Holden managing director and President of the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, Mike Devereux, says the carbon tax is a ‘heavy and unfair cost’ for local automotive players, and policy consistency is needed to secure the sector’s future.

STARTING from 7 December, Australian entrepreneurs will no longer have to repay Early Stage Commercialisation grants for businesses developing a new product, process, or service.

How to use mobile technologies to achieve best practice deliveries on the road. Tony Repaci writes.

How to use simulation for early verification of your design before hardware prototypes are available.

Cutting the amount of pollution emitted into our atmosphere will help preserve our country’s future. So why is our industry so dirty about the carbon tax?

A primary driver in the plant operations software market has been the need to align plant operations with the business needs of the enterprise. Now, market forces are beginning to take this pressure to the next level, as manufacturers face increasingly dynamic market ecosystems and value networks.

This year has been a tough race for manufacturers. Find out how you can get on top in the new year by reading our top-tips for 2012.

Kelly Racing received a design award for using manufacturing software to mock-up new car components that helped them win the ultimate prize — without even testing them on the racing track.

Designing rack structures to cope with the unpredictable forces generated during an earthquake requires a combination of detailed engineering, sophisticated computer analysis, and a degree of crystal ball gazing – on the part of the engineer – into how the storage system may be utilised over its lifetime.

Probably no other issue generates more discussion or confusion in the electrical market than how to correctly implement a redundant power supply system. Yet, redundancy is paramount when extreme reliability is required in power supply systems, as is the case in the DC supply to a DCS or PLC control system.

Many cartridge dust collectors today are equipped with a bank of filters installed downstream of the clean air discharge. These systems are known by a variety of names – safety monitoring filter, secondary filter, after-filter and safety filter being the most common terms.

LOOK out SolidWorks; we are coming to get you. This was the key message from Siemens PLM’s recent analyst conference in Boston – with some impressive growth figures to back up those claims. Alan Johnson reports from Boston.

Thanks to a smart new layout and storage systems, this dairy and drinks NDC distributes 100,000 cases a day.

Innovative developments in motors and drives are set to deliver significant productivity gains as well as environmental benefits.

Standards consistency and common platforms adoption are critical to the future of Australia’s transport infrastructure, according to delegates at a recent transport systems conference.

Is there a legitimate reason for Australian industry to import fabricated steel? We’ve heard the case against it; now let’s hear the case for it.

Australia’s food and beverage industry is not doing as well as it seems, and substantial change is set to hit the sector, a new report says.

What do you do when you need precision parts machined for an oil processing project in the middle of the ocean? Send in the experts, of course. Check out this video of the FARO Laser Tracker, an ingenious system used by one manufacturing company to cut-out the tedious surveying legwork required to start the job.

Given rising energy costs and the increased efficiency of modern VSDs, many applications can be warranted on power savings alone, writes Craig Southwell.

One of the most critical roles of the food manufacturing industry is to deliver food that is not only of good quality but is safe to eat. Rita Mu reports.