The power of South Australia’s innovation places in realising economic prosperity for all is being showcased in an Australian ‘first-of-its-kind’ defence partnership at Tonsley Innovation District.
BAE Systems Australia, which will be a cornerstone tenant in Lot Fourteen’s Innovation Centre, has partnered with Adelaide-based cable supplier, MyModular, to trial a mobile micro factory to advance employment opportunities in South Australia’s ship building industry, and beyond.
The MyModular Inclusive Micro Factory aims to deliver efficiencies through just-in-time cable preparation for the program to build Hunter anti-submarine warfare frigates using an automated manufacturing solution specifically designed to be operated by people living with a disability.
The micro factory technology was successfully designed and tested with employees from disability provider, Bedford Group and Autism SA earlier this year, supporting BAE Systems’ ambitions to be the leading inclusive manufacturing provider for under-represented people in the defence sector.
The design and build of the six Hunter class frigates at South Australia’s Osborne Naval Shipyard constitutes the largest surface ship project in Australia’s defence history, creating thousands of jobs and supporting scores of local suppliers.
MyModular is the only sovereign manufacturing company providing modular and prefabricated electrical solutions to the construction industry, and they are located here in South Australia, and is a Partner on the Partnering4Success Program. MyModular CEO, Mark Fahey, said the micro factory project aligns with his personal and professional passion for streamlining construction, and furthermore creating more inclusive workplaces and career opportunities to support people of all abilities.
“When we look at the cable cutting in shipbuilding it’s a pretty clunky operation and working with BAE Systems, we identified a real opportunity to innovate that process,” he says. “With the micro factory, cables are put into a machine, they are cut to the length as needed, operators RFID tag them and they are ready to go for their intended purpose.
“There’s more than 700,000 metres of cable on each Hunter class frigate and there’s about 30,000 different cable cuts per ship.
“We have a significant resource pool of people living with a disability (approximately 19.6%); we can now offer purposeful, sustainable jobs through our microfactory, while freeing up resources at the shipyard and building capacity.
“I have a nine-year-old son who happens to have Down Syndrome which also opened my eyes to this opportunity and providing a career path and true independence for people like him into adulthood.”
Flinders University researchers supervised integration of the micro factory technology to ensure it could be used by people who are neurodivergent, or who have learning, cognitive, sensory or physical challenges.
Fahey says Flinders and Bedford were integral to the success of the project, adding that Bedford Group were doing an amazing job in helping to “change the narrative” of what meaningful employment represents for people living with a disability.
“At the moment we’re using our micro factory technology for cutting cables but there’s so many potential applications; the software can be adopted for any type of manufacturing,” Fahey says.
“The technology is not only proven to be able to be used by people with all abilities, but it can also manage inventory, it has safety checks and quality checks to provide comfort to the end user.
“Now we want to take it from a great idea toa commercial outcome and we’re working with BAE Systems on that process.”
The micro factory has been trialled at Line Zero: Factory of The Future – developed by BAE Systems Maritime Australia in partnership with Flinders University, the Commonwealth Government and Government of South Australia.
Line Zero is a facility for industrial scale testing of new technologies and processes ahead of their use in the advanced manufacturing or shipbuilding industry. A spokesman for BAE Systems Australia said the Company is working with its trusted industry partners to increase the resilience, capability, and capacity of the nation’s defence industry by partnering with small and medium enterprises like MyModular.
