Category: New Ideas

Report highlights role of advanced manufacturing, services for export

The Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s Office of the Chief Economist yesterday released the Industry Insights — Globalising Australia report, showing that future growth opportunities will come from Australia’s manufacturing industry moving towards higher-value processes like research and development, and product design and marketing.

The report shows that as production processes become increasingly interconnected globally, Australian firms must move towards these higher value activities and capitalise on new market opportunities to remain competitive.

The report also reveals that Australia’s professional and finance industry services, often embedded in the commodities and advanced manufacturing exports, make up almost half the value of all Australian exports.

This, according to the report, is because conventional statistics often understate the economic contribution of services like value chain logistics and coordination, accounting advice to exporters or other business services.

Increasing demand for these services from China and elsewhere in Asia is likely to present significant growth opportunities and high-skilled jobs into the future.

Acting Chief Economist David Turvey said the report confirmed the importance of supporting industry transition, removing trade barriers, and encouraging innovation to ensuring Australia’s place in the global trade environment.

“Australia is an outlier amongst developed nations when it comes to global trade, mainly supplying raw materials with limited participation in the production of final goods,” Turvey said.

“This is partly due to geography. Australia is on the periphery of trading blocs, while an economy like Taiwan is in the middle of a manufacturing hub surrounded by China, Japan and Korea. But it also reflects our competitive advantages and resource endowments,” he said.

Turvey said the report shows the Australian economy is adapting to global trade patterns.

“Australian manufacturing is restructuring to focus on the high value-add processes like R&D, design and marketing, while lower value-add production activities are offshored to lower wage countries.

“In addition, the conventional trade statistics understate the importance of services to Australian exports. The statistics show that products exported across Australia’s border are mostly commodities like iron ore or manufacturing products. Yet services make up nearly half of value added in all Australian exports. Put another way, the contributions of Australia’s highly-skilled professional services and finance industries are embedded in the lumps of rock that we export,” Turvey said.

The next edition of Industry Insights, a three-part publication by the Office of the Chief Economist in the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, will examine how Australia can capitalise on new technologies to improve productivity into the future.

Drones on Demand: Should You Outsource?

Drone usage on construction jobsites is growing—as is another trend related to drones. Many construction companies are foregoing training their workers on how to operate drones, and as a result, they are outsourcing the task.

DRONE OUTSOURCING OPTIONS

One new example of this comes from DroneDeploy, which recently announced its Drone on Demand solution, which lets customers plan a flight mission using DroneDeploy’s cloud platform and then request a certified professional pilot from DroneBase.

The company will then go to the site, perform the flight, and collect aerial data. After planning a flight and requesting a pilot, photos, maps, and 3D models appear within 72 hours. This enables construction companies to make informed decisions based on the data—without actually having to fly the drone themselves.

As another example, Measure, a drone-as-a-service company, is providing turnkey and toolkit commercial drone solutions to acquire, process, and deliver actionable aerial data to enterprise customers.

Looking even further down the road, perhaps construction companies won’t need to outsource this area of the business at all, rather the drones will fly themselves autonomously. Skydio recently announced a self-flying camera for consumers. A service like this just might be invaluable to the construction industry as well.

Until that time, there are a number of services available for construction companies that want to outsource flying drones on projects.

Energy and Mines Australia Summit: Australia becoming the global centre for renewables for mines

As recent project announcements show, the number of Australian mining operators seriously assessing and investing in renewables is growing rapidly. Driven by favourable economics and additional benefits including carbon reductions and social license, major and mid-tier Australian mines are adopting renewables.

South32 recently announced its 3MW solar farm for its Cannington mine in Queensland for which SunSHIFT is providing its re-deployable solar solution. Once complete, this will be the second largest solar project for a remote, off-grid Australian mine.

Similarly, Image Resources is investing in a 3–4MW solar farm adjacent to its Boonanarring mine and processing plant, which are currently under construction. This ‘behind the meter’ solution will deliver around 25 per cent of the facilities electricity needs. GMA Garnet, a leading supplier of garnet used in blasting and water jet cutting, has locked in energy prices for the next 13 years for its Western Australia operations through a long-term power purchase agreement for wind and solar.

