Vfacts september 2022

[deesun]

The time delay has been built into Fords DNA since the 60's.

[Dr Smith]

Many Australia mining companies and rare metal exporters are doing big deals with auto manufacturers as they ramp up their production of batteries in-house, sadly why are we not building battery plants here to value add and actually make greater profits...I'm assuming these battery production factories have great automated production lines and I'm sick of the "Australian wages are too high" argument....you can counter costs by increasing volume...

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

I'm sick of the "Australian wages are too high" argument....

The problem is that it's true, like so many other on-costs. With 3-tiers of over-Government & with the unions in control of the economy it is not practical to manufacture anything in Australia.

Dr Terry

[Franco Cozzo]

These days it would mostly be automated anyway, like when they closed down Ford Australia, how much was the labour cost of building a Falcon?

It's not like the 1950s with everything done by hand, most modern manufacturing environments you don't really have many people doing things by hand.

Company I used to work for turned out more work in 2022 with 8 manufacturing staff than it did with 700 in the 1970s thanks to automation.

The only country which doesn't bother with automation is third world ****holes like China where they have a huge human capital whose lives are worth nothing so it's not worth automating manual tasks.

Australia has all the inputs required to make batteries, we just lack the brains upstairs to work out the politics side of it.

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

Many Australia mining companies and rare metal exporters are doing big deals with auto manufacturers as they ramp up their production of batteries in-house, sadly why are we not building battery plants here to value add and actually make greater profits...I'm assuming these battery production factories have great automated production lines and I'm sick of the "Australian wages are too high" argument....you can counter costs by increasing volume...

Doing business in Australia in not cheap at all, from seeking permission to set up the facilities to BAU. When you're competing with other nations who are already well established you would want to make sure you can bring something to the table that is worth the effort and $$.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Wretched

Doing business in Australia in not cheap at all, from seeking permission to set up the facilities to BAU. When you're competing with other nations who are already well established you would want to make sure you can bring something to the table that is worth the effort and $$.

The red tape is the biggest killer. All these third world countries don't have enviro laws, OH&S and all the other compliance rubbish that we drown in.

Over-regulation just strangles setting up manufacturing here.

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The red tape is the biggest killer. All these third world countries don't have enviro laws, OH&S and all the other compliance rubbish that we drown in.

Over-regulation just strangles setting up manufacturing here.

That is so true that's why infrastructure doesn't get built to many committees,,submissions, engineers reports ra ra ra ra by the time they figure out what they're doing the cost has blown out ......then they have to do another feasibility study......yawn

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-new...ambitious-plan

Blackadder:
Baldrick, I have a very, very, very cunning plan.

Baldrick:
Is it as cunning as a fox what used to be Professor of Cunning at Oxford University but has moved on and is now working for the U.N. at the High Commission of International Cunning Planning.

Blackadder:
Yes it is.

Baldrick:
Hmm... that's cunning.

[jpd80]

On the up side, Aussies have developed a better way to mine and refine lithium
that’s also reduced the cost, sounds like us?

Australia charges ahead with new Lithium Technology
https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/austra...ium-technology
Published on the 15th June 2022 by ANSTO Staff

Scientists at ANSTO together with Lithium Australia Limited (LIT) have developed a world-first technology to extract more lithium from lithium mining waste, in a game-changer for Australian lithium industry.

Lithium demand is being driven by the ever-expanding lithium-ion battery market – the leading technology for portable electronics and electric vehicles, which has revolutionised our lives over the last 30 years.

Australia supplies about 60 per cent of the world’s lithium in the form of a mineral concentrate called spodumene. With an abundance of ‘hard rock’ lithium, we are amongst the countries with the largest lithium deposits globally.

The conventional way of extracting lithium from spodumene is in a rotary kiln, which requires very high temperatures (>1000 °C) and can only be applied to spodumene of a certain type and size.

This process is highly energy intensive, and the constraints placed on the feed applicable to this process, results in a large proportion of the lithium in these hard rock deposits to be wasted.

The issue scientists at ANSTO together with LIT have been working to address, is that these current techniques only recover between about 50 to 70 per cent lithium from the original ore.

The two organisations developed a process called LieNA®, which removes the need for high temperature processing and is ideally suited to processing of the waste, and realising the majority of the (lithium) value from Australia’s hard rock deposits.

