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National Manufacturing Week – the event that brings industry together – got off to a strong start in Melbourne yesterday, with a clear focus on innovation across the event’s exhibition, demonstration and speaker programs.
Industry veteran John Blakemore addressed manufacturers directly, commenting that manufacturers need to lead with innovation that develops the new industries to underpin Australia’s future. Mr Blakemore, CEO of Blakemore Consulting International recommends that manufacturers start collaborating with your networks – especially with those in different disciplines such as medicine – to apply manufacturing know-how to the task of creating new solutions for diverse markets.
“We all have different ways of looking at things – and when you get different sets of eyes on a problem, it’s remarkable what you can discover,” Mr Blakemore said.
The core theme of innovation was also reflected in the Day 1 Demonstration program, which included Adept Turnkey’s demonstration of 360 degree automated inspection, a solution that rests on sophisticated integration of vision from multiple cameras.
NMW’s Demonstration program will be in full swing on Day 2 – Wednesday 27 May – with:
Steel Finishing: Metal Science Technologies demonstrate the cleaning of stainless steel welds using electropolishing to create a mirror sheen
Metal Marking: Trotec Laser Pty Ltd will demonstrate how galvo laser technology can dramatically reduce the processing times for metal marking
Fastening Tools & Systems: Autofast Australia will demonstrate the rivet gun that has set world riveting speed records
Lifting: Kockums Bulk System will demonstrate the advantages of innovative vacuum lifting solutions.
The theme of innovation will also continue in NMW’s R&D Theatre, with presentations on Creating a high-performing manufacturing company, and Unusual approaches to developing an idea to fully-testable product.
Innovators will also benefit from a presentation by Lachlan Mullane, Partner at trade mark and patent attorney firm Hodgkinson McInnes, as well as advice from exhibitors KPMG on accessing support for your R&D projects.
NMW 2015 continues until Friday May 29, with late-night trading to 9pm on Thursday May 28. For program details or to register, visit www.nationalmanufacturingweek.com.au.

我于28日参观展会，主要看了实体的3D打印机和3D打印模具，3D扫描，以及互联网+制造业的发展现状。

Premier Li Keqiang puts technology at the heart of China’s growth plans

China’s premier Li Keqiang has introduced a new “Internet Plus” policy for China that will see the nation focus on domestic technology adoption in order to boost domestic growth while also giving Chinese technology firms a chance do do better overseas.

Li Keqiang heads China’s State Council, a body whose membership includes the heads of all government departments and is analagous to a western democracy’s Cabinet. The State Council’s power is, however, outweighed by that of the Presidency, as illustrated by the fact that China’s head of state Xi Jinping is both general secretary of the Communist Party and commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces.

Which is not to say that Li’s a figurehead: one of his roles is to preside over the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s 2,987-member legislature. While high Party officials hold most policy-creation power, and the NPC is sometimes considered a showpiece, one of premier Li’s roles is to deliver “Reports On The Work Of The Government” that update the body on policy.

Li delivered one last week, and it included this sentence:

“We will develop the “Internet Plus” action plan to integrate mobile Internet, cloud computing big data, and the Internet of Things with modern manufacturing, to encourage the healthy development of e-commerce, industrial networks, and Internet banking, and to get Internet-based companies to increase their presence in the international market.”
It’s widely held that the sentence above is in accordance with the sentiments of Pony Ma, chairman of Tencent, China’s largest web portal.

China makes lots of grand statements and set pieces like these Reports are seldom less than boldly optimistic. But China-watchers say the sentence above is very significant because it signals the government is keen to modernise China’s industries using technology.

The report offers similar sentiments on other pages. There’s also a commitment to “… press ahead with nationwide project to deliver telecoms, radio, television, and Internet service over a single broadband connection and accelerate the development of fiber-optic networks, significantly increase broadband speeds, develop logistics and express delivery services, and ensure that new forms of Internet-based spending, which combine online-offline activities, come to thrive.”

There’s also a promise to “redouble our efforts to upgrade Chìna from a manufacturer of quantity to one of quality” and commitments for subsidies to “accelerate equipment depreciation to push forward technological upgrading of traditional industries.”

We will promote the extensive application of information technologies in industrialisation, develop and utilize networking, digitalization and smart technologies, and work to develop certain key areas first and make breakthroughs in these areas.” The Report also contains pledges to invest in integrated circuit design.