OZ Minerals also recently announced plans to build a solar and battery storage facility at its Prominent Hill mine in South Australia, and is looking at further investments in renewables to support other projects in the region. The mine also became the first resource company to sign a transmission cost partnership with a renewables developer through its recent deal with SolarReserve.

Finally, New Century Resources is investing in SunSHIFT’s portable and scalable solar system to supply power for the refurbishment of its Century mine at $120/MWh which is a fraction of the $400/MWh it had been paying to run diesel during care and maintenance. And Copper Mines of Tasmania (CMT) has an ambitious plan to make Mt Lyell on Tasmania’s west coast Australia’s first zero emissions mine through investments in electrification and renewables.

In addition to these projects, there is quite simply a wealth of major mines and mid-tier leaders at various stages if assessing and approving renewable energy investments for remote and grid-tied sites. While these projects are not yet public, many will be showcased at this year’s Energy and Mines Australia Summit on June 27–28 in Perth.

This heightened activity has positioned Australia as the fastest growing market for renewables for mines. The main driver, of course, is economics. Depending on locally available wind and solar conditions, fuel savings from hybridisation can amount to up to 75 per cent, according to juwi Renewable Energies.

The cost of solar modules is also falling by 3–8 percent annually. Battery storage is also becoming more economical with Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicting lithium-ion batteries will be priced at $73USD/kWh in 2040 as compared to around $250USD/kWh in 2017.

Senior mining representatives will meet with global renewable energy experts in Perth this June 27–28 to discuss renewables integration. This 2nd annual Energy and Mines Australia Summit, features presenters from BHP, Sandfire Resources, Fortescue Metals Group, Rio Tinto, South32, Nyrstar, Oz Minerals, Australian Vanadium, Panoramic Resources, Montezuma Mining Company, Resolute Mining and Gold Fields.

Meanwhile, the business case for renewables integration is being underlined by successful landmark projects including Sandfire Resources’ DeGrussa Solar Project and Rio Tinto’s Weipa Solar Farm. Currently, the DeGrussa project is offsetting more than 450,000 litres of diesel per month, which adds up to more than 25 million litres of diesel saved over five and half years or around 20 per cent of the mine’s total fuel consumption.

For more details on these projects and the upcoming Summit visit Energy and Mines Australia Summit website and enter australianmining20 on the registration page for a 20 per cent discount off attendance.

AES 2018: Microgrids ensuring reliable remote power supply

Given many remote communities and Australian mine sites are moving to more renewable energy sources to reduce costs and provide environmental benefits, microgrids are becoming one of the most suitable solutions to ensure the reliable supply of power.

Microgrids can help increase the penetration of renewable energy without compromising the quality and reliability of power supply.

Having a localised source of energy, that could combine solar, battery storage and diesel, means there is less chance that supply will be interrupted, which is a key factor for remote applications such as isolated mine sites.

Mining companies are now considering how energy storage and microgrids fit into their long-term planning, in an effort to displace diesel.

Greg Allen, executive general manager at Carnegie Clean Energy directs all project operations and commercialisation activities for the company, and is currently working on The Aurora Project — a 150MW solar thermal energy project with storage — in Port Augusta, South Australia.

Allen will join a huge lineup of energy experts at the Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition (AES 2018), running from May 23–24 at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

At AES 2018, Allen will explore Australian microgrid case studies that use battery energy storage technology in both network-connected and off-grid applications.

Energy systems in remote communities and pacific islands will also be explored at AES 2018 by speakers including Jiamao Wu, General Manager of Sungrow-Samsung SDI Energy Storage Power Supply, who leads the research and development, production and operation of the company.

Wu has participated in multiple “863 programs”, municipal technology innovation projects, and instructed the construction of multiple PV projects including Olympic nest, world expo and Hongqiao, as well as giving guidance to the third “Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Talents” program as a coach.

Hear from Jiamao Wu and Greg Allen, among other microgrid and energy storage experts, at the Australian Energy Storage Conference and Exhibition. To register for the conference or the free exhibition, visit www.australianenergystorage.com.au/register.

Sales trends 2018: Trend 4 – Buyer behaviours, AI and the future of sales roles

The fourth sales trend from the Barrett 12 Sales Trends Report for 2018 is about buyer behaviours and the future of sales roles.