Patented by Lithium Australia, the LieNA® technology involves an initial treatment of the waste spodumene with caustic under autoclave conditions to form a synthetic lithium sodalite which can be easily recovered.

Lithium is then easily extracted and purified in relatively straightforward, hydrometallurgical processing steps and finally isolated as lithium phosphate, which can be directly used in manufacture of lithium ferro-phosphate batteries.’

The new technology enables the majority (>95%) of the lithium value to be realised, with vastly reduced energy inputs as compared to conventional processing.

Drive costs down, and get more from your rocks

Dr Chris Griffith, Senior Process Chemist at ANSTO, explained that not only would the new technology improve the overall extraction, it avoids the energy intensive, high temperature step of conventional spodumene processing, and increases the sustainability of lithium operations world-wide.

“This technology really has huge potential for an industry which is integral to our transition to the electrification of transport, and ultimately to a cleaner and greener future.”

In early 2020, Lithium Australia Limited was awarded $1.3 million from the Federal Government’s Department of Industry, Science and Technology CRC-P Round 8 program.

The overall objective of the CRC-P program is to progress the development of LieNA® to a Feasibility Study level and eventual commercialisation of the LieNA® technology.

“ANSTO has been pleased to work with Lithium Australia Limited on processing technology development since 2015, and it is sensational to see the LieNA technology reach this stage,” Dr Griffith said.

An industry partnership with huge potential for the Australian economy

Stuart Tarrant, Chief Financial Officer at Lithium Australia, said "Partnering with ANSTO to develop the LieNA® technology has been highly beneficial to Lithium Australia.

“Upcoming ESG regulations are forcing the industry to consider ways to improve recoveries and shorten supply chains.

“If commercialised, LieNA® has the potential to achieve both and as an outcome we have experienced higher interest from lithium concentrate producers.”

Demand for lithium has reached record level highs and the amount of metal used has almost quadrupled in the last decade.

“The possibilities here are tremendous – some estimates are that the global lithium-ion battery market size will grow from USD 41.1 billion in 2021 to USD 116.6 billion by 2030,” Dr Griffith said.

“Innovation like this puts Australia in a good position to move away from simply supplying a mineral concentrate to overseas converters as quickly as possible.

“It provides another avenue for Australia to maximise the value from our valuable critical and energy mineral resources and allows us to conduct more value-adding downstream processing here in Australia.”

Compared to lead-acid batteries, lithium-ion batteries lose less charge when not in use, and almost all lithium-ion battery components can be recovered and re-used.

ANSTO has more than a 40-year track record of partnership with the mining and minerals industries, and a team of more than 60 dedicated professionals and technicians working in the Minerals business unit.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The red tape is the biggest killer. All these third world countries don't have enviro laws, OH&S and all the other compliance rubbish that we drown in.

Over-regulation just strangles setting up manufacturing here.

It's not so much the over regulation here, but the lack of regulation overseas. OHS&W isn't all bad. Neither are the laws stopping employer exploitation.

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by prydey

It's not so much the over regulation here, but the lack of regulation overseas. OHS&W isn't all bad. Neither are the laws stopping employer exploitation.

Yep the employee protection stuff is good and a lot of the safety stuff too but the pendulum has swung too far the other way and now there's rules made for some Muppet that couldn't figure out which end to put the pants on , everyone has to conform to his mentality.......it's killing efficiency and productivity because you can't victimize the Muppet

In the old days you were ridiculed so much by your work mates you either learnt or had a change in career

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by prydey

It's not so much the over regulation here, but the lack of regulation overseas. OHS&W isn't all bad. Neither are the laws stopping employer exploitation.

There is still a lot of over regulation.
My old man gave up on delivering goods to construction sites because of the BS he had to go through. The worst was the railway level crossing removal. He'd rock up to a site where he was told to, put on his safety boots and fluro vest; nope sorry, wrong vest, needs to be orange with a cross. Next time he rocks, sorry needs to be yellow with horizontal stripes. I kid you not.

The one that really ****ed him off was, again getting to site, about to unload with the crane on the truck, nope, sorry you're not union you cannot operate your crane truck, you'll have to do it by hand. He is licensed to operate a crane truck.

