Tag / Micro-X

by brandsa2018

SA an ideal model for Industry 4.0 transformation

South Australia is ripe for the challenge to progress as industry and employment enters a state of transformation. The closure of production line automotive manufacturing has signalled a new era, with a raft of local businesses swiftly embracing digital industrialisation as the Industry 4.0 technological revolution quickly gathers global momentum – and several progressive companies emerge as shining lights to lead the way.

This paints an optimistic picture for future jobs and industry opportunities in SA according to Professor John Spoehr, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research Impact) at Flinders University, and director of the Australian Industrial Transformation Institute.

He has seen rapid change to the state’s business and employment landscape during the past three years, propelled by an understanding across local industry that it is now crucial to act swiftly. This is attracting new industry, fresh international investment, new types of employment and new opportunities to the state.

Realising that an employment vacuum could impose widespread economic damage to a city – with former automotive towns such as Detroit providing an ominous example – Prof Spoehr says Adelaide is proving itself a nimble adaptor of technological innovations to drive new industry.

Professor John Spoehr says Adelaide is adapting to technological innovations to drive new industry.

Running apace with international development levels is ensuring that more opportunities for high-skill, high-pay employment is already occurring.

“Any fears that a digitised workforce must imply a jobless future is not the reality facing SA’s workforce,” says Prof Spoehr.

“It’s a time of great possibility and progress, and SA can provide a model for successful industrial transformation in Australia.”

Prof Spoehr examines this as editor and co-writer of South Australia – State of Transformation, a new book that issues an independent assessment of SA’s current economic, social and political landscape, while also exploring options and policy needs to lay the strongest possible path ahead.

He points to the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies in manufacturing by such companies as Micro-X, based at the Tonsley Innovation District, which is manufacturing lightweight portable X-ray machines (primarily used in disaster zones and emergency situations).

It has quickly won international orders for its products, and to meet demand the company has employed and re-trained many former Holden workers, building on their skill set to quickly provide Micro-X with an experienced and capable hi-tech manufacturing workforce.

“Micro-X has been very clever to make best use of an already skilled workforce of former Holden employees, showing how to be nimble at harnessing local skills, people and resources,” says Prof Spoehr. “For a young company, it has a very bright future.”

Inside Micro-X’s manufacturing facility at Tonsley Innovation District, a former automotive factory. Photo: Micro-X.

Redarc at Lonsdale, which manufactures advanced electronics that specialise in increased towing safety for off-road and heavy vehicles, has been one of the state’s most enthusiastic adopters of Industry 4.0 manufacturing technology.

The company’s transformation during the past 18 months under chief executive Anthony Kittel has been remarkable, resulting in collaborative robots being part of a holistic manufacturing plant expansion.

“These companies are addressing technically complex problems, and as a consequence they are generating high-skill, knowledge intensive and high wage jobs,” says Prof Spoehr. “This is the form of employment that we need more of to help underpin high living standards in SA.”

SAGE Automation, a leader in systems integration, automation solutions and data services to industry, is working across a raft of different industries, including defence, mining, transportation, logistics, utilities and manufacturing. Prof Spoehr says SAGE is helping local companies to take advantage of the digital revolution.

He notes that SAGE’s location within the Tonsley Innovation District has been transformative for the company, providing great benefits through its proximity to other innovative tech companies along with Flinders University researchers and leading students, with whom it has entered numerous collaborations.

A bird’s eye view (Dec, 2017) of the former Elizabeth Holden site, which has now been transformed into Lionsgate Business Park.

“This shows that the collaborations between universities and companies should be stronger in SA, because this will help accelerate the uptake of innovations in industry – and this is the crucial step forward.”

These leading businesses are also guiding the transition from old manufacturing to dynamic new tech industries and specialist manufacturers at the Tonsley Innovation District and Lionsgate Business Park in Elizabeth, both former automotive manufacturing plants.

The success of these districts also points to a promising pathway for current development of a new hi-tech industry hub at Lot Fourteen, within the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site in Adelaide.

“It shows that strong commitment and vision can transform sites into advanced manufacturing precincts,” says Prof Spoehr.

“Manufacturing employment did grow in SA during 2018, but now there has to be double the support for emerging SMEs (Small and Medium Sized Enterprises) to remain at the cutting edge of what is happening globally.

“Australia must be a champion of innovation in both our services and manufacturing sectors – and SA can play a leading role.”