If that sounds like empty nationalism, consider that the Report also says that in 2014 China’s “number of broadband Internet users exceeded 780 million.” That’s an extraordinary number of people on which to build a domestic internet industry, and for that industry to develop products relevant to the rest of the world.

As we’ve previously written, it’s already possible to build a pretty decent data centre out of Chinese kit and apps. This new Report suggests that China has aspirations to become a far more significant player in the technology world. ®

Whether you are an existing business examining investment options for expansion or a start-up venture the fundamental question is where do I get the maximum Return on my Investment whilst minimising Risk?
We have addressed this question in the context of SMEs who by development of IP embedded in new or enhanced Products and Services and adoption of New Business Models, will forge their place in the Asia Century to become major Business Enterprises.
Economic development in the Asian region is presenting many business and commercial opportunities for Australia beyond the resource sectors.
As Australian Business and Commercial Leaders strive for Strategic Growth in both domestic and export services they do so in the Asian Century which presents an unprecedented mix of complex Risks and Opportunities to business enterprises.

The Asian Century
There is a fundamental and historic shift in the world’s economic activity from West to East:
• In 1990 China and India [CHINDIA] together accounted for less than a tenth of the world GDP,
• by 2010 China and India accounted for almost a fifth of the world GDP, and
• by 2020 China and India are projected to account for more than a quarter of world GDP.
• In 2025 The Asia Region will account for more than half of world GDP.
A Strategic Context Reality is that the Threat of Competition from low cost centres in Asia is accelerating at an alarming rate enabled by Australia’s Free Trade Agreements.
Globalisation is creating a world of increasing complexity where historical boundaries
between industry sectors and countries are rapidly fragmenting to produce discontinuous changes.
Industries are tending to consolidate on a global basis to lowest cost centres enabled by new
information management technologies supporting global supply chains.
We suggest that the Australian Government Department of Industry and Science, Industry Growth Centres Initiative is a good place to start.
1. Food and Agribusiness
2. Mining Equipment, Technology and Services [METS]
3. Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals
4. Advanced Manufacturing
5. Oil, Gas and Energy Resources
With recent government announcements on New Submarines Project and Army LAND 400 – Land Combat Vehicle System we have included Australia Defence Industry in our study.
6. Defence Industry
Our Business White Paper provides a brief overview of each sector and a high level SWOT analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats places the complexities in each of the six sectors in a strategic context.
A copy of the Business White Paper is available by contacting bede@manufacturship.com
This article originally appeared at The New Industrialist. It has been republished with permission. To see the original version click here.
Bede Boyle is Chairman of Manufacturship Group. He contributes over twenty years’ leadership roles in management consulting firms guiding development of a blue chip client base Including BHP, BlueScope Steel, CBA, Department of Defence, GM Holden, Hancock Coal, Leighton contractors, QANTAS , SMEC, Xstrata Coal and Zurich Insurance

The Internet of Everything, cloud computing/big data and 3-D printing are the three technologies most likely to transform the world during the next five years, according to IHS Technology.

“We know that technology has the capability to change the world: from the Gutenberg printing press to the steam engine to the microchip,” said Ian Weightman, vice president, research & operations, IHS Technology.
“But how can we determine which technologies are likely to have the greatest potential to transform the future of the human race?
What is the process to distinguish among the innovations that will have limited impact and those that will be remembered as milestones on the path of progress? How can you tell the difference between the VHS and Betamax of tomorrow’s technologies?”

“To answer these questions, IHS Technology gathered its leading experts representing the technology supply chain from electronic components to finished products across applications markets ranging from consumer, media, and telecom; to industrial, medical, and power. These experts were asked to nominate and vote for their top 10 most impactful technologies over the next five years.”

The top three technologies were: 3-D printing in third place; cloud computing/big data at No. 2; and the Internet of Everything coming out on top.

Manufacturing moves to next dimension with 3-D printing

Also called additive manufacturing, 3-D printing encourages design innovation by facilitating the creation of new structures and shapes, and allows limitless product complexity without additional production costs. It also greatly speeds up time to market by making the idea-to-prototype cycle much shorter.

Total revenue for the 3-D printing industry is forecast to grow by nearly 40 percent annually through 2020, when the aggregated market size is expected to exceed $35.0 billion, up from $5.6 billion in 2014.

