AMAC was delighted to host NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer (Prof. Hugh Durrant-Whyte) along with the key personnel from Western Parkland City Authority (WPCA) and Advanced Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF) on 02-Nov-2021. The delegation was hosted by the Centre Director Prof. Ganga Prusty and was welcomed by the Head of the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Prof. Chun Wang, who briefly introduced the School’s capabilities.
The NSW Government is active in planning the WPCA/AMRF, particularly about the inclusion of advanced composites manufacturing at the planned Bradfield “Aerotropolis” precinct. During the visit, Prof. Ganga Prusty presented AMAC’s capabilities and demonstrated AMAC’s robotic automation lab facilities, and extensive testing infrastructure and profiled the broad diversity of AMAC’s composites-related industry-driven innovation. Of particular note, AMAC has evolved its methods to “best practice” in the vocational up-skilling of students and its project governance methods. Through industry demand, AMAC has doubled its original scale and managed a team of 40 researchers, including PhD, HDR, post-docs and visiting fellows.
Prof. Ganga Prusty also discussed the planned collaboration by the NSW State Government / WPCA / AMRF as a foundation partner of the Sovereign Manufacturing Automation for Composites Cooperative Research Centre (SoMAC CRC) bid. SoMAC is a national scale bid consortium led by Prof Prusty, uniting seven (7) leading academic and research institutions and 26 industry partners creating a fully subscribed $250 million pool of projects, including grant, cash and in-kind contribution over its 10 years term. The decision is pending Dept of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources approval, and if successful is set to launch in late 2022 and will be co-located at AMRF once the precinct is operational.