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
In a recent article in The Age, Clive Williams of Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism suggested that athletes booked in to attend the Commonwealth games in India need to consider a terrorist attack as a potential wildcard. Whilst an interesting perspective, I’d like to suggest that a potential terrorist attack at…
Read More >If my information is correct, the 14th of February is the start of the New Year and instead of the usual flowers and chocolates, you might be wise to invest in another gift for your heart’s desire Because Feb 14 is the start of the Chinese New Year – the year of the Tiger. So…
Read More >Had any thoughts yet? I have – plenty and judging from the number of media inquiries it appears lots of other people are also curious to know what might lie ahead in the next year or next decade. I’m putting my thinking hat on so that we can consider what 2010-2019 might hold, the second…
Read More >I’m tipping that Consensus will be reached at Copenhagen this week. Alas it will be a consensus for more talking, thinking and commitments to agree to a proposal to set a time for a discussion around more concrete targets. In otherwords, a commitment to not commit. The politicians waver whilst our planet is being poisoned.…
Read More >The cycle of consumption rears its head as it has done for quite some time. Consumption is neither good, nor bad, it ‘just is’ and right now the majority of media exposed potential consumers are being lured, enticed and occasionally conned into parting with their hard earned money to satisfy needs and whims. Some consumers…
Read More >Our son has just celebrated his fifth birthday and although we don’t make a huge fuss about milestones (the kids get a party every second year), there’s no doubt that he is learning about desired future outcomes and goals. I doubt he is different from most kids in his ability to spot something and declare…
Read More >Here’s a little something I’d like you to think about. Are you really who you say you are? And, how do I know that I can trust you? Identity Theft is one of the most debilitating crimes a person can suffer for it strips away the very core of your own belief system and that…
Read More >‘World – we have a problem’ (apologies to astronaut James Lovell). We are killing ourselves with food and it’s happening at both ends of the continuum – millions starve each day whilst a gluttony caused obesity epidemic is killing others off in different ways. We have a growing global population requiring sustenance, whilst Climate Change…
Read More >Anyone looking at the final rainfall figures for Melbourne’s rainfall might be heartened by the news that the final result was about 10mm above the September average. Compared to last year’s disastrous result where we had about 12mm, it was over 50mm better. But I wonder if the final result, and the current ‘average’ isn’t…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber discussed the future of travel at the ANTOR session at The American Club in Sydney, NSW on the 24th of September. Along with Angela Smith from Roy Morgan Research, Martin Kelly from Travel Trends and Gail Rehbein from the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility Marcus proposed some of the emerging…
Read More >