Cloud computing/big data brings metamorphosis to computing and consumer markets

The cloud has become a ubiquitous description for on-demand provisioning of data, storage, computing power and services that are touching nearly every consumer and enterprise across the globe.
Together with data analytics and mobile broadband, the cloud and big data are poised to reshape almost every facet of the consumer digital lifestyle experience and dramatically impact enterprise information technology (IT) strategies, while creating new opportunities and challenges for the various nodes in the entire information, communications and technology (ICT) value chain.

The cloud is transformational in the business landscape, changing the way enterprises interact with their suppliers, customers and developers.

The big data and data analytics segment is a separate but related transformational technology that harnesses the power of the cloud to analyze data for disparate sources to uncover hidden patterns, enable predictive analysis and achieve huge efficiencies in performance.

IHS forecasts that global enterprise IT spending on cloud-based architectures will double to approximately $230 billion in 2017, up from about $115 billion in 2012.

The Internet of Things becomes the Internet of Everything

The world is in the early stages of the Internet of Things (IoT)—a technological evolution that is based on the way that Internet-connected devices can be used to enhance communication, automate complex industrial processes and generate a wealth of information.
To provide some context on the magnitude of this evolution, more than 80 billion Internet-connected devices are projected to be in use in 2024, up from less than 20 billion in 2014, as presented in the attached figure.

While the IoT concept is still relatively new, it is already transforming into a broader model: the Internet of Everything (IoE). The metamorphosis covers not just the number of devices but envisages a complete departure from the way these devices have used the Internet in the past.

Most of the connected devices in place today largely require direct human interaction and are used for the consumption of content and entertainment. The majority of the more than 80 billion future connections will be employed to monitor and control systems, machines and objects—including lights, thermostats, window locks and under-the-hood automotive electronics.

Other transformative technologies identified by IHS Technology analysts were:
Artificial intelligence
Biometrics
Flexible displays
Sensors
Advanced user interfaces
Graphene
Energy storage and advanced battery technologies

Send me an email if your need a complimentary copy of an IHS white paper.

Microsoft is preparing to combine its business-focused Lync video conferencing and instant messaging app with Skype to create a new package called Skype for Business.

The package, set to be released in the first half of 2015, will see the creation of a new Skype-like client app, an upgrade of the Lync server software and updates to the service in Office 365.

While Lync already offers instant messaging and audio calling with Skype users, Skype for Business users will also be able to make video calls to Skype users, as well as access to its user directory.

The Skype for Business app will add a number of key interface elements from Skype, including the icons it uses for calling, adding video and ending a call.

At the same time, Skype for Business will retain the Lync content sharing features many businesses rely on but are not present in Skype.

Businesses running Lync Server 2013 will be able to upgrade to Skype for Business Server without needing any new hardware, while the upgrades will be automatic for businesses subscribing to Lync through Office 365.

In the future, people will look back at the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st as being the genesis of ‘big data’. With the birth of the Internet, wireless networking, and the ever-decreasing cost of digital storage, capturing and storing huge amounts of data has become the rule rather than the exception. Along with the development of the Internet, IP networking has made even more data possible as devices never even dreamt of years ago can now be easily connected.

Who would have thought 20 years ago there would be a time where we could go for a run and instantly know how far we’ve gone, where we’ve gone on a map, the calories burnt and altitude gained, all read from a crystal clear screen on a mobile phone not much bigger than your average wallet.

There has been a similar explosion of ‘big data’ in mining, albeit slightly behind that of the Internet revolution, but nonetheless, the amount of data now available from mining equipment is staggering. In fact, there is so much data available people often don’t know which way to turn.

Information overload is not a new term, but its use in the past decade has increased dramatically as the amount of data that fills digital storage grows. Collecting data is one thing; displaying it meaningfully is another. Several large mining companies have attempted to quell the information overload problem through the use of remote operationscentres (ROC) where relevant information from operations thousands of kilometres away is displayed for management review. For other companies where an ROC is not on the agenda, the challenge of disseminating and displaying vital information remains.

In order to show the challenge of ‘big data’, let’s take a specific example and break it down. In open pit mining, seconds are paramount. Whilst seconds may not play a large part in drill and blast (its generally all about metres), in the load and haul cycle a matter of seconds can make or break a production target.