According to Gartner Research, by 2020 85% of interactions between businesses will be executed without human interaction.

Automation has already diminished the number of people required for blue collar manufacturing roles; however, with the advent of AI (artificial intelligence), big data and algorithms, we are beginning to see sweeping changes happening across the once untouchable white collar sector, including the very people-oriented roles of sales, as many buyers shift part or all of their buying journey online.

This is really worrying people and creating lots of uncertainty, and the reality is that people are at risk of losing their current roles.

This sales trend is focused on how buyers’ behaviours are changing with the rise of digital engagement and purchasing, and the impact this is having on sales roles across both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) channels. But before we get into the details, not all is lost.

As this sales trend highlights, there is light at the end of the tunnel and not all roles are doomed. But these dramatic changes do require many of us to step up and really bring to the fore our very best human skills in communication, empathy, kindness, ideas generation, problem solving, creativity and delivering real value.

Remember, digital is still human powered

The irony is that everybody needs to know how to sell themselves to their colleagues, clients and suppliers. The skills excellent sales people possess and cultivate are the very meta-skills everybody needs today.

Professor Bronwyn Fox, director of Swinburne University of Technology’s Manufacturing Futures Research Institute, talks about the vital need for STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) students and graduates to also be proficient in meta-skills (soft skills). This includes effective communication and the engagement of others to generate and share new ideas; the ability to bring innovations to market and actively engage; work with each other more effectively; and to sell themselves, their concepts and the future.

However, we are seeing a polarising of sales roles and we need to be ready to adapt.

When it comes to simple transactions, buyers expect to be able to do this type of purchasing online, free from human contact. However, as soon as the sales becomes complex, or less straightforward, buyers want access to real humans.

When it comes to human-to-human interaction, whether it be B2C or B2B sales, buyers are expecting a much more sophisticated response from organisations’ sales and customer care people.

Buyers want to deal with subject matter experts (SMEs), not sales people. So sales people need to become domain experts or work with their own SMEs to help buyers move forward toward their goal.

SMEs also need to learn how to sell. How do we make domain experts sales savvy? Back to the comments by Professor Fox, we need everyone to learn how to communicate and sell themselves effectively and ethically.

Let’s take a closer look at the trends and changes in the B2B and B2C channels.

Changes to the B2B buying and selling landscape

According to Andy Hoar at Forrester Research’s “Death of a (B2B) Salesman, April 2015”, 1 million sales people (22%) will lose their jobs in the US alone and one third of B2B order-taking sales jobs will cease to exist worldwide.

B2B sales job losses predicted by 2020:

  • Order takers (transactional, socialiser, visitor): 33% job loss
  • Explainers (tactical, hunter, warrior): 25% job loss
  • Navigators (relationship, gatherer): 15% job loss
  • Consultants (trusted advisor, politically aligned, add compelling business value): 10% job gain

B2B sales people must elevate to a higher plain if they are to survive. We are seeing a distinct shift away from generalist sales people to sales people becoming business and domain experts. Businesses are now needing their sales teams to transform into ‘domain experts’, or the hackneyed phrase ‘trusted advisor’, if they are to add any genuine value. This is now very evident across almost all types of business, having started with technical types companies first.

In B2B buying and selling situations, we are also seeing more and more stakeholders involved with the buying process, which is adding more complexity and time to each sales process. Coupled with this, we are seeing buyers buying in smaller amounts, adding further cost to the sales process and eroding margin.

The B2B buying and selling paradox

  • Buyers have never been easier to identify but harder to engage and sell to;
  • No one is lonely or bored, yet the value of genuine relationships is critical to effective buyer seller relationships;
  • The average transaction is getting smaller but is taking longer to sell in; and
  • 82% of sellers fail to differentiate themselves.

B2B buyers, like B2C buyers, are using omni-channels to research and make buying decisions. According to Forrester Research, 74% of business buyers conduct more than half of their research online before making an offline purchase. However, this does not mean they have not been in contact with sales people or that they have made a purchasing decision, especially if that decision is complicated and involves a range of people or processes. This is where effective B2B sales professionals can shine.

B2B sales people need to learn how to anticipate buyers’ needs and move beyond product and service. Smart companies are investing in their B2B sales people by helping them transition to human centred selling and business consulting.

