As Australia’s reliance on Chinese manufacturing supply chains unravelled in 2020, the sentiment towards ‘Australian Made’ products has galvanised consumers and the government to invest more in local manufacturing with a few heads of the private sector forewarning against it.
Certain retail giants have flagged the impending price burden for Australian customers if manufacturers traded in their offshore supply-chains for local ones marred by red tape and hyper regulation. Wesfarmers Chairman Michael Chaney recently told the Sydney Morning Herald “we need a far more flexible industrial relations system, far less regulation and red tape… while those things don’t occur, I think it’s inevitable that manufacturing will suffer here in Australia.” Although a seemingly viable economic reason to go offshore, Chaney’s comments comprise a rationale more welcomed by the public in a pre-pandemic society. A recent Roy Morgan poll shows 52% of Australians have a higher preference for Australian-made products since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and gives credence to the flourishing online sentiment towards the yellow kangaroo as locals bared witness, perhaps for the first time, to the havoc caused by the collapse of Chinese supply chains.
As the government has pledged to incorporate increased funding to the local manufacturing sector in the 2020-21 budget, they have also been heavily investing in the local naval and marine sector. Touted as one of the emerging players in the Australian economy, maritime capabilities is set to receive “$75 billion investment” according to a recent manmonthly.com article. Its function addresses key areas of improvement in the local manufacturing sector such as the need to “create work for recovery, [provide for] future generations and increase sovereign capability” in times of international disruption. Moreover, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews told manmonthly.com “It’s about harnessing strengths in key priority areas to help Australian manufacturers become more competitive, more resilient, and to scale-up,” which outlines the roadmap to making local manufacturing a sustainable option especially for emerging industrial sectors whose products are currently outsourced and don’t pass on the savings to ordinary consumers or the taxpayer.
As the federal government looks to remedy the shortfalls of relying on international supply chains to import goods, the delivery of certain industrial goods simply can’t afford to be interrupted as they provide immediate public health benefits. Take DRYSYS, a leading Australian industrial engineering company based in Melbourne that is one of the last of their kind to offer cleanroom manufacturing within Australia. The direct benefit of manufacturing crucial products like industrial air systems that range from commercial grade HVAC systems to paint finishing facilities is the immediate inspection, design and installation of any given industrial system to suit a specific environment. Not only does this provide a shorter turnaround time for businesses looking to invest in public health equipment such as filtration systems but also provides the manufacturer (DRYSYS) with the ability to automate and integrate their systems with security and industrial supervisory tools relevant to a climate they are experts in.
The DRYSYS cleanroom design and manufacturing services are comprehensive and speak volumes about the benefit of a local production cycle in which the client team receives direct training in regard to the systems operation, maintenance and repair. The DRYSYS condition monitoring systems are implemented to make any given room or space more compliant with rapidly evolving industry standards such as the CDC’s research on COVID-19’s transmission through ‘aerosols’.
The importance of a local manufacturer for Industrial Air systems is at the very least twofold-as you have a local team befitting their products with compliant technology and a local company you can meet with in person who are accountable for their expert advice to ensure your environment is safe and compliant as ever.