Before my current role I was more familiar with underground mining where metres were king. ‘Metres advanced’ is the metric used in underground development. I never really gave much thought to how much emphasis is given to seconds above the ground but it soon becomes obvious when you break it down. Haul cycles are made up of simple segments: travelling, spotting, loading and hauling (there are other segments like waiting and tipping that can be added but we’ll keep it simple for now).

One haul cycle is the total of these activities in minutes and seconds. Each of these activities can be timed individually using a variety of methods. For most operations, a fleet management system that can detect when each of these activities ends and the next starts can provide this information. For example, when a haul truck is moving along a haul road without a load, it is travelling. When full on the same road, it is hauling. The system knows this based on the GPS position of the truck and if it has a load or not. For spotting, the GPS position is used but it also correlates this with the proximity of a load unit and the selection of reverse gear. If all these are true, then the truck must be spotting. Now that we have a way of breaking the activities down, we also have a way of determining the total cycle time. Likewise, as the activities can be captured individually, we can now also display these individually in a variety of formats such as static reports or dynamic dashboards.

So where do the seconds count? Let’s say a haul cycle is 20 minutes in total and consists of the following breakdown:

Travelling – 5 mins
Spotting – 30 seconds
Loading – 2 minutes
Hauling – 12.5 minutes
Now we have a baseline that we can compare all other data in order to answer questions such as:

Is 20 minutes good?
Can it be improved?
How does this operator compare to the others?
What happens if the haul route changes?
There are many answers to these questions, but they all have one thing in common: only data can provide objective answers. Let’s tackle the first and third questions – by measuring all operators it will soon become apparent whether 20 minutes is good and where the operator sits in the scale of things. Once you have the answer to those questions you can then answer question number two. If the average is in fact 18 minutes, this operator is well below. Why? Again data can provide the answer, or at least point you in the right direction.

And this is where data can also lead you on a wild goose chase.

Having only one source of data may not tell you the full story. What if the reason this haul was 20 minutes was because a shower of rain caused a portion of the haul road to become slippery.

This would only be apparent on one or two hauls as the road would soon drain and dry out, creating a temporary increase in the overall total time. The moral of this example is don’t get too wrapped up in the data you fail to see the ‘truth’.

Let’s go back to question two, as this is where we can really show the power of data. Once the data has been verified, we can focus on the cost savings to be had from reducing the cycle time.

This is where engineering and technology can come together to show the potential benefits of ‘big data’. Let’s target a one minute improvement on the cycle time to keep things simple. As the current cycle time is 20 minutes, three cycles are possible in one hour, therefore there is a three minute saving every hour. In a 12-hour shift there is usually 10 effective hours on average, so therefore with one truck across one shift there is 30 minutes extra – more than enough time for an extra load. Now lets extrapolate that across a fleet of 50 trucks for the year – 1 extra load x 50 trucks x 2 shifts x 365 days = 36,500 extra loads for the year.

Now let’s work out the potential value of these extra loads. We’ll use best case, round figures to make it easy, but you’ll soon see what a one minute saving each load can add up to.

We’ll use a CAT 793F haul truck with a gold grade of 1 gramtonne. A CAT 793F averages 220 tonnes per load, therefore there is potentially 220 grams of gold in each load. 220 x 36,500 = 8.03 million grams which is just over 258,000 troy ounces. At a gold price of Aus$1350ounce that equals Aus$348.3 million. At Aus$200 per ounce profit, that’s a tidy Aus$51.6 million extra profit, all from reducing cycle times by one minute

I did say this was best case – this certainly wouldn’t be the case in the real world as each load isn’t always a premium grade load as there is waste that needs to be moved. There’s a whole host of other factors that would affect the above equation, but it shows the potential of what can be achieved by using ‘big data’.

Now that we’ve seen what ‘big data’ can do for us, the challenge is sharing this information with those decision makers that value the data.

For a production engineer, giving him an extra load per hour is like having another truck in the fleet – something that can’t be physically achieved with spending many millions of dollars. But give it to him for free and he’ll be your next best friend.

And this precisely is the future challenge facing many – how to capture, interpret and display big data in this age of information overload. That sounds like a great topic for another article.

Jason Nitz is a fleet management and dispatch superintendent at Newmont Mining.

This article originally appeared in full at Austmine.