Future of Manufacturing

Terry Smagh, Infor senior vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific and Japan

Turning Tech into ROI: 4 Practical Strategies for Manufacturers

By Terry Smagh, Infor Senior Vice President and General Manager, APJ Australia’s manufacturing sector is at a crossroads. Rising operational and energy costs coupled with labour shortages are affecting local production. Despite the Government’s ambitious ‘Future Made in Australia’ policy that envisions a transformative path for Australia’s economy over the next decade, the manufacturing sector has struggled to maintain competitiveness, create jobs and attract global investment. Securing Australia’s place in a rapidly changing global environment is vital to boost private sector investment and build a stronger and more resilient economy. Amid global geopolitical tensions, technology investments are vital to drive a transformation in manufacturing. According to research by McKinsey, technology centricity is an imperative rather than an alternative. Nearly half of top-performing companies have adopted product- or platform-centric operating models. The rest are trying to catch up. Recent research from Infor found that 80% of organisations expect to increase investment in technology by 20% or more over the coming years. Technology transformation is becoming an imperative in Australia as manufacturing businesses adopt advanced technologies like IoT, AI and cloud computing. These technology investments are effective when coupled with preparedness. Unfortunately, some Australian manufacturers are grappling with operational issues like staff shortages and resistance to adapting to new technologies. The nation’s ageing workforce, in particular, has widened this gap. Bridging the industrial skills gap through tech Adapting the workforce for a digital-first environment is critical for growth. Infor’s research sheds new light on this challenge, highlighting a significant gap between the most and least productive industrial organisations in terms of access to skilled talent, with a 22.7% difference in their ability to meet market demands. The talent crisis is being intensified by the rapid evolution of manufacturing technologies, which demands a workforce with more advanced skills than ever before. This presents […]

Why procurement leaders in manufacturing must rethink risk in the age of supply chain volatility

By Eamon Williams, procurement solutions specialist, OneAdvanced For procurement leaders in Australia’s manufacturing sector, risk is no longer a minor consideration; it’s a daily reality. From the Red Sea shipping crisis to the ongoing impact of inflation, trade tariffs and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, procurement professionals are navigating an era defined by disruption. In the past, risk management was largely about switching from unreliable suppliers or ensuring compliance with agreed service levels. Today, that’s just the beginning of the challenge facing the profession. The volatility of modern supply chains requires a more dynamic, data-driven and holistic approach to risk, one that goes beyond spreadsheets and static supplier assessments. The good news is that the manufacturing sector’s procurement leaders now have access to a new generation of technology solutions that are designed for this environment. Source-to-contract platforms offer real-time visibility, predictive insights, and built-in agility, giving businesses the tools to make smarter, faster, and more resilient procurement decisions. The risk landscape has shifted The global business environment has fundamentally changed over the past five years. The pandemic exposed the fragility of lean, just-in-time supply chains. Since then, the list of disruptive forces has grown to include wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, economic sanctions, climate-related events, inflation and labour shortages across critical sectors. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nearly one in five businesses (19 per cent) reported supply chain disruptions in 2024, up from 15 per cent the previous year. For procurement leaders, this means risk can arise from almost anywhere and often without warning. A supplier operating in a previously stable region may suddenly become inaccessible. A shipping lane may close due to military action or piracy. A raw material price may spike due to climate-related harvest failure. These scenarios are no longer theoretical. The latest McKinsey Global Supply Chain Leader Survey suggests that when it comes to supply chain resilience, companies are taking their foot off the gas. Traditional risk models, which rely on past performance and static supplier records, are ill-equipped to deal with these variables. A supplier with a perfect track record may still be highly exposed […]

