agreement

Today’s China – Australia Free Trade Agreement announced by Minister Robb includes gains for some Australian grains but not all. Australia’s premier grain industry has missed out on concessions under the China Australia Free Trade Agreement. After 10 years of negotiations, Australian wheat remains subject to an out-of-quota tariff of 65 per cent, and within-quota tariff of 1 per cent. Exports of Canola will also continue to be subject to a tariff of 9 per cent, and maize exports have also been excluded from concessions under the deal. “Wheat and canola continue, along with rice, sugar and maize, to be non-negotiable for China. However, in the case of wheat, the Chinese world wheat quota is currently 9.6 million tonnes, so well above their imports and not binding. The 1 per cent in-quota tariff, as long as it’s applied to all exporters of wheat to China, is not a significant distortion to trade and it’s that equivalence that we will be focusing on in the short-term.” Says Cheryl Kalisch Gordon, Manager Trade & Market Access, GrainGrowers. The Australian grains industry will however benefit from immediate removal of the 3 per cent tariff on barley and 2 per cent tariff on sorghum. Australian exports of these grains to China are growing on the back of an expanding Chinese alcoholic beverage sector and in 2013 exports were valued at $351 million and $91 million respectively. The value of tariff removal for these two commodities represents around $12 million per annum in 2013 trade terms with the benefit being shared between Chinese consumers and the Australian grains industry. With trade in these commodities expected to continue to grow over time, these annual benefits will also increase. Other positives for grains from the agreement include: • Immediate removal of the 2 per cent tariff on […]

OLYM-Release-AINDT 2014 Conference Preview_1

Olympus gives instrumental support to AINDT

Each year, the Australian Institute of Non-destructive Testing (AINDT) Conference provides the opportunity for maintenance and quality assurance professionals to learn more about NDT and related technologies from leading AINDT members including Olympus. The four day conference is being held this year at the Sofitel Brisbane Central from 23-26 November. NDT is any analysis technique used to evaluate the properties of materials or components without causing damage or permanently alter the article being inspected. Picture: The Olympus RollerFORM phased array wheel probe simplifies composite material inspection On its stand at the AINDT Conference, Olympus will be demonstrating a range of NDT, phased-array, remote visual inspection (RVI) and X-Ray fluorescence (XRF) portfolios to attendees. “We continue our commitment to the Institute and its ongoing initiatives promoting the benefits of NDT,” said Graham Maxwell, National Key Accounts & Technical Manager at Olympus. “We will be demonstrating our range to new customers and showing our continued support and commitment to existing customers.” Olympus staff will be on hand to discuss the latest NDT tools from the company. Richard Nowak, NDT Product Specialist, will be giving practical demonstrations of the Nortec N600 Eddy Current analyser and the RollerFORM phased array wheel probe. A special guest at this year’s conference will be Nicholas Bublitz, who is visiting Australia again from Olympus Scientific Solutions America. He will be presenting a technical paper entitled “Improving Surface Mine Profitability with Phased Array Ultrasonics.” Visitors to the Olympus stand will have the opportunity to meet with Bublitz to discuss a range of NDT solutions or troubleshoot advanced applications with a renowned international product specialist. Bublitz has been a Global Product Support Specialist with Olympus SSA since 2012. He is responsible for the global support and industry advancement of all NDT equipment produced by Olympus. Mr Bublitz’s primary focus […]

IC3D Steel 2.0 with improved management features

IC3D, a leading provider of hardware and software solutions for the Manufacturing, Architectural and Engineering industries, has introduced the latest version of its steel structural design and management software, IC3D Steel™ for SolidWorks®. IC3D Steel 2.0 introduces a raft of features centred on improving project flow and management, and simplifying organisational tasks like notating bolt lists and depicting virtual bolts in a design. IC3D Steel was first conceived as a dedicated steel design tool for SolidWorks. It built upon SolidWorks’ parametric modeller and its core Weldments Design function, to build a ‘structural workflow’ application that is perfect for building and detailing with steel. The aim is to make the design process quicker, simpler and error-free. Refined with additional functionality, the software that makes it easier for designers and design teams to manage their projects within a specified workflow, and gives them additional tools to simplify organisation within projects. In IC3D Steel 2.0, projects are organised individually, all relevant files are associated automatically, and files are stored logically for easy retrieval, backup or archiving. Important project meta-data such a customer’s details, project number and document-numbering scheme can be configured at project setup. IC3D Steel uses this data whenever it creates or updates a document in the project; meaning drawings can be consistently labelled for additional security. Other new features address the complexity inherent in steel fabrication projects. For example, with steel designs generating up to ten times as many bolts, nuts and washers as steel members, the usual performance of SolidWorks can become compromised as assemblies become very large. IC3D Steel 2.0 features ‘virtual bolts’ in each of its joint details to manage the problem, so work is unaffected no matter how many bolts are used in the design. A new ‘Bolt List’ report generates a complete list of these fasteners […]