March 2015

World safety leaders converge on Safety First

The Safety First Conference & Expo will present world-leading safety experts in high level Premium Forums running throughout its four days – May 26 – 29 – in Melbourne this year. More than a dozen speakers, including Griffith University’s Professor Sidney Dekker and DuPont Sustainable Solutions’ Dr Rod Gutierrez have confirmed they are bringing new research, strategies and real-world advice to share with safety professionals via the Premium Forum events. Alternating with free, open briefings taking place throughout the Safety First Conference, the three Premium Forums are intimate sessions on core themes: Safety Leaders Skills, Human Factors for Safety Leaders and Psychological Injury. Key to the Premium Forums will be the opportunity to ask questions of each speaker. Anthony Reed, Event Director for Safety First comments, “One of the real benefits of the Premium Forums is the opportunity to benchmark your practices against best practices and achievements in the industry. Each of the sessions has been designed to give you high level ideas and strategies – and because they’re taking place behind closed doors, you will have a rare opportunity to quiz industry leaders about what they – and you can – do differently to influence safety outcomes.” The Premium Forums include: Premium Forum A – Safety Leaders Skills Pro Tuesday 26 May 1.30pm – 4.00pm Participants will discuss advanced skills including: • Exploring behaviours that can unintentionally boost risk in the workplace • Communicating in ways that help create a culture of safety • Measuring your success as a safety leader A highlight at this event will be speaker Dr Angelica Vecchio-Sadus, HSE Manager, CSIRO Manufacturing Flagship is one of Australia’s top women in health and safety. Her presentation will cover different indicators of success you can use at various stages of the journey – such as measuring lead […]

Securing industrial networks and remote access for packaging machinery

Packaging machinery’s automation control systems and networks need to be secured to protect valuable intellectual property and enhance productivity. The ability to use standard unmodified Ethernet throughout, from the enterprise all the way down to individual field devices enables new levels in connectivity for people, processes, data and things, ultimately providing greater productivity, better utilisation of assets, and improved decision-making to industrial companies. Establishing a Connected Enterprise can deliver many benefits to the packaging industry by providing improved connectivity between enterprise systems and the plant floor. However, while increasing connectivity and visibility into the system helps create a seamless flow of information; technologies such as mobile devices, the cloud and big data also introduce security risks that require careful consideration and mitigation. According to Robert Hicks, OEM segment manager at Rockwell Automation, “No single product, technology or methodology can fully secure industrial applications. Protecting industrial assets requires a layered approach that helps mitigate various types of security threats – both internal and external.” “It’s also important to note that only a small percentage of security risks have malicious intent, the majority of risks are non-malicious in intent, and often even unintentional, such as staff inadvertently accessing controllers or machinery they should not be authorised to access, or changing parameters without realising that their actions could cause issues for that system,” he said. A defense-in-depth security architecture is based on the idea that any one point of protection may, and probably will, be defeated. This approach requires multiple layers of defense to help ensure a weakness or flaw in one layer can be protected by strength, capabilities or new variables introduced through other security layers. To help OEMs build these layers of security into machinery and endusers’ facilities, Rockwell Automation teams with industry leaders, such as Cisco® and its other PartnerNetwork™ […]

OMAX to spotlight versatile machining centre at AUSTECH 2015

At AUSTECH 2015 on stand 608 at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre on May 26-29, OMAX Corporation and Headland Machinery Pty. Ltd., the company’s exclusive distribution partner for Australia, will showcase the versatility and high-speed cutting precision capabilities of the Maxiem 1530 Jet Machining Centre. The all-new 1530 represents the company’s next generation line of Maxiem machines. Building on the cost-effective, yet high-performance technology of its predecessors, the newly redesigned 1530 offers enhanced durability, improved performance, and faster production times for an overall increase in productivity and profitability. At AUSTECH, the company is pairing the 1530 with a reliable 40-hp direct-drive pump to demonstrate how easy it is to cut virtually any material quickly and efficiently. Building on the company’s 20 years of direct-drive pump design experience, the latest machine comes with a 50,000-psi pump that features Variable Frequency Drive technology for precise cutting pressure control. The pump delivers more cutting power per kilowatt than intensifier-type pumps. The machine’s Windows 8 controller comes pre-loaded with OMAX’s latest version of the powerful Intelli-MAX Software Suite. Intelli-MAX 21 – with a new fourth generation cutting model – builds upon years of real-world abrasive waterjet data accumulated through prior generations of OMAX’s equation-based cutting models to optimise tool paths automatically and gives users precise predictability as to cutting speeds, taper, jet lag and other abrasivejet factors. The result has taken abrasive waterjet cutting to the industry’s highest levels of speed and performance. The 1530 also features updated digital linear encoders, an innovative Z-axis core with optional multi-axis cutting heads and the lowest ceiling height in the industry. Additional enhancements to the machine include streamlined abrasive hopper designs and self-levelling base legs.

