The Effect of Globalisation on the Australian Economy

An untapped innovation source for advanced manufacturing supply chains

Australia has a strong record of originality in advanced manufacturing: it is the country that gave us the ultrasound scanner, the black box flight recorder and the bionic ear.

The country’s innovative capacity in this sector is in strong demand in global supply chains within the high growth Asia-Pacific region. Australia’s capabilities are focused on high technology, high value-add, and high-skill manufacturing that uses advanced design, processes, materials and technologies.

Operating within a stable and business friendly regulatory environment, Advanced Manufacturing has a strong network of support from both the public and private sectors and draws upon a deep pool of technical talent which is delivering significant advances in manufacturing supply chains across a range of industries.

Innovative and significant

Australia’s manufacturing industry, including advanced manufacturing, is the third largest contributor to Australia’s economy, accounting for 8.3 per cent or A$108 billion of total nominal value of Australia’s industry gross value added in 2010-11 (Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics Cat. No. 5204.0, Australian System of National Accounts, 2010-11).

Part of this success is due to cross-fertilisation between Australia’s Research &Development (R&D) institutions and its manufacturing sector. Co-operative research centres have been established around the country to provide links between industry and the research community. These centres also help to commercialise technologies in specialist fields such as advanced composite structures, automotive technologies, cast metals manufacturing, railway engineering, polymers and spatial information.

In 2008-09, as a result, manufacturing spent more than A$4.4 billion annually in R&D, or 25 per cent of all business investment on R&D (Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics Cat. No. 8112.0, Research & Experimental Development, 2008-09)....