Developments

By Dr. Maya Natarajan, Senior Director, Knowledge Graphs, Neo4j Since the onset of the pandemic, global supply chains have suffered unprecedented disruptions. Volatility in supply and demand, as well as route restrictions, have caused catastrophic breakdowns. Critical supply chains that should be resilient with ample redundancy built in have instead been revealed to be highly vulnerable. A Dun & Bradstreet study found that 163 Fortune 1000 companies had Tier 1 suppliers impacted and 938 had Tier 2 supplier impacted by the pandemic. According to Capgemini research, 74% of supply chain companies faced a shortage of critical parts and materials, and 68% had products held up in ports or across borders. Similarly in Australia, according the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), over a third (37 per cent) of all businesses experienced supply chain disruptions in February 2022. The survey found the most common supply chain issue facing businesses was domestic and international delivery delays (88 per cent), while 80 per cent had supply constraints and 75 per cent had seen increased prices (including transport costs).  A key reason is the vast complexity of global supply chains. With so many different links in terms of sources, suppliers and routes they are highly multi-dimensional, making it extremely difficult to get visibility through traditional methods. Without visibility, it’s very hard to find redundancies in terms of alternate routes and suppliers. The need for supply chain visibility To be resilient, supply chains need to be visible. As McKinsey notes, one way to build long-term supply chain resilience is to construct a digital twin: “a virtual replica of a business’s operation that allows companies to simulate how a product, process, or service will perform before it is implemented in the real world.” Essentially, supply chains are all about understanding networks and dependencies. So, data that’s usually in different data stores, such as […]

A new study by The University of South Australia has tested and verified the structural integrity of walls constructed from tyres packed with earth, with the results potentially providing new opportunities for the reuse of end-of-life tyres in the construction industry. Tyre waste represents a major sustainability challenge globally, with Australia alone generating an average of 55 million (450,000 tonnes) end-of-life tyres each year.   While earth-packed tyre walls have been used in niche construction scenarios for decades, there has previously been no strong empirical data available to support their use, a fact that has limited their wider uptake by architects and engineers. Supported by Tyre Stewardship Australia, a UniSA team consisting of Yachong Xu, Martin Freney, Reza Hassanli, Yan Zhuge, Mizanur Rahman and Rajibul Karim, has rigorously assessed the structural integrity of a test tyre wall to examine how the structure performed under various stressors. According to Dr Martin Freney, the wall proved to be as structurally sound as conventional walls used in residential applications. “The wall we tested was the first of its kind to be scientifically tested in this fashion, and all the data indicates tyre walls can be extremely strong and safe structures,” Dr Freney says. “While that structural integrity has been observed for many years in applications such as the retaining walls in earth-sheltered, Earthship homes, the lack of supporting data has prevented wider uptake of tyre walls by engineers and architects, and we’re hoping this study will change that and expand the range of projects in which these walls are used.” In considering expanded uses for tyre walls, Dr Freney suggests several unique characteristics of the structures may offer benefits over some traditional building approaches, particularly for retaining walls. “Not only are the tyre walls as structurally sound as concrete or wood sleeper retaining […]

Australia’s number one residential steel frame supplier, Aus Steel has selected global Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) specialist, SYSPRO, to help the company drive efficiencies in its build process and improve the scheduling of its precision engineered frames. Headquartered in Cameron Park in Newcastle, Aus Steel has been an innovator in the residential steel frame and truss industry since 1992. The company produces custom frames with cutting edge technology using the highest quality G550 steel on its roll form machines. ⁠Aus Steel has seen unprecedented growth due to the residential property boom. The increased demand has resulted in two new production sites in Crestmead in Brisbane and Goulburn in New South Wales, with more sites planned along the east coast of Australia. “We’ve spent years perfecting our steel frame system and we’re constantly looking for ways to evolve and improve the total build process to make it more efficient. We have ambitious plans to grow the business further, so we’ve looked at innovative ways to improve our manufacturing and achieve our vision of challenging the way Australia builds,” said Lewis Onley, Chief Operating Officer at Aus Steel. Aus Steel took the decision to implement a cloud-based ERP system to replace its manual systems which are currently based on unlinked databases and Excel spreadsheets. The company looked at several options in the market and then shortlisted three ERP systems.  “We ultimately selected SYSPRO Cloud ERP due to its superior manufacturing capabilities complete with advanced planning and scheduling through the SYSPRO MOM (Manufacturing Operations Management) system as well as the team’s deep understanding of manufacturing and Aus Steel’s specific needs,” said Onley. SYSPRO will be implemented across Aus Steel’s core business processes including Manufacturing, Distribution and Finance and will enable the Aus Steel team to efficiently schedule production processes, provide more accurate costing information to clients […]

After three years of drought, including two years of pandemic-induced economic disruption, Namoi Cotton, Australia’s largest cotton processor, is back to ginning up new business, making a compelling case for cloud migration.  The company has adopted Oracle’s OCI technology to help ramp up production and meet growing demand.  Following drought and pandemic-induced economic disruption, cotton growers have ramped up production, pushing to near capacity Namoi Cotton’s 10 ginning facilities and three warehouses across New South Wales and Queensland. Namoi Cotton is aiming to gin 1.1 million to 1.2 million bales in 2022, 40% above its sustainable average volume. Prices for lint cotton—the raw fibre from the cotton plant after the ginning process removes the seeds and other unwanted material—are at their highest levels in years due to pent-up demand and the continued supply chain challenges stemming from the global pandemic. Namoi Cotton’s business, including its marketing and logistics joint ventures, is on the upswing, with the company reporting positive EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) last year. “We are in a good position at the moment…you don’t often see high prices and high volumes at the same time,” said Neil Johns, Namoi Cotton’s executive general manager of strategy and business development, on the company’s earnings call in late April. ‘Technical debt’ With Namoi Cotton’s business on the rise, so are the demands on its IT systems. Throughout the drought and into the pandemic, however, Namoi Cotton accumulated “technical debt”—systems it hadn’t upgraded in years because finances were tight.  Exhibit A was the company’s core applications for managing accounts receivable, accounts payable, and spare-parts inventory. Those on-premises applications, part of the Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.1 suite, were past their end of life and thus were expensive to maintain and no longer eligible for security patches, bug fixes, and […]