There are tons of other stories. I am all for OH&S (used to be office rep for my previous role) but some of it is just time wasting.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by Wretched

There is still a lot of over regulation.
My old man gave up on delivering goods to construction sites because of the BS he had to go through. The worst was the railway level crossing removal. He'd rock up to a site where he was told to, put on his safety boots and fluro vest; nope sorry, wrong vest, needs to be orange with a cross. Next time he rocks, sorry needs to be yellow with horizontal stripes. I kid you not.

The one that really ****ed him off was, again getting to site, about to unload with the crane on the truck, nope, sorry you're not union you cannot operate your crane truck, you'll have to do it by hand. He is licensed to operate a crane truck.

There are tons of other stories. I am all for OH&S (used to be office rep for my previous role) but some of it is just time wasting.

Completely off topic, but the problems you've highlighted above are not caused by OH&S requirements. They are caused by people using OH&S requirements as a veil to wield power. I'm a H&S Rep and I HATE it when people use the veil of OH&S to push their agenda when their is no actual OH&S issue. That sort of action gives OH&S a bad rep, unfairly. Your post is case in point.

I also find it ironic that people here are complaining about there being too much regulation, when that very same regulation provides you with a greater opportunity to return home from work at the end of the day in the same condition that you arrived in, protects the environment that we all live in without fear of being harmed from those who may not otherwise give a care about the effects they have on it, you or your family, provides you a base salary that should (granted, it may not be the right balance atm) provide you with a means to be able to survive, etc, etc.

Yes, it's a hard line to walk, but those regulations actually provide you with a benefit. Yes, too much of it can be stifling, but where is the right balance point?

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

Completely off topic, but the problems you've highlighted above are not caused by OH&S requirements. They are caused by people using OH&S requirements as a veil to wield power. I'm a H&S Rep and I HATE it when people use the veil of OH&S to push their agenda when their is no actual OH&S issue. That sort of action gives OH&S a bad rep, unfairly. Your post is case in point.

I also find it ironic that people here are complaining about there being too much regulation, when that very same regulation provides you with a greater opportunity to return home from work at the end of the day in the same condition that you arrived in, protects the environment that we all live in without fear of being harmed from those who may not otherwise give a care about the effects they have on it, you or your family, provides you a base salary that should (granted, it may not be the right balance atm) provide you with a means to be able to survive, etc, etc.

Yes, it's a hard line to walk, but those regulations actually provide you with a benefit. Yes, too much of it can be stifling, but where is the right balance point?

Where I see the balance is when the operational safety/ health , procedure designing (who have become a business of their own ) listen to the people at the coal face that have to put these procedures into place and actually work in the real world......because quite often the procedures are designed and put in place by people, sometimes management who think they know how people do their jobs but in reality have no understanding of the detail ie doing site inductions every where you go , when 90% of it is the same why not have a standard Induction that covers all sites then you do a top up of specific sites that have different risks

Until down under sorts out these inefficiencies we will never be competitive in building battery plants or whatever

[FTE217]

Originally Posted by PooDog

Where I see the balance is when the operational safety/ health , procedure designing (who have become a business of their own ) listen to the people at the coal face that have to put these procedures into place and actually work in the real world......because quite often the procedures are designed and put in place by people, sometimes management who think they know how people do their jobs but in reality have no understanding of the detail ie doing site inductions every where you go , when 90% of it is the same why not have a standard Induction that covers all sites then you do a top up of specific sites that have different risks

Until down under sorts out these inefficiencies we will never be competitive in building battery plants or whatever

here here......and I HATE OH&S going on as if they are doing all a favour.
In some case's yes, don't get upset with me Fox.
The workforce long before knew their duty of care and doing the right thing for themselves and employers, nothing is perfect but productivity went forwards.
Its trained a % of employees they have no common sense who exploit this and don't get on with the job due to some stoopid rules that shake your head plus the added costs it has incurred how would any organisation consider building a new plant, buy inventory/machinery, staff it and be price competitive.
Unions, OH&S is the next one

The 3 big OE's packed up said it all even with all the grant support.
Sorry so off topic.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by PooDog

It is a time threat it's an absolute race to get product to delivery sounds like a huge waiting list for f150 lightning can't see any of them supplying an EV ute or truck in the near future ......especially down here

Came across this today. This is how the Lightning ramp up will go next year.

https://fordauthority.com/2022/10/20...evealed-video/

[jpd80]

Ford is already being told by its suppliers that they can’t ramp up supply to match expectations for Lightning in 2023,this is gonna get mighty interesting……..