Changes to the B2C buying and selling landscape

How are B2C buyers behaving?

British Telecom’s head of customer insight and futures in the BT Global Services Innovation Team, Dr Nicola J. Millard and her team, have been conducting extensive research over many years in B2C buyer behaviours and customer experience. Her latest findings reveal the following:

  • Making digital experiences easy for customers delivers business growth; move over net promoter score (NPS) and bring on net easy score (NES);
  • Businesses need to make it easier to do simple transactions, but as soon as it gets complicated they need to give their customers someone competent to talk to; there should always be a phone number so people can speak to a human being;
  • Interestingly, autonomous customers rely on other consumers (not brands) for product advice;
  • Chatbots have appeal – but with human agents checking on more complicated responses;
  • Proactive service expected by digital customers;
  • Smartphones are becoming more important in digital experience; and
  • Providing security for phone transactions will drive revenue growth;

But beware the omni-channel

  • Omni-channels shift human channels towards complexity;
  • In times of flux people want simple, easy, straight forward. If it gets complicated they want to talk to a human being. Customers want “immediate access to a well-trained employee e.g. someone to talk to on the phone or face to face ….”, especially if there is a crisis and you need a solution to a problem with a product or service;
  • Customers make decisions at each stage in the omni-channel journey based on their motivation, context and attitude; and
  • In digital channels, it’s not so much about demographics anymore it’s about context

Context is driving omni-channel behaviours

Here are the new buyer profiles that are appearing online:

Visionary: They are looking to improve their lifestyle by the purchase of a product or service (e.g. moving house or booking a holiday). They are in a positive and motivated state of mind and willing to invest time. They may even enjoy the experience. They want businesses to let them explore, research and get advice using a wide range of resources (e.g. online, webchat, face-to-face/ in-store assistance).

Utilitarian: They want to complete a routine, mundane task (e.g. paying a bill or buying everyday products and services). It is low value in terms of their time, they are not looking for the ‘wow’ factor or enjoyment. Businesses need to make the transaction fast and easy (e.g. an app or online self-service technology).

Customer in crisis: There is a crisis and they need a solution to a problem with a product or service (e.g. reporting a fault or getting advice). They might be frustrated, angry or worried. Businesses need to give them immediate and straight forward access to a well-trained employee (e.g. someone to talk to on the phone or face-to-face who can sort the problem).

Finally, the phone is not dead

The telephone has been around since 1876 and is still as vital as ever. The telephone today supports the digital experience but it does need strategic attention.

When people cannot complete simple tasks online, when things get more complex, they want to talk to a person who doesn’t leave them stranded ‘on hold’ and has the smarts to be able to deal with their issues and questions. This is relevant for both B2B and B2C sales channels more than ever before.

In previous sales trends over the last few years, we have reported on the rise of, and need for, higher levels of complex sales and service capability on the telephone, with the move away from simple transactions and service outcomes.

The telephone needs to be staffed by subject matter experts who are well paid and capable of ensuring buyers have a great experience with our businesses. No longer the graveyard for expired field sales people or ‘pleasant’ customer service people, call centres are becoming ‘expert hubs’ working in concert with the field sales teams of domain experts and SMEs.

There is a great future for sales with selling moving to a high-order function that involves all, and buyers will be getting what they want too. Expert care and attention that builds trust and, hopefully, loyalty.

Smart companies will allow the buyer and selling pendulum to find its equilibrium.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

NOW READ: Twelve sales trends for 2018: Welcome to the state of flux

OPINION: Digital investments, new business models, digital twins and IoT empower mining companies to leverage industry recovery

After a tough couple of years, the recovery of the mining industry started in 2017, and now is the time to kick it into a higher gear and benefit from being an early mover. Digital investments and new charging models are a couple of the initiatives companies will be pioneering to leverage the industry turnaround in 2018. IoT in combination with digital twins and equipping users to service their own assets are also key trends, predicts Rob Stummer, managing director at IFS Australia and New Zealand.

Industry recovery will boost digital investments

The good news is that the cost cutting and downsizing of the past few years is now at an end, both for the mining companies themselves and their ecosystem of suppliers. Global demand for many commodities is growing. With the macro figures telling us this increase may last for the next few decades, industry players are ramping up their activity. However, many are playing catch-up in the digital space.