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by brandsa2018

Micro-X workforce is proof of life after automotive industry

Under the roof of the former Mitsubishi Motors assembly plant at Tonsley in Adelaide’s south, about a dozen ex-Holden workers are busy manufacturing x-ray systems that are the first of their kind in the world.

Manufacturing a Holden Commodore and a lightweight x-ray imaging system are, for obvious reasons, worlds apart, but according to Micro-X managing director Peter Rowland, company culture is the same.

When Peter was preparing to shift the relatively new Micro-X from Victoria to South Australia in 2015, he phoned the general manager of Holden’s Elizabeth factory which was headed for closure in two years’ time.

“I said ‘look, I’m setting up this company and my strategy is that I want to import the culture and practices of good manufacturing within the auto industry and I want to recruit some of your best and finest workers’,” he says.

“It’s all about the culture, it’s not just the skills that drives attention to detail, the quality, and the search for better, cheaper, simpler and faster ways to produce high quality products.

Inside Micro-X’s manufacturing facility.

“There is no other industry on earth that makes such a complicated thing as a motorcar as cost effectively and with such high quality as the auto industry.”

Micro-X received a loan from the former Labor State Government to set up operations in SA, choosing Tonsley’s Main Assembly Building (MAB) as the site where it would manufacture lightweight x-ray systems for the medical, defence and airport security sectors.

Former Holden worker Adam Williams was recruited as Micro-X’s first official employee and has since helped grow the business which now has a workforce of 36 and is on the cusp of expansion.

Micro-X’s lightweight x-ray imaging systems are expected to create better outcomes for imaging systems in the medical and military fields, with the company working with the Australian and UK defence forces.

Its DRX-Revolution Nano Mobile X-ray System is designed for Carestream Health Inc of Rochester, New York, an international x-ray systems giant.

The Nano uses world-first technology developed by the University of North Carolina and sourced by Micro-X’s partner XinRay Systems in which Micro-X has a 30% share.

The Nano weighs under 100kg making it more easily transportable around hospitals than the industry’s standard x-ray machines.

The mobile x-ray system is easily transported around hospitals and intensive care units, as it weighs under 100kg which is considerably lighter than the industry standard of about 600kg.

“It’s smaller, simpler and cheaper  … and it’s the first of this technology anywhere in the world. We are the first ones who have made it into a device, got regulatory approvals, and brought it to the market, it’s a global first for SA,” Peter says.

Micro-X is also developing a lightweight, digital mobile x-ray system, the Rover, through a contract with the Australian Defence Force.

The medical imager is designed for use in military deployed medical field hospitals, humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

The Rover is for use in military deployed hospital fields.

From this contract came another, to produce a bench-top prototype of the Mobile Backscatter Imager (MBI), a standoff imaging system for detection of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Peter says the MBI has “superman vision” allowing it to take a high resolution image of IEDs from a distance, reducing risks to explosive experts.

“We’ve proven that it works and now we’re talking to bomb disposal people not only in Australia but in the US too, we’re developing that product as we speak.”

Aside from the Nano, Rover and MBI, Micro-X is also working on the development of a lightweight x-ray system to detect explosives hidden in electronics at airports.

The majority of Micro-X products are sold outside of Australia by the company’s 6.5% shareholder, Carestream Health Inc.

Micro-X is undergoing a $7m expansion at the Tonsley Innovation District.

However, Peter says a couple of SA hospitals already have their eye on the mobile x-ray units, and that in 10 years’ time it will be hard to find a hospital in Adelaide that hasn’t adopted a Micro-X product.

To cater for the demand for its products and growth of its operations, the business is undergoing a $7m expansion of its facilities at Tonsley.

With the help of a $2.4 million Advanced Manufacturing Grant from the Federal Government, Micro-X will double the size of its current footprint, and also take up a separate 600sqm space still under Tonsley’s MAB roof.

The company also plans to recruit additional staff over the next 12 months and grow to about 50 employees.

“Two years from now we’re going to be manufacturing backscatter imagers and airport imagers, as well as a huge volume of mobile x-rays,” Peter says.

“And it’s all happening from Adelaide.”

I Choose SA for Advanced Manufacturing stories are made possible by City of Salisbury:

Industry in focus: Advanced Manufacturing

Throughout the month of September, the state’s advanced manufacturing industry will be under the magnifying glass as part of I Choose SA.

As SA transforms away from traditional manufacturing processes, innovative and sophisticated products and services are taking their place, creating new jobs and investment opportunities for the state. Read more stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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