[ivorya]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Ford is already being told by its suppliers that they can’t ramp up supply to match expectations for Lightning in 2023,this is gonna get mighty interesting……..

The munro team has mentioned to them about Tesla and the old Henry Ford process of vertical integration.

Potentially, if they were vertically integrated, they could ramp up!

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

The problem is that it's true, like so many other on-costs. With 3-tiers of over-Government & with the unions in control of the economy it is not practical to manufacture anything in Australia.

Dr Terry

So how come South Korea, a high wage country can build ships for the world and stay competitive and they're unionised.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

So how come South Korea, a high wage country can build ships for the world and stay competitive and they're unionised.

Same with Japan and it's auto manufacturing industry, it's an expensive country to make stuff in.

Germany as well but they're playing politics with currency manipulation.

They've got global export markets though.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

So how come South Korea, a high wage country can build ships for the world and stay competitive and they're unionised.

What do you consider a high wage country?

A quick google brought up this article
https://biz30.timedoctor.com/average...n-south-korea/

Scroll down and it suggests the ave monthly wage in factory/manufacturing is the equivalent to less than $4k/month Australian dollars.

Are you trying to tell me auto manufacturing here was on less than $50k/yr?

Whichever way you try to spin it, wages are high in this country. Obviously there are many factors to this, and a few drivers pushing everything up but I wouldn't be comparing our wages to south Korea.

Minimum wage is now over $20hr here. Many 'trades' wouldn't get out of bed for double that. Likely closer to triple.

Wages are definitely a factor in the cost of doing business in Australia.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by prydey

What do you consider a high wage country?

A quick google brought up this article
https://biz30.timedoctor.com/average...n-south-korea/

Scroll down and it suggests the ave monthly wage in factory/manufacturing is the equivalent to less than $4k/month Australian dollars.

Are you trying to tell me auto manufacturing here was on less than $50k/yr?

Whichever way you try to spin it, wages are high in this country. Obviously there are many factors to this, and a few drivers pushing everything up but I wouldn't be comparing our wages to south Korea.

Minimum wage is now over $20hr here. Many 'trades' wouldn't get out of bed for double that. Likely closer to triple.

Wages are definitely a factor in the cost of doing business in Australia.

It really wasn't that much of a factor here, wages only made up 6% of the cost to build a vehicle. Germans, americans, south koreans, japanese etc made wages higher, or at least comparable with what aussie auto workers made.

Not so much for Thailand, China etc, but to the other big auto manufacturing nations the wages were similar.

It simply was not the big issue so many uninformed people try to make out. There are so many other input costs that put wages in the shade.


The biggest issue that eventually made local production unviable was the lack of capacity. The huge new mega plants that can pump out 200,000-300,000 cars a year, made the 100,000 max production of Broady too expensive per vehicle. Spreading the input costs over double or triple the amount of cars per year is a massive saving per vehicle.

It was even more of a killer once production numbers dropped off. Thats when they really started bleeding.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

It really wasn't that much of a factor here, wages only made up 6% of the cost to build a vehicle.

A 2013 report comparing the Canadian and Australian auto industries showed that the Canadians could build 4 times more vehicles per assembly worker, 3 times more vehicles per total workers, and value-added nearly double $ per total worker. Wages might only have been 6%, but when an automaker has other plants where that input is 2-3%, we stand out for all the wrong reasons.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by ivorya

The munro team has mentioned to them about Tesla and the old Henry Ford process of vertical integration.

Potentially, if they were vertically integrated, they could ramp up!

I saw the discussion but you could tell that ford works in silos and only concedes things aren’t good once the go really bad and can’t hide it. Battery supply would have been a problem for them even if they only made hybrids, BEVs just underscore how unprepared Ford was for main production this early…….

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by prydey

What do you consider a high wage country?

A quick google brought up this article
https://biz30.timedoctor.com/average...n-south-korea/

Scroll down and it suggests the ave monthly wage in factory/manufacturing is the equivalent to less than $4k/month Australian dollars.

