A Vision for Australian Manufacturing
South East Business Networks, the City of Greater Dandenong’s longest running business development program, is an exceptional avenue for learning about issues to do with Manufacturing. This week they provided one ‘out of the box’ with an excellent presentation by Professor Goran Roos, a worldclass expert on Manufacturing and currently South Australia’s Thinker in Residence. With over 100 people in the room he explained some of the challenges Manufacturers face whilst simultaneously busting a few widely held myths about Australia’s approach to Manufacturing. There’s no doubt that the challenges for many are great and yet amongst them an idea emerged to me regarding Australia’s Manufacturing future. We have an opportunity to make the next decade ‘The Decade of Australian Manufacturing’
This is no Polly-Anna approach. It will require some serious work and more importantly it will require significant shifts in the way Government, Industry and the wider community think about Manufacturing and its role for Australia. All around Australia, and especially in the South East Melbourne area which is justifiably called Australia’s Manufacturng heartland, we have worldclass capability across all facets of ‘making’ – that is in essence what manufacturing means – ‘to make’. From biotechnology, clean room technology, nanotechnology, heavy steel fabrication and more, Australia has the core skills needed.
I sense though the future of manufacturing has a lot less to do with the skills and more about our understanding of how to best utilise those skills. A commitment to making the next ten years the Decade of Australian Manufacturing will see us position what we can do, how we think and what we can make at the fore front of world class manufacturing for many years to come. There is a clear opportunity if we are willing to see the future for what it could be, rather than focusing on what the future once was going to be. Things have changed and our Mannufacturing Future has changed whether we are willing to go there or not. The difference in our attitude will ultimately determine whether our future is more or less agreeable to us
A quick note for the history buffs among us – in this month of August fifty years ago, the first components of the Berlin Wall were constructed with rings of barbed wire severing Berlin into visually distinct west and east Berlin. Russia’s main challenge at that time was the 10,000 or so East Germans each…
Read More >Let me start by saying that my Masters of Science qualification is NOT held in economics and with that said I’m holding an interested person’s perspective toward wanting to know ‘why’ and ‘how’. I have some questions and thoughts about the theory of Supply and Demand and would be happy to have some feedback from…
Read More >Below you’ll find this afternoon’s discussion with ABC Darwin radio in which host Vicki Kerrigan chats with futurist Marcus Barber about the emerging research into lab grown meat as a potential addition to or replacement of, existing livestock farming methods. The program streamed live on 105.7 ABC Darwin this afternoon, discussing the University of…
Read More >Continuing the futures discussions on ABC Darwin Radio, this time with Paul Dale who is filling in for Vicki Kerrigan whilst Vicki is handling the breakfast time slot, we discuss some of the conference sessions at the World Futures Conference here in Vancouver You can listen to the audio stream here and cue this…
Read More >My slides from today’s presentation on ‘Getting You Future Right’ can be found at the link below To those at the session, my apologies for the technical challenges and hope these slides can provide more context for you – contact me if you have any questions. Access the Slides Here
Read More >Here’s the upload of my conversation with Vicki Kerrigan at ABC Radio Darwin. In it I offer the first three of ten steps designed to help you get your future right. In last week’s session I left Vicki with a question to ponder: Is my life headed where I want it to go, and if…
Read More >Futurist Marcus Barber will be joining ABC’s Vicki Kerrigan in Darwin for the first of an ongoing discussion about the future this Wednesday. Each week on Wednesday afternoon’s, Vicki and Marcus will discuss the future of something, how we prepare for the future, what the future looks like for some industries and other related futures…
Read More >The panel session at the National Manufacturing Week 2011 went well though with four of us on the panel, time was quite compressed. Some really good thoughts from Phillip Chindamo from AIG, Damon Cantwell from Deloitte and Erol Harvey from Minifab, delightfully chaired by Sandra George from SEBN at the City of Greater Dandenong. Rather…
Read More >On Thursday I’ll be part of the panel that wraps up the National Manufacturing Week 2011 in Melbourne at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre under the theme of Meeting the challenges of the next generation of manufacturing with a focus on Innovation and Sustainability. It should be an interesting chat as we consider what…
Read More >There’s lots to like about borrowing ideas from other areas especially where those ideas can lead to a significant positive shift. In the link below, Zaid Ali Alsagoff an educational blogging specialist highlights why the Finnish Education system stands as a potential model to embrace. And whilst there are examples of this type of thinking…
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