When talking to customers and prospects in the industry, I hear the need to tap into digital technologies including cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, automation, and advanced planning and scheduling to become smarter and more efficient at extracting resources. Part of this is being driven by the downsizing that has taken place over recent years; with fewer staff on site you need to maximise the human resources to hand. Thus, automating manual tasks becomes important.

Mining companies could learn from innovators in related industries, like oil and gas company Songa Offshore. The company has connected IoT sensors to 600 assets on each of their four oil rigs throughout the North Atlantic Basin. The IoT data is fed into the ERP system, IFS Applications, which forms the basis for reducing maintenance costs and increasing productivity by driving operational efficiencies. The main potential optimisation lies in the automation of work orders. If specific data points can trigger automated work orders, this will save significant time and costs.

Other potential investments may come in rolling out beacon technology to improve safety by alerting workers when they are in a restricted zone. Elsewhere, advanced visualisation and planning tools could help contractors speed up the license application process and maximise productivity by being able to better delineate which areas they are already cleared to operate in.

Mining companies will adopt a more service-centric business model

Another key evolution in the industry, driving the push to become faster and more efficient at extraction, involves a change in the way mining companies pay their suppliers and contractors. The traditional “day rate” – the flat-fee rate a contractor is paid per day is increasingly moving to a performance-based system.

Thus, where a mining company might have agreed a contract of $300,000 per day for 100 days, they may offer more or a bonus if the work can be completed in, say, 80 days. This creates new opportunities for those industry suppliers who can become more efficient. Again, the IoT and big data analytics are key enablers here, with sensors able to provide feedback on various environmental and other conditions to maximise productivity. However, technology alone will not produce the desired goals unless organisations can break down traditional siloes between teams which monitor equipment and those focused on other parts of the operation.

These trends can also be seen in terms of the gradual servitisation of the industry, with companies looking to add innovative service and asset management capabilities to their offerings to reduce their maintenance costs. Advanced planning and scheduling technologies in particular will become a game-changer for both mining companies and service providers, helping them better plan and document maintenance without the need to shut down assets as frequently. These are highly sophisticated systems, maximising the human resources on board and incorporating key risk assessments of equipment to ensure any maintenance work is done and recorded according to a strict timetable.

Companies will adopt IoT and digital twins to optimise service levels

The IoT and “digital twin” technologies are poised to have a huge impact on services; reducing costs, maximising data analytics and extending the lifespan of assets. Previously when, for example, a mining truck broke down, the company would have to schedule a service engineer reactively. This approach is highly inefficient as the individual engineer may have little idea what is wrong with the asset, leading to a low first time fix rate.

With IoT sensors, the asset or machine becomes “smart” and is placed at the centre, sending data back to the service centre enabling diagnostics to determine issues that may arise in a day, week or month’s time. It is no surprise that predictive maintenance is where the big benefits are first realised from IoT by asset-intensive companies wanting to optimise their service efforts. The Predictive Maintenance report forecasts a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for predictive maintenance of 39 per cent over the time frame of 2016–2022, with annual technology spending reaching $US10.96 billion by 2022.

Now let us add in the concept of digital twins, which represents physical objects in the digital world. Previously, the manufacturer’s or engineer’s knowledge of an asset stopped once it was delivered. But now, via the feedback made possible through IoT, you can start to learn the usage, behaviour and performance of these assets in the real world, and even make engineering changes to improve them over time.

This is a hugely important shift that helps complete the feedback loop, leading to smarter asset design, more efficient service and better performing assets. Such an approach is already being applied in the automobile sector, where connected cars send back huge amounts of data to be analysed and used to engineer better machines going forward, as well as alerting when and where faults may start to appear.

The good news is that it can also be applied retrospectively to legacy products. Mining and construction machine manufacturer Caterpillar has plenty of equipment that is 10-20 years old. But it has been able to fit them with smart sensors to measure tyre pressure, temperature, oil levels and so on. It is a win-win for customer and service organisation alike; minimising equipment downtime and enhancing product development and improving service efficiency. The approach is said to have saved Caterpillar millions of dollars already.

