More with Less

Unemployment rates in Australia have significantly hiked from 5.2 per cent last year to the current level of 5.4 per cent. Job advertisements have slumped to their lowest level in three years, down 20 per cent in December 2012 compared to that of 2011

With many of the country's biggest employers shedding jobs through redundancy programs and reducing the size of their teams, how can employers and leaders guarantee sustained levels of productivity with a reduced workforce?

According to Cyril Peupion, work management expert and managing partner of Primary Asset Consulting, productivity has become the most important issue for businesses as we enter uncertain economic times.

"As a result of shrinking workforces, people are becoming overworked and stressed," Peupion said.

"They are trying to achieve the same level of results with a reduced team size. This is not what anyone wants, nor is it sustainable in the long term. In this challenging economic environment, leaders and their teams need to work smarter. In order for a team to be efficient, they must have an effective leader."

Peupion has the following suggestions for business owners, managers and team leaders to improve and maintain the productivity of their team:

1. Align

A recent survey has shown that 85 per cent of people do not know the goals of their organisation.

As a leader you need to create a strong link between the strategy of the organisation and the role of each person in your team.

2. Focus

One of the main issues for people in business is that they have too much work to get through. It is extremely rare to find a team that is not busy and over-committed. If you and your team take too much on you will fail as you are diluting the focus of your team.

In order to establish and maintain focus, ask your team a very valuable question: "what are the one or two things that, if we change, will impact the team's performance and enable the delivery of results?"

Only focus on one or two, not ten or twenty. This is a challenging activity but once these key areas of focus are identified, performance will improve.

3. Discipline

Having decided on the one or two things that need to be focused on, discipline is required. Very quickly the day to day tasks take over and before you know it, the areas of focus are put on the back burner because of an urgent crisis or task.

Once you have decided what the team should focus on and what it will mean for each person, monitor the progress weekly with the team. Set aside a time each week to make this happen.

"Staff end up frustrated, feeling out of control and stressed. It is vital that managers and leaders at every level strive to work smarter so that business objectives are met and staff don't burn out."

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3D Printing Expo

Australia’s first-ever dedicated 3D Printing Expo has been announced, and will take place in Mackay on June 13 this year.

The expo will feature speakers including Bruce Grey, managing director at the Advanced Manufacturing CRC, Professor Milan Brandt from RMIT, and John Barnes, CSIRO’s Titanium Theme Leader.

“3D printing is a technology that allows you to create real things in lots of different materials by building an object micro-layer by micro-layer,” explained the event’s coordinator, Lila Clarke.

“Even using inexpensive 3D printers, each layer can be as small as 0.1 mm - thinner than a sheet of paper.”

The choice of location of Mackay was explained in terms of the high proportion of engineers compared to the population.

The conference will be one of the first to examine the effect of 3D printing on a variety of sectors, and is expected to host 200-plus delegates. Those interested in attending can register here.

“The mind-blowing future includes the possibility of printing buildings in concrete as well as printing human organs layer by layer using cells and stem cells,” said Clarke.

“What computing did for information in the virtual world, 3D printing and additive manufacture is now doing for manufacture in the real world.”

The increasing availability (and affordability) of 3D printing and other forms of additive manufacturing is predicted to make a big impact on industry in the future.

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Hamilton By Design offer a 1st Class 3D Solid modelling service

The expo will feature world class speakers describing and illustrating the biggest technological breakthrough in the manufacturing and design sectors since the first industrial revolution.

The team of Australian and international industry leaders speaking at the 3D Printing Expo include:

Dr. Mark Hodge - CEO, Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC)

Mr John Barnes - Titanium Theme Leader, CSIRO

Mr Bruce Grey - Managing Director at Advanced Manufacturing CRC

Professor Milan Brandt -Professor, RMIT

Simon Bartlett - Director, Rapid Pro

Mitchell Benness - Business Development Manager, 3D Systems

There is expected to be over 200 delegates attending representing local businesses in Mackay and surrounding areas, as well as a wide range of 3D printing industry leading sponsors and exhibitors.

Event Coordinator, Lila Clarke, said that this highly anticipated conference is one of the first in Australia to address the radical impact of 3D printing in a range of industries including engineering, construction, architecture, manufacturing and health.

"3D printing is a technology that allows you to create real things in lots of different materials by building an object micro-layer by micro-layer. Even using inexpensive 3D printers, each layer can be as small as 0.1 mm - thinner than a sheet of paper.

"3D printing is about adding substance rather than removing it, whereas with laser cutting and CNC milling you are taking substance away.

"At the basic level, you can recreate objects layer by layer in plastic. The mind-blowing future includes the possibility of printing buildings in concrete as well as printing human organs layer by layer using cells and stem cells.

