The future on display
Southmach, a two-day technology trade show, was this year held on 22–23 May at Christchurch’s Horncastle Arena.
Large manufacturing companies are the logical customers, but a lot of the gear and services would be suitable for the home workshop. Tiny, efficient stick welders for around $1K were on a couple of stands, and bottled-gas suppliers were prominent. It was interesting to discover how things are changing (and improving) in these two areas.
A number of exhibitors displayed stuff made by 3D printers. It is possible to produce extremely complex items in small numbers by 3D printing. Plastic, titanium, and silver items were shown and it is obvious that the price of these processes is becoming much more affordable. What this means for traditional manufacturing is anybody’s guess, but printed items are sure to become much more common.
There were also numerous robots and other automated machinery. The huge German Sick company had a slick miniproduction line (like a large, hugely expensive child’s toy) with its laser
scanners monitoring the products. The scanners could tell if the tops were on bottles or if there were other faults. Sick sensors are used in self-driving vehicles at Auckland Airport and in the automaton behemoths used in the Western Australian mining industry. The company is family owned, and the advantage of this is demonstrated by the fact that 10 per cent of turnover is invested in R&D — which amounted to about €170M in 2018.
The Ministry of Awesome, The Manufacturer’s Network, University of Canterbury, and patent attorneys PL Berry and Associates all had displays.
Sheddies who are tired of cutting steel plate by hand could consider getting it cut to shape by water jet. Islington’s Precision Water Jet Company (a very new start-up business) can cut shapes in many materials using the garnet-loaded water stream from its brand new fiveaxis, 2.5x1.5m water jet. The company had complex-shaped objects cut in steel, stainless, aluminium, wood, and pounamu on display. Send Precision a dimensioned drawing and it will make it in the material of your choice to an accuracy of a 10th of a millimetre.
There aren’t many places where the future is on display in this part of the world, but Southmach would be one of them.