@AuManufacturing Conversations

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to episode 11 of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski . Our guest on this episode is Taya Permezel, Director of Partnerships at Coolon LED Lighting. Taya is part of an ambitious SME manufacturer thats very much on the move, which was recently featured during our Celebrating Australian Made Series, and which has won a collection of awards this year for its wor...

Send us Fan Mail In episode ten of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski , we speak to Peter Torreele, founder and Managing Director of 3RT, a company that has developed automated machines for converting wood industry residue into products that look and feel like 100-year-old hardwood. Peter is an engineer, economist and marketer by training and has worked at various manufacturing com...

Send us Fan Mail In episode nine of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski , we speak to Dr Jens Goennemann, Managing Director of the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre.  Goennemann tells us about Australia’s slide downwards in the latest Economic Complexity Index rankings, compiled by Harvard’s Growth Lab , which were released a couple of weeks ago and based on 2020 trade data. Econ...

Send us Fan Mail In episode eight of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski , we speak to Dr Shafali Gupta and Andy Epifani, the co-founders and co-CEOs of Uuvipak. The cell biologist and the software engineer met last year and are commercialising a novel food waste-based solution, turning grain and beverage industry waste into single-use plastic substitutes that are home-compostable. ...

Send us Fan Mail In episode seven of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski , we speak to Shay Chalmers, founder of Strategic Engineering and director at a collection of private and public entities, most of them to do with manufacturing in some way. Shay describes herself as "believing in the power of collaboration to drive positive social change, especially as the global manufact...

Send us Fan Mail In episode six of @AuManufacturing Conversations with Brent Balinski , we speak to Jess Hodge, co-founder at the husband-and-wife-led startup Resourceful Living. Resourceful Living gives discarded PE plastics many more years of usefulness as products including home signage, office furniture and more.  The Hodges were inspired to start their recycling business by a sunrise walk alo...

Send us Fan Mail In episode five of @AuManufacturing Conversations , Brent speaks to Catie Fry, founder and Master Distiller at Clovendoe, a Gold Coast-based distillery with a difference. Catie’s career in the drinks business began with a gin and rum enterprise that she, her husband and some friends opened in Rockhampton in 2016. It was before the current explosion in popularity for no-alcohol bev...

Send us Fan Mail In episode four of @AuManufacturing Conversations ,  Brent speaks to John Mellowes, CEO of PyroAg Wood Vinegar and Director at Biocarbon. We learn some of the fundamentals of pyrolysis and its products -- such as biochar, wood vinegar and syngas -- when used to decompose biomass.   John tells us about the potential of wood vinegar, also known as pyroligneous acid, which PyroAg mak...

Send us Fan Mail In episode three of @AuManufacturing Conversations ,  Brent speaks to Jon Bulman, Director of Manufacturing at the greatest Australian manufacturer you’ve never heard of, Finisar.  We featured a story this week on our recent visit to Finisar’s Rosebery factory, a few kilometres south of Sydney’s CBD. As promised, here is the extended interview that informed that story.  Jon talks...

Send us Fan Mail In the second episode of Conversations , Brent speaks to Henry Bilinsky (no relation), the founder and CEO of MicroTau. Henry founded his company in 2016 after proposing an approach he calls “Nature’s 3D printer” in response to a US Air Force challenge to reduce fuel use for transport aircraft.  Out of nearly 300 entries, his idea to improve fuel efficiency -- which creates a surf...

Send us Fan Mail In the first episode, Brent speaks to Jo Murphy, Owner of EFC Manufacturing Co since 2019. Jo is the third owner of the company, which has made the Eezy Fabric Comb/Original Fabric Comb since the 1970s. Each comb is still made using the original machinery and tooling, and no two are exactly alike.   Jo tells us about how she came to be custodian of an Australian invention with ood...