Green energy orb environmentally outstanding

A spectacular orb-shaped green energy storage facility being installed at one of Australia’s largest beef processing plants is helping to demonstrate how industry can profit from environmental initiatives. The 6000m3 capacity flexible pvc-coated polyester fibre flexible storage tank collects biogas produced by the new Global Water Engineering COHRAL(TM) Covered High Rate Anaerobic Lagoon being installed by CST Wastewater Solutions at Oakey Beef Exports on Queensland’s Darling Downs. To be commissioned next year, the plant will extract green energy biogas (methane) from its waste water streams to replace millions of dollars worth of natural gas currently consumed at the abattoir. The 26m high flexible storage tank – one of the world’s largest of its type – features resilient flexible double membrane storage so that gas produced by the COHRAL plant can be safely stored separately from the gas generator. Use of the separate flexible tank for gas storage provides security against leakage, with gas securely contained in the tank instead of being more loosely contained under lagoon covers. The Sattler biogas storage design selected for Oakey Beef has been tested and proven over decades and now is an integral feature in the design of modern waste water treatment plants worldwide. They are engineered to be permanently gas-tight with high operational reliability and optimum safety. “The safe, durable and environmentally harmonious COHRAL(TM) technology deployed at Oakey Beef can be widely applied worldwide to food, beverage and agricultural and primary processing plants. Oakey Beef Processing and its owners Nippon Meat Packers have taken a far-sighted initiative that opens the way to cleaner, greener and more profitable industry performance,” says CST Wastewater Solutions Managing Director Mr Michael Bambridge, whose company represents the GWE COHRAL(TM technology in Australia and New Zealand. The COHRAL(TM plant (with alternative view of the flexible storage tank above) is expected […]

Maintenance for mine profitability

Mining operations and manufacturing facilities rely on the continued safe operation of vehicles and machinery to maintain profitability. Any equipment failure can be expensive in terms of lost production and cost of repairs. An estimate for the cost of lost production for a single dragline is $8000 per hour in Australia making any breakdown very costly when it might take weeks for a replacement part to be available. One way to minimise losses is to continually monitor plant and machinery using non-destructive testing (NDT) methods to ascertain component health, and monitor mechanisms for damage. Phased array ultrasound can enhance day to day inspection of surface mining equipment, thereby improving safety and keeping critical equipment operational. However, it is important that inspections are performed with minimal down time, so need to be planned and coordinated to ensure that critical parts are available when the maintenance is carried out. As part of the technical programme at the recent Australian Institute for Non-Destructive Testing (AINDT) Conference in Brisbane, Nicholas Bublitz, a Global Product Support Specialist with Olympus Scientific Solutions America (OSSA), reported on how the use of phased array ultrasonics could improve surface mine profitability. NDT is a group of techniques used to detect discontinuities in materials or components without causing damage or permanently altering the article being inspected. The AINDT Conference provided opportunities for NDT and maintenance professionals to meet and discuss the latest advances in NDT from around the world. Leading corporate members of the Institute, such as Olympus, displayed and demonstrated some of their innovative, precision analysis instrumentation and applications supporting NDT. “NDT methods like ultrasonics, eddy current and radiography—along with condition monitoring techniques such as oil and vibration analysis—play an important part in predictive maintenance programs and help reduce unexpected expenses,” Bublitz said. Outage and emergency repair costs can […]

AUSTECH 2015 – The world’s leading machine tool builders under one roof

Those who walk through the doors of Melbourne’s Convention and Exhibition Centre from 26 to 29 May 2015 will have a world of manufacturing opportunities open before their eyes. Of course it takes all areas of manufacturing to come together, including tooling, workholding, software and systems integration, to create a complete solution, but machine tools are one important piece of the manufacturing puzzle. This year, Australia’s premier advanced precision manufacturing and machine tool show will once again host all the world’s leading machine tool builders under one roof, showcasing the latest machine tool configurations and also stylings that are notably different and fresh. The slowly recovering but still very challenging conditions of the Australian market for machine tools and other equipment makes AUSTECH of keen interest to local suppliers. “Given the current conditions inside Australia’s metal manufacturing sector, it’s important that business owners and operators can examine the next investment steps in manufacturing technology they must take to rebuild their competitive position in the global arena,” Phil Hayes, Managing Director of Okuma Australia & NZ comments. “The machine tool field has been somewhat difficult for the past three years but that has not prevented us from making available the very latest, market-leading and innovative technology from Okuma.” Okuma will showcase three levels of new technology, including 5-axis machining, Phil Hayes explains. “New advanced technology machine models of 5-axis milling with turning and 10-axis turning with milling, amazing advances in the user-interface of Okuma’s own OSP controller technology and packaged, kit-style automation solutions. These are central to the technology investments Australian manufacturers must make to keep pace with overseas manufacturing trends that are well advanced.” Rebuilding a competitive position requires local manufacturers to do several things: Investing in new and highly-efficient equipment. Automating. Training and retraining. One of the recent major […]