Trade Shows/Events

Australia’s leading, privately owned, engineering, industrial manufacturing and services company, NEPEAN, recently hosted a highly successful Leadership Forum for its customers. Directed by Professor Boris Groysberg from the Harvard Business School, over 75 NEPEAN customers and guests attended the Forum at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Professor Groysberg is a highly regarded academic and much sought after international business consultant. He has won numerous awards for his research, which focuses on the challenges of managing human capital in organisations. In particular, his work explores how firms can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage by engaging employees in the implementation of business strategies. Professor Groysberg is also the author of the award-winning books, Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance, and Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power their Organisations. He is also a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review and has written numerous articles and case studies on how firms hire, engage, develop, retain and communicate with their talented employees. “We were very fortunate to have been able to secure Professor Groysberg for our annual NEPEAN Business Forum for Customers. He is in demand all around the world, and we are delighted he accepted our invitation to deliver a Harvard Business School style lecture that includes audience interaction for our customers,” explained Mr Miles Fuller, CEO and Director of NEPEAN. The full day seminar focussed on three key business themes: Leadership and Performance, Managing Talent and Building a Great Company. To address issues pertinent to leadership and performance, Professor Groysberg examined the critical factors which contributed to Jack Welch’s highly successful tenure as CEO at General Electric from 1984 to 2000. NEPEAN’s customers also heard first hand from Jack Welch, via archived video footage, on aspects of his various business strategies and leadership style. Professor […]

The world of manufacturing and production is undergoing unprecedented change with the convergence of information and operations technology, along with the emergence of modern technologies associated with the Internet of Things. The opportunity to learn about the latest integrated control and information portfolio of products, services and solutions that can enable a Connected Enterprise will be the focus of this year’s Automation Fair event from Rockwell Automation. Hosted by Rockwell Automation and members of its PartnerNetwork program on Nov. 18 and 19 in Chicago, the 2015 Automation Fair event will showcase the latest advancements in tools, technologies, services and solutions that can help drive profound changes across the automation investment life cycle. “Helping our customers realise greater productivity and increased global competitiveness through the Connected Enterprise is our passion and a top priority,” said Keith D. Nosbusch, chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation. “The 2015 Automation Fair event will help attendees learn and apply the most contemporary industrial automation and information solutions to machines, plants and production, and fully leverage the power of IT/OT convergence.” At this year’s event, more than 100 exhibitors will fill the west building of Chicago’s McCormick Place along with attendees of user-group meetings, hands-on labs, technical sessions and demonstrations. Attendees can experience Rockwell Automation products and technology at 19 hands-on labs, and participate in any of the 91 technical sessions. During nine industry- and audience-specific forums, customers and industry leaders will share best practices for the following industries and segments: automotive, chemical, food and beverage, global machine and equipment builders (OEMs), life sciences, metals, oil and gas, power and energy, and water wastewater. The week will start with the Process Solutions User Group (PSUG) annual meeting on Monday and Tuesday and the Automation Perspectives global media forum on Tuesday morning. PSUG will bring together more than […]

Melbourne – For years, advocates for manufacturing have worked hard to counter the prevailing impression that all workshops and factories are dimly lit, dirty and dangerous places. Of course, today most workshops rather resemble art studios rather than the picture painted above – and visiting all the major machine tool dealers’ stands at this year’s AUSTECH exhibition in Melbourne shows that manufacturing is poised for a yet more attractive makeover. Machine tools’ appearance and functionality are being modelled after digital devices such as smart phones or tablets that enable everyday communication and connectivity. Take Mazak’s new Mazatrol SmoothX CNC or DMG Mori’s Celos. The former is said to work four times faster than its fastest predecessors. A 19’’ panel with a multi-touch home screen presents all critical data to operators within a single page view. As John Hart’s Mark Dobrich explains, the controller also reduces machining time by maintaining optimal acceleration/deceleration control for a combination of axes and smooth corner control reduces vibration and shortens part-machining cycles. DMG Mori’s Celos looks like a stylish digital device from the future. It provides a uniform user interface for all new high-tech machines from DMG Mori. A unique  21.5” multi-touch screen displays all Celos Apps, which provide the user with integrated management, documentation and visualisation of order, process and machine data. Additionally, machine operation is simplified, standardised and automated, DMG Mori claims. Simplifying automation is another topic at the show. John Hart is showcasing an automated machine tending cell. There are of course many benefits of automation such as reduced costs, lower health and safety risks and increased production quality. However, as Mark Dobrich points out, many people are scared of complicated programming procedures. That’s why the company has developed its CellPro Modular Robotic Systems, which can be tailored to customers’ needs and comes […]

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™ […]

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.     

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 […]