Are you trying to tell me auto manufacturing here was on less than $50k/yr?

Whichever way you try to spin it, wages are high in this country. Obviously there are many factors to this, and a few drivers pushing everything up but I wouldn't be comparing our wages to south Korea.

Minimum wage is now over $20hr here. Many 'trades' wouldn't get out of bed for double that. Likely closer to triple.

Wages are definitely a factor in the cost of doing business in Australia.

Of course wages are a factor in manufacturing however as Boss stated the labour component of car manufacturing is about 6%...look at videos of the latest car plants and see where humans get very actively involved in the assembly process. It's all about volume, Ford's plants in one Chinese city build more cars than all of Australia's combined manufacturing plant's when all three were operating at full capacity. Triple your production volume and a 6% wage bill or 3% becomes less relevant...in fact plant floods in Asia would have wiped out any cheap labour savings...

JIT supply, single supplier of critical components, political stability, cheap energy, natural disasters, pandemics.....these are considerations that many cost accountants didn't consider...

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

Triple your production volume and a 6% wage bill or 3% becomes less relevant...

Yes, but how much you gain through economy of scale is dependent on a lot of factors. How does a 500k plant deliver that volume compared to a 100k plant? By having 5 times as many lines typically. So there is still a similar labour input per line. The cost savings come more from amortising R&D and tooling costs over larger volumes, and logistical savings. You only have a bigger factory if you can move that sort of volume, nobody ever wanted what we made in any meaningful sense.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by b0son

A 2013 report comparing the Canadian and Australian auto industries showed that the Canadians could build 4 times more vehicles per assembly worker, 3 times more vehicles per total workers, and value-added nearly double $ per total worker. Wages might only have been 6%, but when an automaker has other plants where that input is 2-3%, we stand out for all the wrong reasons.

So many other factors to this, automation is one. Canadian and US auto workers made more money than aussies did.

But how much money are the companies spending on automation to reduce wages by reducing head count? That also was a factor, and when these bigger or newer plants can build many more cars per year, those robot costs reduce considerably per car. Ford Australia never had the money to spend on high levels of automation when they were only building low numbers of cars in relation to the big plants overseas.

I'll repeat, wages were not the killer of australian manufacturing. It was but a tiny factor in a huge number of other, more important costs.

[Sprintey]

Just went past Subaru in Geelong, padlocked front gate, a few cars in yard, couldn't see a human inside. Is this the Walking Dead alternate reality?

Is this all car yards? Is there a disturbance in the matrix?

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by Wretched

There is still a lot of over regulation.
My old man gave up on delivering goods to construction sites because of the BS he had to go through. The worst was the railway level crossing removal. He'd rock up to a site where he was told to, put on his safety boots and fluro vest; nope sorry, wrong vest, needs to be orange with a cross. Next time he rocks, sorry needs to be yellow with horizontal stripes. I kid you not.

The one that really ****ed him off was, again getting to site, about to unload with the crane on the truck, nope, sorry you're not union you cannot operate your crane truck, you'll have to do it by hand. He is licensed to operate a crane truck.

There are tons of other stories. I am all for OH&S (used to be office rep for my previous role) but some of it is just time wasting.

Head of minesite OH&S "What are you doing up there?"
Me: "Sampling"
HOMOH&S: "You can't do that."
Me: "Why not?"
HOMOH&S: "You haven't done our ladder induction. I will sample it."
Me: "OK."
<HOMOH&S climbs ladder>
Me: "You can't sample that."
HOMOH&S: "Why not?"
Me: "You haven't done our sampling induction."

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by Dr Smith

So how come South Korea, a high wage country can build ships for the world and stay competitive and they're unionised.

These countries have massive support set in policy of having heavy industry, I wouldn't be surprised if Korea has something like the Japanese Zaibatsu, the huge conglomerates. Policy set into government, law, currency manipulation, etc etc When BMW was in dire straits in the early 1950s, the other manufacturers got together to save it, fund it for new product (2002) and not let it fail. I'd love to see Australia doing this, but after waiting so long and seeing such stupidity Button Plan -> Hockey taunting Holden; it's easier now to just go down the beach and have a surf.