By CASEY NEILL
Manufacturers from across the south-east showed what the industry was capable of at a celebration of skills in Dandenong.
The day-long Smart Manufacturing ’16 – Dandenong and South East Melbourne on Show featured symposia at the Drum Theatre and displays from dozens of businesses in Harmony Square and surrounds.
Trams, trains and buses blocked Walker Street, and pre-recorded stories and live crosses played on the big screen to hundreds of students from across the region, businesspeople and the general public.
A farm-to-plate section featured produce from Officer juice producer Summer Snow, Clyde’s Australian Fresh Leaf Herbs, and Gembrook potato powerhouse Mountain Harvest Foods.
“Manufacturing keeps this country moving. We need manufacturing,” was the message from keynote speaker Senator Kim Carr.
About 350 people attended the first symposia session and more than 1500 registered for the event.
Senator Carr said manufacturing was “the key to a strong and advanced industrial economy” and employed nearly 9000 Australians.
He said Federal Government support for research and development, education, and bolstering overseas competitiveness was crucial – particularly given the impending departure of key automotive companies from Australia.
“The shutdown of the major car makers doesn’t mean the end of the industry,” he said.
“I’m confident there will be an automotive sector in Australia after 2017.”
Adaptive thinking, creativity and co-operation will be key to manufacturing success in the future, guests heard at the Skills of the Future symposium.
Embracing a willingness to fail was also among the advice to emerge from the session, led by Chisholm Institute’s industry engagement manager Simon Upton.
Sharing their experiences were Hilton Manufacturing’s managing director Todd Hartley and HR manager Anthony Di Battista, Bombardier Transportation Australia managing director Rene Lalande, and Centre of Australian Foresight strategic futurist Marcus Barber.
Mr Hartley said the Dandenong South sheet metal company recently signed a new deal with Kenworth that required it to drop its price by three per cent per year over the next three years.
“It can’t just come off our bottom line,” he said.
“We have to work out how to reduce our costs year on year when electricity and labour are becoming more expensive.
“We’ve got to do it through different skills.”
Mr Hartley said he’d need more adaptive thinkers and creativity as automation increased.
“We need to get that top 10 per cent involved in manufacturing,” he said.
Mr Lalande said that more than one third of the energy spent developing a new train was in software development.
He said trains still had a wide mechanical and electronic base but they were becoming ever more complex.
“You can no longer be only a welder,” he said.
Mr Barber said collaboration was no good without co-operation, and that all innovation was creative but not all creativity was innovative.
“You need to make something redundant for it to be innovative … not just make incremental improvements,” he said.
He also stressed encouraging a willingness to “fail intelligently” and learn something along the way – or “die instead”.
At a cocktail reception that evening, Committee for Dandenong chairman Gary Castricum said SM16 “was all about trying to change perceptions”.
“It’s about recognising what we have in the south-east and supporting it,” he said.