A decade of natural gas delivers $127 billion boost to QLD economy

Queensland’s natural gas industry contributed $127 billion to the state economy while supporting nearly 60,000 jobs in its first decade of LNG exports, economic analysis commissioned by Australian Energy Producers has found. The Economic Impact of Queensland Natural Gas and LNG 2014–24 report, by Lawrence Consulting, found the industry directly spent $58.6 billion in Queensland over the last decade, including $42.5 billion with more than 3,000 local businesses, community groups and charities. Australian Energy Producers Queensland Director Keld Knudsen said the findings reaffirmed the gas industry is a key driver of Queensland’s economic prosperity and energy security. “As Queensland’s natural gas industry celebrates the significant milestone of a decade of LNG exports, it is worth reflecting how the industry has transformed Queensland’s economic and energy future,” Mr Knudsen said. “This investment is paying dividends for all Queenslanders, delivering reliable and affordable energy for millions of homes and businesses, while unlocking billions of dollars each year in economic activity and government revenue to help fund the essential services and infrastructure our communities rely on.”. Key findings of the sector’s contribution in the period 2014-24 include: $127 billion added to Queensland’s Gross State Product $58.6 billion spent across Queensland over the decade which comprised: $42.5 billion in spending with 3,178 businesses and 307 community groups $7.2 billion in payments to the Queensland Government $695 million paid to local councils $8.2 billion in wages to Queensland workers Mr Knudsen said Queensland’s LNG export industry is an integral part of regional communities across the state, underpinning local jobs, businesses and services. “Every LNG tanker that departs Gladstone represents around $4.5 million in royalties paid to the state, $11.2 million in spending with local businesses, and millions more in salaries, community contributions and taxes.” “Long-term policy certainty is key to driving more investment in new gas supply and […]

Australia’s Economic Reform Roundtable August 21-25, Canberra – a focus on Productivity

Decades of strong and continuous growth cemented Australia’s reputation as the “lucky country.” Most Australians took this economic exceptionalism for granted. And who could blame them? It was just a fact of life. While economic engines elsewhere faltered with bursting bubbles and financial crises, Australia powered ahead. Yet, around 2016, Australia’s economic engine started running out of puff and is now at risk of stalling. In the golden years (1993–2016), per capita GDP grew at 1.8 per cent a year. The post-2016 growth rate has averaged just 0.6 per cent, and, since 2020, it has been negative. Above decks, many missed the trouble brewing in the engine room. An extended mining boom, strong population growth, and a massive stimulus bump during the pandemic years kept the party going. Optimism prevailed: This is Australia, things are different here, and “she’ll be right, mate.” Up on the bridge in Canberra, lagging indicators masked slowing underlying momentum. Inflation, terms of trade, and immigration propped up headline economic numbers and the budget. At the same time, the passengers—especially older, first-class passengers—were buoyed by some of the world’s highest house prices. Since 2008, the average net wealth of Australians has doubled, remaining on par with the United States as the highest per capita among major economies. As much as 70 per cent of this increase came from property values. Spending by older home-owning cohorts remains healthy, while younger Australians—who have record-low home ownership—are tightening their belts. Now, Australia’s economic doldrums are increasingly apparent. In recent years, living standards in Australia have declined faster than in any other developed economy. Consumer prices, mortgage interest repayments, and income tax have increased sharply. At the same time, Australian real incomes are 2 per cent below their pre-pandemic high, while those of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development […]

Economic Reform Roundtable :Productivity

Australia is holding a roundtable on Productivity this month Lifting productivity is critical to growth in real wages, incomes, jobs and overall living standards. It needs to be done in a sustainable and inclusive way to ensure all Australians can benefit. Recent trends Lower growth in labour productivity has been a longstanding challenge for Australia. Australia’s average productivity growth in the 2010s was at the lowest rate in 60 years . – Reflecting this slowdown, Treasury downgraded its long-run annual labour productivity growth assumption from 1.5 to 1.2 per cent in 2022. – Even small movements in productivity growth will have large impacts on wages and living standards over time. The 2023 Intergenerational Report found that a decline from 1.2 per cent to 0.9 per cent growth per year would reduce per capita real income by more than $10,000 per person in 40 years’ time. This challenge is not unique to Australia, with labour productivity over the past decade slowing in most major advanced economies. A number of countries, including the United States, Canada and New Zealand have also downgraded productivity growth assumptions in official forecasts. Australia’s productivity slowdown has been broad based. Productivity growth in the market sector, excluding mining, has slowed over time. This has been compounded by weaker productivity growth in the non-market sector and mining industry in more recent years. Productivity growth accelerated temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic before reversing. Productivity returned back to levels observed in 2019 as employment and consumption trends normalised and the labour market recovered strongly. – During this recovery, strong capital growth still did not keep pace with growth in hours worked, resulting in a decline in the capital to labour ratio which has weighed on recent productivity growth. – Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) are monitoring the […]

