DMTC has featured prominently in prestigious awards recognising success in naval and maritime innovation.
The Maritime Australia Industry Innovation Awards were presented by the Minister for Defence Industry, the Hon Christopher Pyne MP, on 4 October at the Pacific 2017 International Maritime Exposition in Sydney.
DMTC received a High Commendation for its leadership of a project to study Microbiological Corrosion on Australian naval vessels, and DMTC researcher Peter Kabakov was recognised with the prestigious Young Innovator scholarship prize.
Employed by the Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Mr Kabakov has worked on a DMTC project involving research partners ANSTO and University of Wollongong and DMTC industry partner Thales Australia (Thales Underwater Systems) to establish an Australian production capability for single crystal, piezoelectric ceramics.
“Walk before you run” – A better approach to program design
An enhanced approach to program development in DMTC is resulting in smarter engagement with prospective industry and research partners, faster transition from development to implementation and more strategic deployment of resources. The more rigorous approach, outlined at DMTC’s annual conference in March, was successfully implemented in a project recently completed within DMTC’s Maritime Program. Research partner Swinburne University joined forces with Adelaide-based industry partner AirSpeed to conduct a scoping review on the effect of impact resistance on the durability of composite structures in the marine environment. The project team scrutinised existing academic literature along with existing technical solutions, and went on to benchmark current Australian industry capability and identify prospective industry and research partners that could be involved in follow-on projects. DMTC’s Maritime Program Leader, Associate Professor Stephen van Duin, is upbeat about the results. “Defence projects are often described as a long game, but it’s also true that the early phases of a program or project are often the most critical to long-term success,” he said. “In this case, we’ve spent five or six months making sure we have a really good understanding of the technical risks and opportunities, which will help us as we move forward.”
Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) Annual Conference
As DMTC’s Lead Program Manager Deepak Ganga explains, scoping and de-risking activities, like this one with Swinburne and AirSpeed, are all about helping the DMTC Management Team and Board to make better decisions. “There will be times when these early investigations lead us to decide not to pursue new projects. That’s actually a successful outcome in terms of avoiding wasted effort or mis-directed investments,” Deepak says. “Particularly in areas where the technical risk is higher, we can use a relatively quick project task to better understand the technical issues and to prove our assumption before making a more significant investment. “In this case it’s about answering questions like ‘What is the current state of the development of marine composites? What technical improvements can be made and what are the risks involved with moving along the TRL path? What would a new project, or suite of projects, look like?’.” “All of this knowledge helps us to make higher-confidence estimates about development of the technology and about hitting the milestones we set for capability, cost and time.”
DMTC chief executive Mark Hodge joined Defence Connect podcast host Phil Tarrant for a wide-ranging discussion on the Australian defence industry and the future of collaborative technology development. The pair discussed DMTC’s transition to a proven industrial capability partner for Defence, and the current portfolio of projects DMTC is taking on to further develop the technological capabilities of the Australian defence industry.
DMTC has teamed up with a number of Australian Government and innovation partner organisations to provide advice and information to manufacturers looking to grow and transform their business at National Manufacturing Week and Austech 2017.
National Manufacturing Week is the largest gathering of Australian manufacturers under one roof and Austech is the only show specifically targeted at the metalworking, machine tool and ancillary market in Australia.
Experts from the following Government agencies and innovation partners will come together to form an Advanced Manufacturing team:
