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Site Safety Alliance Toolbox Talk addresses the hidden mental minefield of COVID-19 impacts

Site Safety Alliance’s new HEADSPACE Covid-19 Toolbox Talk addresses the hidden impacts of Covid-19 – the effects it can have on the mental health and wellbeing of tradies who may be facing increased financial, family and home pressures during these unusual circumstances. As Australia emerges from isolation and lockdown measures, mental health impacts are shaping up to be the biggest issue facing the nation. Internationally recognised mathematical modelling by the University of Sydney has suggested 750 additional lives could be lost to suicide each year for the next five years*. One in four of these deaths will be in young people. And that’s just one statistic, with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues causing increased strain for so many Australians. Preliminary results from a Monash University study of 1,200 Australians found that the majority experienced at least mild levels of anxiety or depression, with approximately 30% experiencing moderate or high levels**. A company dedicated to providing engaging safety messages to construction sites Australia-wide, Site Safety Alliance, has introduced a special “HEADSPACE Covid-19” Toolbox Talk pack to help companies address the mental minefield of Covid-19 impacts on workers, including financial strain, family issues and increased pressures at home. The special ‘Headspace Covid-19’ Toolbox Talk packs are available immediately for building, construction and infrastructure companies looking to support the safety and mental wellbeing of their workers. They are designed to ensure that workers feel that support is available to them if they feel more stressed and distracted at this time. Site Safety Alliance, which typically supplies comprehensive monthly Toolbox Talk packs to the building and construction industry, has prepared and produced specific content for site managers and safety managers to support workers on site who might be finding it difficult to cope with increased pressure or a change in routine created […]

Greater access regulation will become a new normal after coronavirus

Greater regulation of access to public and private buildings and visitor hot spots may figure among major impacts from the coronavirus affecting architects, builders, facility managers and site owners. “Certainly, there will be a new normal for people-intensive public and private facilities, where owners have a duty of care to protect staff and visitors,” says security and entrance specialist, Boon Edam Australia Managing Director Michael Fisher (Master security licence number: 000104487). The likely changes – including to Government-funded Covid recovery infrastructure spending in Australia and New Zealand – will be particularly relevant also to facilities such as hospitals, health care, schools, hotels, restaurants, tourism facilities and landmark structures and community and cultural assets. Accelerated safety and sustainability access control trends “Coronavirus may well accelerate changes that were already underway to promote greater safety and sustainability within our urban infrastructure. Such changes will be driven not only by the need to protect against health-related risks, but also in some cases to exclude threats such as urban pollution and to counter the rising incidence of physical violence against providers of public services.” “They are also highly relevant to and holders of valuable physical and electronic assets, including data and commercial information,” says Mr Fisher, whose parent Boon Edam organisation is a leading global manufacturer of energy-saving revolving doors and security entrances in 27 countries, including global names in data management and internet services. The 140-year-old family owned company’s top quality entrance control products are used by dozens of Fortune 500 companies as well as social infrastructure, transport terminals, public and private spaces where there are risks ranging from extreme physical intrusions – such as terrorism , violence and theft – to more subtle but sinister threats such as airborne pollution and infected carriers of contagious disease. Security technologies working in harmony Mr Fisher […]

Pyrosales operating at critical capacity during Covid-19 pandemic.

As Australia’s longest established manufacturers of precision temperature, level and flow measurement gauges, sensors and instrumentation, as well as calibration devices, they are helping out the essential services in need. When it comes to the Australian essential services, Pyrosales has always worked with them, even before the pandemic. Assisting with supply and manufacture for the Medical Industry, the most common products are the infrared thermometer to measure the temperature of individuals in a quick and accurate manner and thermal imaging devices that can detect variations in temperature of individuals. Hospitals and private medical businesses can rely on the team at Pyrosales to supplying refrigeration temperature equipment for medicines, blood and IVF storage as well as maintaining the equipment for sterilization, and of course food temperature control. They are also working to help our aged care facilities to control the temperature of their food and medicine. Pyrosales continue to help out the essential services by ensuring food plant manufacturers have adequate thermocouples, RKC temperature controllers, temperature and pressure gauges to maintain food production. “We have solutions for businesses to monitor their employees for fever temperature. Companies are investigating new ways to measure for the virus to reduce the spread into their workplace. Pyrosales has many products to suit any businesses requirements whether it is to meet the volume of employees, their price range or on-site technology. We not only supply to the medical and industrial market, we are also seeing an increase in demand for people to use in their homes,” said our CEO, John Shanahan. With many businesses in Australia struggling in the current climate, it is positive to see an Australian owned business working not only to help those who need it but are helping boost the economy and keep people in jobs.

