Manufacturing companies are looking towards 'soft' technologies, or best practices implementation, rather than 'hard' technologies such as machinery or software, to improve performance.

The acting minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Senator Nick Minchin, has called for applications for the second round of funding under the Commonwealth Government's Innovation Access Program - Industry.

A high level forum on Virtual Product Development (VPD) will be held in Sydney in October to coincide with the Sydney Motor Show.

A mechanical engineering apprentice from Dubbo has won top honours at the 2003 NSW Group Training Awards.

Pricedex Software of Canada, in collaboration with Australian company Mincom, has been selected to implement a new catalogue system for the automotive and heavy machinery industry, the Parts Technical Authoring Catalogue System (P/TACS). The system has been licensed to FG Wilson of Northern Ireland, a wholly owned subsidiary of Caterpillar.

The Ambit Recruitment Group has announced the addition of a specialist engineering recruitment business to its stable of recruitment brands.

Specifiers and purchasers of portable test instruments are, in many cases, giving insufficient consideration to safety, according to test and measurement expert, Megger. The company is finding that, all too often, little consideration is given to operator safety, or to the suitability of the instrument for the application in which it will be used, despite the fact that such benefits are available for no cost premium.

University of Newcastle graduates have achieved higher starting salaries than the national median in the latest starting salaries report.

At its bi-annual utility conference - Utopia 2003 - ABB had two messages for its US power generation and water customers.

The new Comalco Alumina Refinery (CAR) currently under construction near Gladstone, Queensland will feature an Australian first - a high-tech GPS-synchronised HV supervisory system which will allow the plant to optimise energy usage, trace faults and reduce energy costs.

Emerson Process Management has announced that it has won a US$16 million contract to modernise the Ataka Thermal Power Station in the Suez region of Egypt using its PlantWeb digital plant architecture.

The US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) has approved the 802.3af-2003 standard, which defines the specifications to deliver power over standard ethernet cables.

Electrical equipment can be tested in complete compliance with Occupational Health and Safety legislation and Australasian standards due to state-of-the-art testing equipment launched by O'Donnell Griffin.

In a recently published report on the European machine vision market, IMS Research has discovered that the product types, such as smart cameras, are rapidly accounting for a greater share of the market revenue.

PTC, the product development company, has published a study on the aerospace and defence markets that found product development in those industries suffering from a significant lack of coherent vision, management and execution.