Designed by engineers, operated by you: Self-servicing growing by 50 per cent by 2020

We will start seeing a lot more augmented reality (AR) experiences used to put the customer in control of operating or servicing their own assets. Just think of a Nespresso machine, or a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Both companies have invested significant sums in helping consumers – with the aid of their smartphone and a QR code – to access visually overlaid step-by-step instructions on usage and repair. The same kind of model could be applied to more complex systems within a mining environment, providing detailed and highly customised plans for users to work from – without any of the superfluous information usually found in manuals.

This AR vision shares many of the same benefits as the IoT and digital twin approaches listed above. It will help maximise the time of a limited pool of service engineers, but also create a better customer experience. We can’t underestimate the Apple effect here: with AR being built into iOS handsets, it’s only a matter of time before the firm democratises and monetises such capabilities via an intuitive, user-friendly platform. As well as downloading apps and music, think of downloading an AR experience.

How to get there in reality

There is clearly plenty of opportunity to drive better service delivery, but for mining companies to reap the benefits a few things need to happen. It is important not to think of innovative technology as an end goal in itself. First up, make a value-based business case for any new approaches. That might mean wanting to increase first-time fix rates, offer new outcome-based contract types or simply reducing costs by ensuring engineers are only dispatched when strictly necessary.

Once you have established the business case you might need to break down traditional organisational silos between engineering, design and service. An AR experience, for example, is only as good as the engineering data you are able to populate it with. It works two ways, though, as the feedback from product sensors will help engineering teams design and build better assets going forward.

It is much easier to ensure that data flows throughout the organisation if everyone is using the same enterprise system. The last thing you want is new technologies creating their own data silos. New technologies will deliver greater benefits if integrated with your ERP software, and those benefits will be easier to measure. Ideally, you should be able calculate the actual value delivered by new technology, and compare it with your business case, to maximise the value of future investments.

Ultimately, you need the people, processes, data and systems all optimised to capitalise on these emerging approaches and reap the full benefits.

About the author

Rob Stummer is the managing director, Australia and New Zealand for global enterprise applications company IFS. He has held this position for the past nine years, continually achieving significant growth annually in both revenues and EBIT. Rob holds several degrees, including a Masters from Melbourne University. See: www.ifsworld.com/au

How manufacturers can respond to increasing costs

Australian manufacturers need to find alternative ways of doing business or risk being overrun by competitors with lower costs, according to Epicor.

Greg O’Loan, regional vice president, Epicor, said, “As the world has gotten smaller, Australian organisations face increased competition from international businesses. For manufacturers, rising energy costs and strong competition from overseas companies mean Australian companies need to continue to find efficiencies throughout the business. This must happen against the backdrop of Industry 4.0, which is a new way of manufacturing that leverages automation and data exchange through the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud technology.”

Industry 4.0 is characterised by a new reliance on interoperability through IoT, information transparency through augmented and virtual reality, improved insights through analytics and business intelligence, and automation that leads to decentralised decision-making, which delivers new levels of agility and flexibility that haven’t been possible in the past.

With traditional competitors mobilising into new areas, consolidation in the market, and external competitors entering the market, Australian manufacturers face significant challenges. Those that haven’t already upgraded to a so-called ‘smart factory’ as part of Industry 4.0 may find themselves disadvantaged compared to competitors that can leverage new technologies to dramatically increase efficiency, reduce costs, and bring new products to market faster and more successfully.

Greg O’Loan continues, “Businesses need to bring competitive products to market. They can then consider leveraging non-traditional ways to market to protect their existing customer base and expand into new markets. Manufacturers that cling to traditional business models will find it hard to drive growth.”

No longer reliant on distributors and retailers to sell their products, manufacturers can now go straight to market themselves by adding ecommerce functionality on their website and realising higher margins on sales.

Manufacturers’ margins are under pressure because manufacturing is inherently energy-hungry. In the face of rising energy costs, these businesses need to make a choice. They can offshore their operations to a region with lower energy and labour costs. Or, they can invest in automation, such as using robots or device-to-device communication, which eliminates manual practices and reduces labour costs, relieving some of the pressure on margins.

Some manufacturers have found a third option, which is to offshore some of the more tedious and repetitive processes but retain the more complex, valuable intellectual property-based processes in Australia.