Wearable devices to diagnose medical conditions

Transforming how common health conditions are diagnosed using point-of-care and wearable bio diagnostic devices is the goal of a new University of South Australia project, which has just secured nearly $2.2 million from the National Health, Medical and Research Council (NHRMC). Through an NHMRC Investigator Grant, UniSA biomedical engineer Professor Benjamin Thierry aims to develop a range of solid-state sensing and wearable technologies capable of diagnosing conditions including preeclampsia, epilepsy, fetal arrhythmias and heart attacks. Prof Thierry hopes these technologies will help address the significant health outcome disparities across the country, which sees Australians living in rural and remote areas experience higher levels of disease and reduced access to health services, compared with their metropolitan counterparts. “Wearable consumer products such as the Fitbit are already mainstream, yet the enormous transformative medical potential of wearable technologies is yet to be realised,” he says. “There is a huge opportunity for us to create wearable devices capable of better diagnosing and monitoring medical conditions, particularly in rural and remote settings where patients often do not have access to the testing and specialist care that is available in cities. “Some of the technologies I hope to develop include wearable devices able to continuously and accurately monitor the ECG, which could in turn predict epileptic seizures or detect preeclampsia and other related pregnancy complications. “These wearables use a cutting-edge solid-state sensing technology called Field Effect Transistors, which can measure bioelectric signals with extreme sensitivity when implemented at the nanoscale.” In addition, Prof Thierry will develop conformal devices based on Magnetic Tunneling Junction sensors to record and map magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the heart. He hopes this will enable more accurate non-invasive monitoring of fetal cardiac activity and rapid and point-of-care diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome, including heart […]

Frigate build site ready to launch $35 billion naval project

Work is almost finished in the $500 million upgrade of Adelaide’s new high-tech frigate shipyard with five new structures rising from its Port River site. Shipbuilding in South Australia is proving a bright spark in the economy with the first new construction shed for the nation’s $35 billion Hunter Class Frigate program now ready for action. Building 20 is part of the $500 million upgrade of the state’s Osborne shipyard and its handover to ASC Shipbuilding is now underway, keeping plans well on track for work on the nation’s nine anti-submarine warfare frigates to start this year. ASC Shipbuilding director Jim Cuthill said five new sheds in the shipyard were being fitted with cutting-edge equipment and the site’s builders Australian Naval Infrastructure and Lend Lease are on track for a complete handover in July. Meanwhile, design-based engineering work for the frigates was continuing. “At the moment about 70 per cent of our workforce is still working from home and we haven’t really missed a beat with the work that we are doing,” Cuthill said. “This is a program of national importance but it’s one that’s going to play a key role in terms of stimulating economic activity post Covid.” Workers employed on the frigates project run by ASC Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of defence giant BAE Systems Australia, are now just over 600 with Cuthill saying this would be ramping up from July to hit about 1000 by the end of 2020. Cuthill said Building 20 is where construction work for the frigates will begin, as the program kicks off with five prototype blocks of the ships being made in the first two years. The planned build would see mainly Australian steel first enter the highly automated fabrication hall to be cut and welded into the 75 units that will make up each of the frigates. Work then moves […]

