Shining a spotlight on innovation in Australian manufacturing

Even before the COVID pandemic, there were plenty of doom and gloom stories about Australian manufacturing. But look a little closer and it’s clear that there’s still plenty of local manufacturing success stories in many sectors and throughout Australia.

The manufacturing sector in Australia has indeed been gradually shrinking. In the late 1950s and early 1960s manufacturing accounted for just under 30 per cent of Australian GDP, which was its all-time peak. Since the 1970s, rapid growth in the services sector has seen manufacturing’s share of output decline. It now accounts for just 5.7 per cent of Australia’s total GDP.

Despite its declining share of GDP, the manufacturing sector’s absolute output has consistently grown for most of that time. So much so that in 2020 Australia is making more things than ever before – and we are making them better than ever before as well.

CSIRO: Embrace the circular economy to grow

A 2016 CSIRO report into advanced manufacturing in Australia notes that, “Australian manufacturing can and must be a thriving component of Australia’s economy through the application of advanced manufacturing technologies, systems, and processes. The sector will focus on pre-production (design, R&D) and post-production (after-sales services) value-adding, sustainable manufacturing, and low volume, high margin customised manufacturing.”

The CSIRO also concluded that opportunities will also emerge for businesses that embrace the circular economy concept, taking responsibility for whole-of-life impacts.

Businesses can achieve improvements to resource efficiency through waste reduction, recycling, remanufacturing and reuse. This includes energy-efficient products and products designed with recycling, recovery and collaborative consumption in mind.

Australian manufacturing alive and well

 Australian manufacturing is alive and well and will continue to flourish over the coming decades. Icon has the privilege of working with great Aussie manufacturing innovators like Leussink and Foamex that continue to evolve and grow.

Leussink: Four decades of Australian engineering innovation

Based in the Illawarra region south of Sydney, Leussink is an engineering business with over 40 years’ experience and an ever-growing range of capabilities. As a second-generation family-owned business, Leussink has been providing complete design, fabrication, and machining services and solutions for all industry sectors for over four decades.

Leussink recently invested $1 million to future proof its state-of-the-art workshop with the acquisition of a lathe to precisely machine metal parts. The new lathe has doubled the capacity of metalworking in the workshop and will complement their existing lathe, allowing the business to increase the size of the items they work on as well as the capacity.

“Australian manufacturing is alive and well and we will continue to invest in it. We’ve been competing with overseas companies for years and the COVID pandemic has brought new work our way because overseas suppliers cannot guarantee supply or the same quality that we offer,”

Jason Leussink, Managing Director, Leussink.

“Our state-of-the-art equipment enabled us to create the customised profiles required by the client, which also have excellent yield. This means there is very little wastage, making it cost-effective while meeting the brief and engineering specifications required.”

 Justin Kelsey, Managing Director, Foamex