At the world’s largest industrial fair Hannover Messe 2017 held last month, Australian and German Industry groups forged closer ties to advance and modernise both countries’ manufacturing sectors.
The Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce in Australia, established and chaired by Siemens Australia and New Zealand CEO Jeff Connolly, and Plattform Industrie 4.0 group from Germany signed a cooperation agreement which will see closer collaboration between the two countries in developing modern manufacturing sectors.
The partnership will create opportunities to advance and modernise both countries manufacturing capacity. It will enable the digitisation and linking of manufacturing processes along global value chains and create opportunities to generate economic prosperity.
The German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Ms Brigitte Zypries, and Australian Ambassador to Germany, Lynette Wood and Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel supported and helped celebrate the signing event at Hannover Messe.
Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Senator Arthur Sinodinos welcomed the commitment by Australian and German industry groups to work together to prepare our economies for the Industry 4.0 transition.
Advanced manufacturing fund
In the recent Budget the federal government announced plans to establish a $100-million fund for manufacturers to diversify and expand their businesses.
As part of the funding, Senator Sinodinos said $47.5 million will go towards an advanced manufacturing growth fund, $10 million going towards innovation labs in Victoria and South Australia and $5 million to go towards maintaining engineering expertise by investing in student research.
The Minister said the cooperative work under the agreement would be supported by government, industry, and standards and research organisations within both countries.
“I am particularly pleased that the agreement has a strong focus on supporting SMEs in both countries to seize the opportunities offered by Industry 4.0 including through access to a network of test labs,” Senator Sinodinos said.
Mr Jeff Connolly, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce said: “This agreement formalizes the important work we are already doing between Australia and Germany around the future of manufacturing.
“The Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce brings together a coalition of the willing from Australia and Germany.”
International standards
To capture those benefits, the partnership will focus on bringing consistency to open international standards, helping SMEs transform their businesses, cyber security, workforce planning, education and training.
Plattform Industrie 4.0 (Germany) and the Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce (Australia) have agreed to cooperate across five work streams, representing key challenges in the transition to Industry 4.0:
- Reference architectures, standards and norms;
- Support for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs);
- Industry 4.0-Testlabs;
- Security of networked systems; and,
- Work, education and training
The agreement fulfils a recommendation by the Australia-Germany Advisory Group relating to collaboration to increase leadership on digital transformation, including the development of global Industry 4.0 standards. The agreement also forms part of the broader cooperation between Australia and Germany on science and innovation.