Greg O’Loan explains, “Some companies have no choice but to stay in Australia because of the high amounts of intellectual property involved. This is often the case in high technology or unique manufacturing environments. It can also be counterproductive to offshore manufacturing of very large products because the cost of transporting them back to Australia can be high.

“So it’s essential for manufacturers to be smart about how they approach their business in the next few years. They must consider the various options available, including new technologies, which can help streamline their operations.”

For some manufacturers, this could mean an increased focus on manufacturing execution systems (MES), which can operate as standalone software or integrated with an ERP system. MES functionality provides an overarching view of information needed to schedule and manage production in the most effective and efficient way. It includes everything from document management to reasons for waste and supports quality assurance processes. MES systems will increasingly rely on machine-to-machine information to deliver insights to help manufacturers streamline and improve operations.

“Australian manufacturers need to combine smart manufacturing, appropriate labour costing, and efficiencies in the organisation to reduce costs and get control over spend. They can do this by implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that’s designed for the manufacturing industry, integrates MES functionality, and is built to overcome these challenges.

“2018 will be a year of preparing for change for many businesses. This includes letting go of legacy systems that are costly to maintain and don’t deliver a strong return on investment. It can be daunting for an organisation to move away from heavily customised systems but, to take advantage of innovative features and capabilities that can drive the business forward, they must modernise. For example, Epicor offers industry-specific ERP solutions for manufacturers that deliver out-of-the-box functionality that closely maps to the organisation’s needs. This reduces the need for heavy customisations and lets organisations innovate more freely, positioning them for growth.”

PERSONALIZATION TOOLS FOR AN ONLINE BUSINESS

By Shannon Belew, Joel Elad

When you have an Internet business there is almost always no shortage of online tools to help manage and grow your business. This is certainly the case with content personalization for the web. Here are some favorite solutions that make it easy to use personalization on your site in an effort to increase conversions — and revenue!

  • Triblio: Considered an Account Based Marketing (ABM) tool, Triblio allows you to show personalized content and offers on your website to prospective buyers. You can provide your content to known and unknown website visitors, as well as show personalized content to targeted buyers (specific leads or accounts you are trying to influence and sell to). Triblio also works with e-mail or marketing automation platforms and Google AdWords.
  • Folloze: Account-based marketing is also a core capability for this personalization tool. But one of the things we really like about Folloze is the unique method for delivering personalized content to buyers. Folloze lets you create content boards that contain many different pieces of content all designed for a specific buyer. Think of it in terms of a Pinterest-style layout of a board (or online page) that groups your content in one easy to access place. The figure shows an example of a personalized board from the Folloze website. Another benefit of this tool is that it not only tracks who engages with or visits the board, but which pieces of content they interact with; and it lets you see who the prospective buyer is that is viewing the board. You can put a link to a Folloze board in an e-mail, on a page of your site, or just about anywhere.
  • Evergage: This content personalization tool monitors your site visitors’ intent in order to know which content to show them. In addition to tracking what places of offers get clicked, Evergage also tracks how much time is spent on each page, where the visitors’ computer mouse hovers, and how they scroll through a page. Looking at a host of data points as they occur on your site in real-time, or why a visitor is actually on the site, the tool uses machine-based learning to make recommendations and decisions on which content to deliver to the visitor. Evergage is designed for large e-tailers and other sites with heavy traffic, and can identify the users and what purchases or interests they’ve had on other sites and then recommend similar products or content to be shown on your site.
onbiz-custom
Create a custom board to deliver highly personalized content to buyers using Folloze.

There are plenty more web personalization and account based marketing tools available. And, you don’t have to start out using the tools, which can range from several hundred dollars per month to several thousand dollars monthly. These tools are a significant investment. But to compete online today, offering a one-to-one personalized approach to marketing with content and product offers is quickly becoming a necessity in order for you to remain competitive.

Visualization Program Protects Statistical Significance

In the modern age when Microsoft Excel lives on nearly every computer, and programs like Qlik® use advanced analytics to draw up graphical representations of big data, it’s easy for users to explore large data sets for exciting correlations and discoveries.

