Find Industry and Manufacturing expertise in Australia

Manufacturing contributes approximately 11% to Australia’s GDP (2008) and employs almost one million people (2013). Australia’s processed food and beverage industry employs in excess of 200,000 people and is the country’s largest manufacturing subsector.

Major industries in Australia include food processing, industrial and transportation equipment for aviation, shipbuilding and rail, and the manufacture of chemicals and steel. Dominated by subsidiaries of Ford and General Motors, Australia’s automotive exports were worth approximately AUD$3.3 billion in 2011, around US$3 billion, with half of this figure contributed by the export of automobiles themselves and the other half made up of automotive component exports. The majority of these exports go to the Middle East and North America.

Advanced manufacturing accounts for upwards of AUD$60 billion (US$54.53) of inward investment in Australia every year (Australian Bureau of Statistics). Companies such as BAE Systems and Boeing have interests in Australia’s advanced manufacturing sector, as do BASF and DuPont within the chemicals industry and Siemens in energy and water treatment technology.

In 2012, the manufacturing sector contributed in the region of AUD$106 billion dollars to Australia’s economy and accounted for over 25% of all research and development costs in the business sector. This translates to an investment of approximately AUD$4.8 billion into research and development in that year alone. For many years, Australia has utilised processes of ‘cross fertilisation’ between research and development industries and manufacturing sectors. These links are fostered by co-operative research centres where the research and industrial communities work together to commercialise new technologies such as cast metal manufacturing, railway engineering and automotive technologies. This has led to the funding of manufacturing research and development reaching 39% of all of Australia’s business expenditure which equates to AUD$3.9 billion per year, with about AUD$10 billion invested into new plants and machinery every year (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009).

The 2013 Global Competitiveness Report scores and ranks the sophistication of production processes around the world, where a low country score of 1 means “no sophistication and labour intensive” and a high score of 7 means production processes are the “world’s best and apply the most efficient  technologies”.  In this respect Australia ranks 19 out of 144 countries with a score of 5.6. At this level, Australia ranks highest in the region and amongst the highest in the world.

Industry and Manufacturing organisations in Australia
A & L Quality Iron Work
ADInstruments Pty Ltd
Amcor
ANCA
Argus Building Products
Australian Chambers of Commerce and Industry
Australian Energy Co. Ltd
Campbell Brothers Ltd
Carter Holt Harvey Australia Pty Ltd
Clipsal Pty Ltd
CSR Ltd
Cutting Edge Clothing Manufacturers
FPH Manufacturing
G.James Glass & Aluminium
Hawker Siddeley Switchgear Pty
J Furphy & Sons Pty Ltd
Kolclay Products
Landis+Gyr
OneSteel Ltd
RM Daniels & Co. Pty Ltd
Thales Australia Ltd
Tontine Group
Visy Industries
Warren & Brown
Wattyl
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