While Tech Giants Build Humanoid Robots, This Australian Startup Solves the Harder Problem First

MotionLogic Selected as Finalist in Australia’s First AI and Robotics Sprint NEWCASTLE: Traversal Labs has been selected as a finalist in the inaugural Propel-AIR program, Australia’s first dedicated AI and Robotics Sprint, with their MotionLogic platform. While the world’s largest tech companies pour billions into building humanoid robots, Newcastle-based Traversal Labs has taken a contrarian approach. They’re teaching machines to understand human work patterns first. Their MotionLogic platform transforms ordinary factory video into detailed maps of human motion and interaction. This creates precise training data future robots need to work safely alongside people. “Everyone’s building the robot body,” said Alex McClung, founder of Traversal Labs. “We’re building the robot’s understanding of how humans actually work.” The AI-powered platform analyses camera footage to extract key performance data. It measures motion waste, task breakdowns, safety risks, and ergonomics. Workers’ movements are tracked in 3D space, measuring everything from walking distance to joint angles and tool handling efficiency. Australian Innovation Gains Industrial Traction MotionLogic is already deployed with enterprise clients in the heavy-manufacturing sector, with negotiations underway in the Aerospace, Rail, and Maritime sectors focusing on customers with complex assembly processes. The technology delivers immediate value through process optimization. A typical deployment reveals insights like total walking distance per shift, frequency of awkward postures, and opportunities for improved factory layout. The software provides production staff with detailed visibility into when tools are active versus idle and when workers are engaged in task-time versus non-task-time. But the long-term value lies in robotics training data. “Just as self-driving car companies use real-world driver data to train autonomous vehicles, MotionLogic feeds real-world human work patterns into industrial robot training,” McClung explained. From Ergonomics to Automation The platform’s multi-layered approach captures three distinct layers. The person layer tracks ergonomics and body movement. The tool layer monitors interaction […]

Fuel and fertiliser for the future: regional hydrogen and ammonia power Aussie farming

Hiringa Energy, Sundown Pastoral Company and the NSW Government have announced Financial Close has been reached on their Good Earth Green Hydrogen and Ammonia (GEGHA) project. GEGHA has satisfied all development milestones, with construction scheduled to begin in October this year. This achievement highlights the sustained opportunity for Australia’s green hydrogen industry, proving right-sized, demand-led projects can succeed. The GEGHA project is an integrated solar energy to low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia operation. Once complete the plant will be located adjacent to Sundown’s Joint Venture Wathagar cotton ginning facility, near Moree NSW. GEGHA will produce up to 4,500 tonnes of low-carbon ammonia annually, displacing high-carbon fossil fuel-based nitrogen fertilisers and removing up to 17,000 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions each year – the same as taking 6,500 passenger cars off the road or planting half a million trees. GEGHA fertiliser will be consumed by Sundown to support production of its positive net-zero, traceable Good Earth Cotton, with excess supply also available for other regional growers. In addition to ammonia production, the facility will supply ~224 tonnes of green hydrogen per annum for direct use. Green hydrogen is set to be consumed as part of Hiringa’s heavy-vehicle refuelling network, as well as on-farm to displace diesel in irrigation pumping, further decarbonising the agricultural supply chain from paddock-to-port. “Getting the green light for green fertiliser production isn’t just about producing low-carbon ammonia,” says Hiringa co-founder and CEO Andrew Clennett. “It’s a model for overcoming the obstacles that have held back the establishment of these new green industries. By strategically partnering with Sundown Pastoral Co, we’re anchoring demand with supply to meet the immediate needs of the agricultural sector.” Transforming supply chains GEGHA will offer East Coast Australia’s first green fertiliser supply, delivering regional producers with competitive, stable pricing for their fuels and feedstocks. […]