Visualizations in green represent a statistically significant finding. Findings in red are on “shaky statistical ground.” (Source: Kraska Lab/Brown University)Visualizations in green represent a statistically significant finding. Findings in red are on “shaky statistical ground.” (Source: Kraska Lab/Brown University)Unfortunately, as any statistician will tell you, the ability to ask unending questions of the same data series increases the chance for false discoveries. This idea is termed the “multiple hypothesis error.”

Luckily for those of us enamored with modern data visualization software, a team of researchers from Brown University may be on their way to resolving this error.

Tim Kraska, an assistant professor of computer science at Brown and a co-author of the research, describes the error. He explains, “these tools make it so easy to query data. You can test 100 hypotheses in an hour using these visualization tools. Without correcting for multiple hypothesis error, the chances are very good that you’ll come across a correlation that’s completely bogus.”

The researchers presented a new program called QUDE at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Management of Data (SIGMOD) 2017 conference in Chicago. QUDE adds real-time statistical safeguards to interactive data exploration systems.

The program highlights figures and feedback green or red to indicate their statistical significance or potential concern regarding the correlation.

Ordinarily, insignificant correlations would be caught by well-established protocols in statistics. The problem is, most of these techniques are used after-the-fact, and with visualization software, more and more users are not trained in statistics, they merely rely on the program to present them with methodologies.

“We don’t want to wait until the end of a session to tell people if their results are valid,” says Eli Upfal, a computer science professor at Brown and research co-author. Instead, Upfal explains, “you have a budget of how much false discovery risk you can take, and we update that budget in real time as a user interacts with the data.”

While this program, like any program, cannot guarantee complete accuracy, it’s a solid step in the direction for amateur statisticians.

Reducing The Environmental Impact On Mines

There are two main issues to consider when it comes to the environmental impacts of a mine:

  • The erection of plant, and its ongoing effect on its surrounds; and
  • How the site is rehabilitated after the mine has been decommissioned.

A fixed plant typically requires land being cleared, walls being built and roads being established. Then there is the plant assembly itself, which involves conveyor belts being constructed, material processing equipment put in place and draglines being set up, plus a range of peripheral considerations.

Sizing ore or minerals is a key component in mining operations. Setting up a permanent plant to allow processing and its affiliated operations can have a massive impact on the environment.

First, traditional plant used for high capacity crushing is enormous – it can be up to 32 metres high. This means that even before a site is set up, fixed plant has a large carbon footprint due to the amount of material used to construct it.

Then there is the construction of the plant onsite, which can take up large tracts of land due to the equipment itself plus support structures including buildings.

Also, there are the concrete or Reinforced Earth (RE) walls that are necessary for permanent plant. Not only can they have a negative impact on the environment, but they also take time to establish and require a lot of resources to complete.

Finally, there is the rehabilitation of the site. Costs can run into millions of dollars, depending on how much impact a mine has had on an area. If care has not been taken, or the plant has operated outside its agreed parameters, it means the approved remedies decided between state/local government bodies and the mining company might not be met.

Australian state and federal legislation puts the onus on mining companies to return a site to as close to its original condition as possible. The more permanent plant and installations that are set up initially, the more that has to be deconstructed and managed.

Minimising The Carbon Footprint

A piece of equipment that could help alleviate the impact on the environment is a Semi-Mobile Sizer Station from MMD.

For a start, they can be smaller than a permanent station – available in a range of modular designs, currently with a maximum height of 17 metres.

It also negates the need for concrete retaining walls because a fabricated truck bridge is used instead. Like the Semi-Mobile Sizer Station, the truck bridge can be deployed again and again, so there is no fixed plant to dispose of once the mine’s life expires.

Finally, there is no decommissioning of plant. With permanent plant there are concrete walls to be removed and earth landscaped. The area where the plant was located has to be rehabilitated with plants, trees, dirt and other stipulations as agreed.

With a Semi-Mobile Sizer Station, the plant is not in place long enough to cause as much impact. Furthermore, when it comes to moving to a different site, it is simply a case of picking up the unit on a transporter and moving it to its next location. There is no need for plant breakdown, crushing of concrete, or large fleets of trucks to take equipment away.

With modular construction and minimal maintenance, MMD equipment provides greener, more cost effective-solutions for today’s mines.

To read more on the environmental benefits of Semi-Mobile Sizer Stations, view MMD Australia’s whitepaper here.