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• Colin Seeger Moderator
• Professor Tim Roberts and
• Gary Ellem, both from University of Newcastle and experts in electric vehilces

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10.00am

How to access up to $150k of funding to improve your engineering business?

Tim Cotter, Regional Manager, AusIndustry 2

11.00am

Manufacturing and technology opportunities from Defence Procurement

Jeff Phillips, CEO and Managing Director
Varley Group 3

12.30pm – 1.00pm

Official Opening
By Deputy Lord Mayor of Newcastle

• Adrian Price, Ai Group MC
• Mark Goodsell, Head NSW, Ai Group
• Deputy Lord Mayor of Newcastle – Cnr. Declan Clausen

      Comments by 2 local MPs

• Vote of Thanks: Tom Woods, Chair of Ai Group Hunter Industry Leaders Council

2.00pm

Students and Manufacturers Rely on each other to Shape their Future

An open audience session with students, employers, Training Services NSW, RDA Hunter, TAFE NSW

Moderators David Leask TAFE NSW and
David Bonzo, St Phillips Christian College 5

3.00pm

Moly-Cop –
Employer of Choice
(People are our Greatest Asset)

Kayla Parker, HR Adviser at Moly-Cop and Kara McDonald, 2nd Year Electrical Apprentice and 2018 Moly-Cop Apprentice of the Year. 6

4.15pm

Business Networking and address on the future of the Port of Newcastle
(Registration required)

Sponsored by Port of Newcastle
and addressed by Craig Carmody, CEO

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1. Lift the spirits of local manufacturers;
2. Change the perceptions of our local community about modern manufacturing;
3. Demonstrate the strength of the teaching and research relationships with industry; and
4. Showcase our manufacturing and technology capabilities to generate new business.

Importantly it brought together what some people see as the “old world” of making with the “new world” of ideas and both need each other.

The festival substantially met all of these objectives with very high satisfaction ratings by exhibitors and business and general visitors.

The numbers are impressive with:

• 65 exhibitor stalls
• 200 exhibitor personnel
• 250 business visitors
• And 1100 general visitors (out of a registration of 1650)

Heath Raftery, Heath Raftery, Head of Technologies at start-up Newie Ventures , Heath Raftery, Head of Technologies at Newie Ventures, wrote in a blog

“Last Friday and Saturday I attended the Greater Hunter Makers Festival in Newcastle, an initiative of Ai Group and a tremendous opportunity for the Hunter region to show what it’s capable of.

Every moment I spent at the festival brought another unsolicited conversation with a local maker, busy making their part of the universe better for all. I’m buzzing with excitement at the potential of this region and the capabilities we possess.

Of course, those capabilities have always been present, but like an undiscovered piano prodigy, talent can’t blossom in a vacuum. That’s what this Festival is all about for me – making connections and discovering synergies. When the dust settles and the accountants attempt to quantify the value of these two days, I hope they don’t focus on sales leads. I hope they don’t focus on new customers. I hope they give some weight to the delight I saw on streams of children discovering the joy of making. I hope they value the new links formed between local education institutions, councils and government, co-working spaces and entrepreneur incubators, manufacturers and design houses. I hope they recognise the seeds planted in the minds of budding business owners, and innovators of the future. The Makers Festival is not a trade show. It’s a talent show. And its value is in inspiration, pride and nurturing faith that the future is bright.”

The contributions by the six participating high schools, TAFE and uni students were particularly valuable on the second day and became a magnet for little people large and small. The degree of family participation was impressive and several visitors whom I know remarked that they could not extract their children/grand-children after hours of engagement! This photo captures it all. (Funny, the robot is programmed to recognise the colour pink. I am told that when a young girl showed up with pink shoes on, the robot was suddenly distracted!)

A significant outcome was the undertaking at the opening event from the Hon Scot MacDonald MLC, Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter and Central Coast, to have the NSW Government recognise the Greater Hunter as an International Centre of Engineering Excellence and to have us promoted by the NSW Government offices around the world. This can potentially put us right out there on the international scene, which we really need. It will greatly assist achievement of another Ai Group Hunter objective “to attract some large tech corporates to set up in the Hunter”. A project team will be formed in coming weeks to develop a proposal to go to Government.

Adrian Price

Regional Manager
Australian Industry Group
adrian.price@aigroup.com.au
tel 0418 640 447

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Download – 2016 Greater Hunter Makers Festival – Saturday Visitors Brochure

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Download the post-event report.

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On a sunny day in Australian cities, you can look to the roof tops and find people enjoying gardens built into their terrace roofs. These private little pieces of paradise were not structurally possible in years gone by, but are now a common feature. This is thanks, in part, to the design and development of a steel structure fitted to reinforce the building, essentially innovating the terrace home and changing lifestyles and landscapes across Australian cities.

These terrace-changing pieces of architecture are manufactured in Gateshead, Newcastle by an engineering and metal fabrication company that ten years ago, would never have dreamed of taking on such a project.

In 2004, when R&R Murphy were starting out, their core business was making Cleanaway garbage bins. They moved into tanker fabrication and today their service list includes the mining, transport and food industries, structural architectural products and shop fitting products.

For Rod Murphy, owner and founder of the business along with his wife, Rose, diversification was imperative to surviving the turbulence of the manufacturing industry.

