Make Stuff Here – a call to arms for Australian Manufacturing

Steven Camilleri, co-founder of SPEE3D, has put together a compelling case for us to rediscover local value creation and in particular high value manufactured products which we export. And outlined why this is in our best interest. Right now, we export raw materials at one of the lowest rates of return per Kilogram of any nation on earth and currently have one of the lowest ratios of tech export revenue per capita. Singapore has 119 times our revenue per capita for tech exports.

You can read the full case at Make Stuff Here, and there is a personal video included.

So why does this matter?

Check out the value chain below. Yes I got it from SPEE3D.

Value Chain

It is pretty obvious that the further right you go, the more value you have created and the more income you can get for that value.

The case for Made in Australia

Successful Endeavours began its journey of designing high tech products you can make in Australia because I have grandchildren and I want to leave them an awesome economy full of value and opportunity. And Making Stuff Here creates a lot of value, a lot of direct jobs, a lot of indirect jobs and a lot of future opportunity.

There are currently 1M direct full time jobs in Australian Manufacturing and only 9.4M full time jobs in the whole economy so it is a critical element of Australia’s current economic survival. So we should be treating Australian Manufacturing better and looking after it. Even at a modest indirect to direct jobs ratio of 2.5:1, that makes 3.5M or 37% of the full time jobs in the Australian economy dependent on Australian Manufacturing for their existence.

Then there is the case for sovereign capability, or put differently, not being held to ransom by other countries for things we don’t or can’t currently make here. This also applies to agriculture, the other primary value creator in the economy which we should also be taking better care of.

Product Development process

Research and Development is an iterative process. Learn something new, look at how you can use it, raise a few questions, do some more research to learn new things. As this process unfolds you can target specific applications and look for commercial returns.

Once you have learn’t enough, here are the steps involved in the development of an electronics product:

1. Requirements – what is it meant to do, for who, how, etc
2. Ideation – coming up with and filtering ideas
3. Check for legal freedom to operate – is the idea already disclosed or patented, do you want to / can you patent anything, will you violate any other IP?
4. Technology discovery – looking at potential implementation options and their pros and cons
5. Concept Development
6. Proof of concept prototype – shows the function can work but is not in the right form factor or ready for production yet
7. Core development – designing the product as it is intended to be made and used
8. Alpha and beta trials – in house and friendly external party trials
9. Review and refine – based on trials, estimated production costs, new ideas coming from the trials etc
10. Compliance testing – EMC and any mandatory standards with production typical units
11. Production preparation – tooling, purchasing, packaging, jigs and fixtures. automated test
12. Pilot run – small batch run to prove the production process
13. Adjust based on the pilot run and prepare for main production including hardening of mechanical tools
14. Full scale production
15. Field support – you have product out there. It is usual to be doing patches and feature enhancements to maintain the competitive

That is a lot of steps to get right so you want a good process to make sure you nail it. At any of the above steps you can discover that you need more knowledge than you currently have which can kick of research activities to find or innovate the new knowledge.

Risk Management

In our article Improving Product Development Outcomes, I strongly make the point that risks should be identified up front and killed off as early as you can do it in the Product Development Process. While getting runs on the board early might seem attractive, if you do that by tackling the easy and known bits first, then you can find you have to redo all of that once you start tackling the harder or higher risk items. So tackling the biggest risks first is the best strategy.

The case for government funding

I was recently invited to contribute to the R&D Tax Incentive Roundtable and one of the points made at the session I was at is that it is commercial outcomes that matter and that Research and Development is one part of the overall process. But it isn’t a good use of money to throw more of it at a process that is not working. Fix the process first.

I think there is a clear case for investment in Australia’s future but the investment needs to generate economic results rather than just be consumed.

There are quite a few stakeholders that need to be taken into account when considering the commercial outcome and results are better when they are all happy enough with their outcome. This is covered in Key Elements For Product Design.

Product Development Process

So Research, Ideas and New Knowledge is important. It is on the left and kicks off the process. Without one of these nothing is going to happen. But a project still needs to navigate the rest of the territory before it gets to Market Ready Product.

I am confident we can do this and make it work. But we have to work together and we have to start believing in ourselves. On that point I am in full agreement with Steven Camilleri, co-founder of SPEE3D.

Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design, Embedded Software Development and Electronics Manufacturing, focusing on products that are intended to be profitably Made In Australia. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for more than 40 years.

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