China’s greening steel industry signals an economic reality check for Australia

Cristoph Nedopil, Director Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University Australia has flourished as an export powerhouse for decades. Much of this prosperity has been driven by the nation’s natural endowment with two important raw products for producing steel the traditional way: iron ore and metallurgical coal. Worth more than A$100 billion in 2024, Australia’s iron ore shipments to China make up about 55% of everything we export there. But a transformation has been taking place in China’s steel industry, which is under intense pressure to decarbonise. Earlier this year, Beijing formally expanded its national emissions trading scheme to cover steel production. And just this month, it issued another decree requiring steelmakers to increase their share of green energy in steel production. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent visit to China may have looked like a celebration of normalised diplomatic or trade ties. Behind the scenes was a quiet but critical economic pivot. Australia’s economic future depends on whether it can green its exports fast enough to meet the decarbonisation needs of its biggest market. A greener China In China, no new permits for coal-based steelmaking appear to have been issued since early 2024. However, China has been approving new, greener steelmaking capacity, using electric arc furnace (EAF) technology, the main low-emissions technology in steel. These furnaces use high-voltage electric arcs, powered ideally by green energy, to melt scrap steel or what’s known as direct reduced iron (DRI). Through that process, they limit carbon emissions by reducing the use of thermal coal for electricity and metallurgical coal for iron making in blast furnaces. In total, China has now installed enough electric arc furnaces to produce more than 160 million tonnes of steel annually. That’s about the same as the total steel output of Japan and the United States combined. China’s current 10% share of steel production from electric arc furnaces still remains below the country’s 15% target. But […]

Does AI actually boost productivity? The evidence is murky

-John Whittle, Director, Data61, CSIRO There’s been much talk recently – especially among politicians – about productivity. And for good reason: Australia’s labour productivity growth sits at a 60-year low. To address this, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened a productivity round table next month. This will coincide with the release of an interim report from the Productivity Commission, which is looking at five pillars of reform. One of these is the role of data and digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). This will be music to the ears of the tech and business sectors, which have been enthusiastically promoting the productivity benefits of AI. In fact, the Business Council of Australia also said last month that AI is the single greatest opportunity in a generation to lift productivity. But what do we really know about how AI impacts productivity? What is productivity? Put simply, productivity is how much output (goods and services) we can produce from a given amount of inputs (such as labour and raw materials). It matters because higher productivity typically translates to a higher standard of living. Productivity growth has accounted for 80% of Australia’s income growth over the past three decades. Productivity can be thought of as individual, organisational or national. Your individual productivity is how efficiently you manage your time and resources to complete tasks. How many emails can you respond to in an hour? How many products can you check for defects in a day? Organisational productivity is how well an organisation achieves its goals. For example, in a research organisation, how many top-quality research papers are produced? National productivity is the economic efficiency of a nation, often measured as gross domestic product per hour worked. It is effectively an aggregate of the other forms. But it’s notoriously difficult to track how changes in individual or organisational productivity translate into national GDP per hour worked. […]

DroneShield's current in-house production facility in central Sydney

DroneShield to invest as it expands manufacturing capacity

DroneShield will invest an initial A$13M in a major new R&D and manufacturing facility, triple the size of its current facility, as it expands its annual manufacturing capacity to $2.6BN by the end of 2026. The company’s largest facility is expected to open in December 2025 and will feature advanced in-house production, testing and warehousing capabilities. The existing production floor in Alexandria,central Sydney will be converted into an additional R&D area for the Company, resulting in a 5,530sqm total R&D area. It follows DroneShield securing a $61.6M European military contract followed shortly by $9.7M million Latin American and $11.7M Five-Eyes R&D deals. ‘In response to rising threats and multiple wars taking place across the globe, Australia’s allies are increasing investment in modern defence capabilities. We are stepping up to meet this demand by investing in state-of-the-art facilities here and abroad, and in sovereign Australian skills development to provide the most modern and effective counter-drone capabilities in the world. Our new facility in Alexandria will epitomise the value Australian engineering can bring to a changing geopolitical landscape’, said DroneShield CEO Oleg Vornik. R&D and Manufacturing Capacity Expansion DroneShield is committing to invest $13 million in a significant R&D and manufacturing capacity expansion New dedicated 3,000sqm of own production space (3x the floorspace of the current production facility) Addition of 2,500sqm to the R&D area in its headquarters, for engineering and lab space Together with planned expansions to its Australian contract manufacturing, and plans to set up contract manufacturing in Europe and the US, the current $500 million annual manufacturing capacity is estimated to expand to $2.4 billion, by the end of 2026 The expansion in Australia is concurrent with DroneShield’s European and US manufacturing initiatives, against the backdrop of record global demand The $13 million amount refers to 5 years of initial […]

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Future of Manufacturing