“Diversification equals stability. It means that when industries fluctuate, your bottom line stays even,” said Rod.

“The manufacturing industry is struggling. A lot of stuff is going overseas so to stay competitive you’ve got to think differently.”

Rod is a business owner who has been thinking differently since 2011, when he saw the risk in receiving all their revenue from the mining industry, and extended the focus with a strategy to diversify the business.

“Working with a consultant, we looked at where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do. We were able to formulate a business plan that included flexibility and diversification,” Rod said.

But before approaching new markets, Rod and his team recognised there was some ground-work to do.

“We made a decision. If we were going to seek out new markets, we needed everything in place first. We wanted to be a one stop shop and we needed to be ready to deliver.”

This meant significant investment in upgrading qualifications, investing in new equipment, installing new business management technology, finding efficiencies in the workshop and raising the benchmark for quality to world recognised standards, which included triple accreditation in 2013.

“To cut costs, we needed to find out how to do things better, smarter and quicker.”

Years down the track, this culture of continual improvement is embedded throughout the company, with all employees involved in finding new ways to improve the working environment, processes and the final product.

An added – but not accidental – benefit of that strategy has meant the business attracts high calibre employees.

“The working environment is well set up. It’s efficient, safer and easy to work in so the quality tradesmen want to work here. This makes for a better product and service at the end of the day,” said Rod.

Work space in the R&R Murphy workshop. All employees contribute to a culture of continual improvement.   

Rod knows their business is only as good as the people around them, and valuing his people and playing to their strengths has helped R&R Murphy achieve its diversification goals.

“You don’t have to be smart to do good business. You just have to be smart enough to bring in the expertise,” he explains.

This sort of thinking has allowed him to say yes to projects that may not have been within his core skillset previously, such as architectural and shop fitting jobs.

“I’m all for collaboration, I have an open mind about that. It’s a game of strengths and weaknesses and if you get the right partners that’s the difference between going for the big projects or not.”

Rod is now working with researchers from the University of Newcastle to solve some engineering challenges and create new opportunities for growth.

“What I want to do with research and development is work in conjunction with other companies. I have the ideas, they have the experience, we can get together to make things happen. Research and development opens up new doors,” said Rod.

Rod will be representing R&R Murphy at the upcoming Greater Hunter Makers Festival to be held at the Newcastle Jockey Club November 11-12, 2016.  The festival is a showcase of the Hunter Region’s world-class engineering and manufacturing capabilities where makers and educators will unite to inspire, inform and connect. 

Come and meet Rod to hear his story and many others from the Hunter region. http://www.makersfestival.com.au/

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These loader, consisting of an above ground or hard rock mine spec. machine and an Outbye underground machine, represent the culmination of four years of research and development by HMS; as well as significant personal investment by HMS Group Managing Director Jamie Howard. A firm believer in local manufacturing and leveraging local networks to keep manufacturing alive in the Hunter Valley, Jamie thanked HunterNet group members as well as Austrade and the Australian Government for their encouragement and support throughout the development of the HMS Mini Loader.

‘I am proud to represent Australian product innovation and manufacturing on the global stage, and to promote the skills and accomplishments of not only the HMS Group, but HunterNet group members and the wider Australian technology sector. I am excited, because let’s face it, without the assistance of Austrade and the Australian Government, there wouldn’t be a HMS Mini Loader front and centre at the opening ceremony of CIMETE; but they saw the potential of the product,  backed HMS, and here we are!’.

Designed and built in Cardiff, NSW, the HMS Mini Loader was a great success at CIMETE, garnering high levels of interest from both government and private sectors alike. HMS Group’s host and likely distributor in China, JKZZ, were so impressed with the reception of the machines during the exhibition, that they invested in the above ground machine (pictured) and became HMS Group’s first international customer.

HMS Group Managing Director Jamie Howard congratulates JKZZ Chairman

Wei on the successful arrival of the two HMS Mini Loaders to China.

HMS Equipment has designed and commercialised the HMS Mini Loader that collects fallen coal from under working conveyors. This innovative machine not only reduces the down time associated with conveyor stoppages, but also removes the risks associated with manual cleaning; such as manual handling injuries, entanglement etc.

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Of the 13 Award categories, Makers Festival registered exhibitors won or were placed in 8. 6 were winners and 5 were highly commended. Results like those certainly attest to the Makers Festival having the cream of the best manufacturing and technology companies in the Region. They were:

Manufacturer of the Year Award 2016  
Winner R&R Murphy, Rod Murphy, Gateshead

HMA Board Award
Winner: Robotic Systems, Adam Amos, Mayfield West

Excellence in Innovation    
Winner: Hedweld Engineering, Ian Hedley, Mt Thorley

Highly Commended: TW Woods- Slashertek, Tomago and RR Taylor Kariong

Excellence in Product Design  
Highly Commended: Design Anthology, Joss Jeffress, Cardiff

Export Award  
RR Taylor, Warren Kaye, Kariong for Metmizer medical waste convertor.

Technology Award        
Highly Commended: Robotic Systems for Titan Mk2 Drone

Manufacturing Process
Winner: R&R Murphy

People and Skills
Highly commended: R&R Murphy

Congratulations to you all.

Hunter Manufacturing Awards is a partner in the inaugural Greater Hunter Makers Festival 2016.

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