The Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council is pleased to announce that Ford Australia has today joined its CEO-led coalition pursuing Australian success in advanced manufacturing.
Formed in 2013, the AAMC brings together industry leadership to drive innovation success and resilience in the Australian economy. Today its members include some of the best known names in Australian manufacturing: enterprises like the ANCA Group, making a global name for Australian ingenuity; aerospace local hero, Marand; and Australia’s own multinationals like shipbuilder, Austal, biotech company, CSL, and med-tech manufacturer, Cochlear; as well as Australian subsidiaries of global companies like Agilent Technologies, Cook Medical, Northrop Grumman, PPG Industries, and Boeing Australia, all with a strong focus on Australian talent and innovative capacity.
Ford Australia President & CEO, Graeme Whickman, said: “We are delighted to join the Council to support and promote Australia’s high value innovation and advanced manufacturing.
“Ford’s 91 years of design and engineering in Australia is not only living on, it is growing in global importance. Australia’s knack for innovation, honed over the past decades, has set us up as one of only three Product Development hubs around the Ford world. Solving critical mobility challenges and transforming our thinking is imperative to future proofing economic performance, the environment and society.”
Ford Australia is also a strong supporter of research collaboration between companies and Australian universities. Through the Australian Alliance Framework (AAF), Ford is already heavily involved in sponsoring University Research Projects (URPs) at five Australian universities (ANU, Melbourne, RMIT, Deakin, Swinburne). Ford currently has more than 20 approved URPs in place with these academic institutions.
Chairman of the AAMC, Mr John Pollaers, welcomed Ford Australia to the Council saying the company’s vast and growing Research and Development operations in Victoria are a great credit to Australian design and engineering talent.
Mr Pollaers said the past decade or more had seen dramatic changes in manufacturing in Australia and around the world.
“More than 80 per cent of world trade occurs within the global value chains of Multinational companies,” Mr Pollaers said.
“Australia is securing a place in the high-value end of that chain – and we can make much more of that.
“Ford Australia’s advanced operation here is another example of this. It is globally sustainable – and is home to one of Australia’s most extensive high-value product development capabilities, incorporating design, engineering and proving ground facilities spread across Victoria, and leveraging major investments in test tracks, a wind tunnel, a semi-anechoic chamber and world-class emissions laboratories,” he said.
“Australia’s advanced manufacturing companies are among the most competitive and innovative in the world. We can compete globally in high-value products and using innovative processes, and we can win,” he said.
Contact:
Jennifer Conley
E: Jennifer.conley@aamc.org.au
M: 0406 857 856