UniSA and UOW join forces to build AI capability for Defence

A new collaboration between the University of South Australia (UniSA) and the University of Wollongong (UOW) is set to boost Australian defence industry research, focussing on each university’s strengths in data analytics and artificial intelligence. UniSA and UOW signed a Memorandum of Understanding this week to underpin the collaboration to deliver Australian Department of Defence (DoD) capability and explore wider engagement across other disciplines. The collaboration will enable new advances using AI and data analytics in the area of informed decision making and the development of goal-oriented autonomous systems. UniSA Director, Defence and Space, Matt Opie says combining the expertise of both organisations will improve the quality, depth and scope of the research delivered to Defence. “Together we can use our complementary research strengths to deliver better innovations and solutions for the Department of Defence,” Opie says. “UniSA has key research capabilities in information ecosystems, data analytics and the internet of military things to support a range of defence force requirements from battlefield decision making to military intelligence support systems. “Matched with what UOW can provide, we will be able to deliver a formidable research asset to the DoD and allied industries.” UniSA’s research team lead by Professor Markus Stumptner includes mathematicians, statisticians, engineers and software scientists with expertise in software interoperability, software architecture, Federated Analytics Platform, autonomous systems, and cybersecurity by design. The team also has expertise and research experience in data fusion, optimisations, mining, and trustworthiness and in sensor systems, digital twin/asset life cycle management, overarching Digital Models + Digital Systems, and predictive maintenance. Artificial Intelligence research lead at UOW, and Director of the Decision Systems Laboratory, Professor Aditya Ghose says his group works in a field called Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. “Our work applies knowledge representation and reasoning techniques to problems relating to intelligent agent systems, machine […]

Brighsun’s Li-S Batteries to enter industrial trials

Lithium Sulfur (Li-S) Battery Technology Breakthrough Through nearly 8 years of research, the Australian company Brighsun’s team, developed lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries with an energy density 5-8 times higher than conventional secondary batteries. According to results from an internationally accredited testing agency (SGS), Brighsun’s new technology allows an Li-S battery to keep 91% of its initial capacity after 1,700 cycles at a rate of 2C (being fully charged/discharged in 30 mins). That means the capacity decay per cycle is as low as 0.01%. Even at a more aggressive rate of 5C (being fully charged/discharged in 12.5 mins), Brighsun’s Li-S battery retains 74% of its initial capacity after 1,000 cycles (capacity decay per cycle of 0.026%). The cathode energy density for the 1th cycle after activation at charge rate of 1C is 2103.8Wh/kg. Driven by the growing markets world-wide for EVs, the battery industry has explored a range of chemical combinations: lithium iron phosphate, lithium cobalt oxide and, currently, nickel manganese cobalt. However, current battery systems still suffer from the major disadvantages of relatively low energy density, high raw material costs and secondary pollution during recycling. A Game Changer Brighsun’s advanced Li-S chemistry, offering high energy density and resultant low raw material costs, will be a game changer in the EV industry. Li-S batteries also have the potential to become the most promising energy storage systems for future railways, ships and airlines. Industries such as electric supply grid storage, mobile phones, drones and AI will also benefit from dramatically higher energy density storage provided by Brighsun’s new battery system. Companies in the US, Germany, Korea and China have been developing Li-S batteries and have achieved promising breakthroughs. However, these systems still face a number of challenges, including volume expansion of cathode materials during cycling, the shuttling effect of polysulfides, and the dendritic […]