"What computing did for information in the virtual world, 3D printing and additive manufacture is now doing for manufacture in the real world.

"The reason for choosing Mackay instead of a major city is that there are more engineers by population ratio than any other city in Australia. There is a significant mining boom and extensive support surrounding it.

"Regional centres like Mackay generally have to travel to major cities to visit conferences. Holding the conference in Mackay allows the target market to be directly involved from the very start”, Ms Clake added.

DATE Thursday 13 June 2013

TIME 9.00am - 5.00pm

VENUE Souths Leagues Club, 81 Milton St, Mackay QLD

About 3D PRINTING EXPO

The 3D Printing Expo is a business community project initiated by a group of small business owners in Townsville, Mackay and Brisbane. Its mission is to introduce new business and manufacturing technologies to regional and remote Queensland.

The impact that this innovation will have on the manufacturing industry is expected to be the most important since Henry Ford invented the production line.

Automation is the future

Automation is the future for Australian Manufacturing

 

Tony MacMahon, Kimberley-Clark’s CFO for Australia and New Zealand, has said that innovation – and not government subsidies – was the key to Australian manufacturers performing well.

“The only way to compete against cheap imports into the Australian market is to keep coming out with new premium products and continually improve efficiency in the supply chain,” MacMahon told The Australian Financial Review.

Kimberley-Clark, a maker of personal care products, is preparing to manufacture products including its Pull-Ups, Little Swimmers and Dry Night offerings in Australia.

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Carbon Tax - Price Rises

Ai Group came up with the estimate from 485 surveyed businesses, but the heated debate over the carbon pricing reforms adopted last July may have been behind that result in the November survey.

A survey that shows businesses have estimated a 14.5 per cent jump in energy costs due to the carbon tax underlines why the impost must be scrapped, Tony Abbott says.

The federal opposition leader says the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) survey shows company power price rises are well above the 10 per cent increases the federal government has so far been prepared to concede.

He says the additional cost is an example of how the carbon tax is worsening job uncertainty and elevating the cost of living.

"It just goes to show that if you want to get this economy going again, if you want to make people's jobs more secure, (and) families' cost of living lower, get rid of the carbon tax," Abbott told reporters in Melbourne on Tuesday.

"That will be the first thing that an incoming coalition government does."

Pointing to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showing a smaller 6.7 per cent increase in power prices for the September quarter, the Ai Group report said "the high profile of the carbon tax appears to have led to some over-estimation by business (of its impact)".

The lobby group's report is based on a series of surveys conducted with businesses in the construction, manufacturing and services sectors.

In another survey, 49 per cent of businesses said their energy and other input costs had risen since the July introduction of the tax.

The impact across the economy has been uneven, with 61 per cent of manufacturing businesses, 36 per cent of service businesses and 52 per cent of businesses in the construction industry reporting a rise in costs.

Ai Group chief Innes Willox said food manufacturers were hardest hit and were restricted from passing on the increased costs to consumers due to a host of factors, including competition from imports unaffected by carbon pricing.

"Food manufacturers do not qualify for the trade-exposed industry assistance program and are currently facing substantial resistance to price rises from the major retailers," he said in a statement.

Of those surveyed, he said just 42 per cent intended to increase their prices.

A spokesman for Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said a previous Ai Group study had found most businesses spent just two per cent or less of their total revenue on energy expenses.

"This makes the carbon price impact on total costs an increase of around 0.2 per cent of revenue," the spokesman said.

"The Ai Group report confirms that carbon pricing is a manageable economic and environmental reform.

Julia - Budget Surplus Guarantee

Prime Minister Julia Gillard must use her National Press Club address on Wednesday to reveal the true state of the federal budget, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says.

Hockey said Gillard had avoided tough questions on the economy since the government dumped its "iron-clad" budget surplus guarantee in December.

He said the prime minister won't say how much the fifth successive Labor deficit will be, or how much the debt is projected to rise to.

She must also come clean about how she intends to pay for unfunded promises, such as the $8 billion a year needed for the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the $6.5 billion needed for the Gonski education reforms, he said.

"Now that Labor have dumped their 2012/13 surplus 'guarantee', when does Labor now say they will deliver a surplus?" Hockey asked in a statement on Tuesday.

"Will the prime minister give another-iron clad guarantee to return the budget to surplus?"

He also wanted Gillard to explain how she intended to keep her promise of paying off net debt by 2020/21, given that would require surpluses of almost $30 billion a year from 2016/17.

Hockey said if she didn't answer his questions she would fail the standard she set in April 2011 when she said, "You can't run this country if you can't manage its budget".

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