Queensland food manufacturer switches to hand sanitiser

One of Queensland’s oldest family-owned companies and best-known food manufacturers Trisco Foods is fighting back against the COVID-19 pandemic by developing and launching its own brand of clinical-grade hand sanitiser in just three weeks. The company, which normally produces syrups and thickeners, today completed the first bottling of its new hand sanitiser that will be sold to aged care centres and health departments across the country. About 35,000 litres of hand sanitiser will be produced every week at the company’s Carole Park factory with volumes to increase over coming weeks as safety systems and processes are expanded. The product will initially be available in 3lt bottles and 500ml flip cap bottles. Trisco Foods CEO Mike Tristram said the company had been impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak and had been looking for new opportunities to utilise their product R&D and mass production capabilities. “To effectively fight COVID-19 now and into the future we are going to need a lot of hand sanitiser and after some initial feasibility studies worked out we could quickly ramp up production of a product that met the highest standards and could be used in a range of clinical situations,” he said. “Businesses all over the world are adapting and evolving to the new world and this is one we can not only strengthen our business and retain jobs, but also help fight the outbreak.” Trisco, which was named Premier of Queensland’s Exporter of the Year last year, normally produces world class food ingredients, such as syrups and sundaes, that are used here and abroad by leading food companies. The company also produces the highly successful Precise Thick-N range of instant liquid thickeners that helps maintain the health of people suffering from swallowing problems and neurological-related dysphagia. Last year, the company expanded to the US with a […]

Armour manufacturer secures first international order

A South Australian bullet-proof armour manufacturer has won a contract to supply its lightweight ballistic plates to the Finnish Army. ASX-listed XTEK Limited launched its state-of-the-art fabrication centre in Adelaide’s north in February and announced its first commercial order in March for use in Australian law enforcement. The Finnish sale, worth more than A$1 million, is XTEK’s first international order, which it says represents a key milestone in its ballistic armour commercialisation strategy. “We have worked very hard to ensure that the long customer cycles have progressed in parallel with the construction of the new manufacturing centre in Adelaide, to ensure that the manufacturing capability is utilised as soon as possible – and we are now very pleased to see this strategy successfully executed,” XTEK Managing Director Philippe Odouard said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange this morning. The new Adelaide manufacturing centre is equipped with the company’s XTclave composite materials curing and consolidation technology to manufacture lightweight ballistic armour plates and helmets. The machine, about the size of four shipping containers, runs cycles of ultra-high isostatic pressure at high temperatures to achieve composite curing of thermoset and thermoplastic resin. XTEK has based its R&D operations in Adelaide for the past 13 years, developing the lightweight armour plates and helmets as well as rifles and other defence related products. Odouard said their US compliant small arms protective insert plates are up to 30 per cent lighter than other products and have buoyancy potential, while the light helmets can stop AK-47 MSC bullets and fragments. The Finnish purchase order has come from CPE Production Oy, a supplier of high-performance lightweight ballistic protection solutions to the Finnish Defence Forces and other European defence customers. In late 2017, XTEK received a small purchase order for samples of its proprietary XTclave manufactured […]

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DECO Australia announce new showroom and innovation centre

DECO Australia has announced its showroom in Minto is undergoing a massive redesign to help showcase the company’s entire range of architectural building products and finishes. The new facility – renamed the ‘DECO Innovation Centre’ – will celebrate the company’s innovative spirit while creating a flexible, collaborative space that delivers a premium customer service experience. The DECO Innovation Centre has been architecturally designed by renowned architecture firm ClarkeHopkinsClarke to achieve a dynamic building and space that will allow for continued development and change as the family-owned manufacturing business continues to expand. ClarkHopkinsClarke partner and architect Jordan Curran said his vision was to transform DECO Australia’s industrial warehouse into an innovation centre by using their world-class products in real life applications. “DECO is a very innovative company with an extraordinary range of finishes and products. They’re constantly creating and testing new material solutions for the built environment. For this project, we worked with the DECO team to shape a bright and flexible environment that would allow their client base to interact with and understand the properties of their products. “In particular we wanted to display products in natural light, exhibiting how they behave throughout the day and in different seasons. We also wanted to create a sensory experience, positioning products where people could get up close and even touch.” said Curran. The Innovation Centre will feature DECO’s full range of architectural building products including their unique aluminium cladding, batten and decking systems, as well as a number of new, soon-to-be-released product lines. Also on display will be the full range of powder coat and sublimated aluminium finishes, including the premium timber-look DecoWood® finish, and an operational kitchen will feature DECO’s one-of-a-kind splashback product, DecoSplash. DECO founder and director Ross Doonan believes the new centre will reflect the company’s core values of quality and innovation. “The DECO Innovation Centre […]

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