Memjet brings manufacturing back to Australia

Memjet has brought manufacturing back to Australia with advanced robotics. The company has also committed to backing local supply chains and Australian innovation.

‘There are big benefits to vertical integration in Australia,’ says Jason Thelander, Chief Technology Officer, Memjet. ‘We have a stable economy, great scientific and engineering capability, as well as a highly-skilled workforce. With new robotics and ultra-smart software, our manufacturing is competitive with Asia.’

Memjet’s new factory in North Ryde, Sydney, started producing the cores for commercial printing machines in December 2022.

‘Local manufacturing means a US$15–20 million increase in Australian value adds per year,’ says Thelander. ‘And 100% of our output will be exported.’

Memjet is a pioneer of advanced digital ink-jet printing technologies. Memjet print engines are used by some of the world’s best-known printing machine brands. This includes Canon, Konica Minolta, PCMC, MGI and Gallus.

Most of the company’s design and research and development (R&D) work is executed in Australia. Over the past seven years, the company has registered 183 patents, most held in Australia and the United States. Until recently, however, most print engine assembly was done overseas, particularly in northeast Asia.

‘A typical print engine might have print heads from Australia, inks from Japan, and other subsystems from Singapore and Malaysia,’ says Thelander. ‘The print engine would be assembled overseas and then exported to assembly plants around the world. For most models, about 70—80% of the value-add happened in Asia.’

In July 2021, Memjet finished the design of its latest print engine, and several factors made executives consider investing in Asia. Memjet wanted to consolidate its global supply chains. ‘Every country has been hit by supply chain issues over the past few years,’ says Thelander. ‘Like all companies, we want to reduce risk.

‘The advantage of bringing manufacturing back to Australia and vertically integrating is you get more control. We are more in control of our supply chains and our margins.’

Thelander says the new Australia-made strategy includes sourcing most components from suppliers in Australia.

‘When we reach full production, about 80% of the parts for our Australia-built print engines will come from Australia,’ he says. ‘For example, we used to get most of our dye inks from international suppliers. Now, all of them will be sourced from Australia.

Thelander believes strongly in the future of advanced manufacturing in Australia. ‘Advanced manufacturing can deliver a big reduction in factory head-counts,’ says Thelander. ‘The combination of new robotics and smart software means we can reduce manual labour by a factor of between 4 and 7.

‘So, a printhead production line in Asia that used to require 106 people now needs just 28 here in Australia.

‘Advanced manufacturing makes Australia competitive with Asia. It is not that we are “taking jobs” with automation: these jobs would have never existed in Australia — they would have gone overseas along with the supply chain.’

The North Ryde factory will include a collaborative manufacturing centre and house 140 engineers and scientists.

The key is agility. With new AI robotics, Memjet can quickly reconfigure its manufacturing spaces to execute small production runs for external organisations – such as MedTech and electronic-product developers. This helps innovators, start-ups and university spinoffs to make and test prototypes. Adaptable manufacturing spaces also enable innovators to refine their manufacturing processes.

‘This is a revolution in manufacturing,’ says Thelander. ‘It will take us just 90 minutes to reconfigure a production cell from manufacturing one product to another.’

This approach could deliver substantial potential benefits to entrepreneurs, he explains. They can quickly assess their prototypes' commercial potential without investing in a manufacturing line. Entrepreneurs only need to configure “workstations” for their products and design the grippers. All other systems are already in the cell.

‘If you want to be competitive, you need the ability to effectively assemble parts with the lowest possible headcount,’ says Thelander.

‘Our new robots and ultra-smart software enable us to quickly manufacture high-tech, low-run components for other innovators,’ he adds. ‘We can also assemble parts with minimum human input. This is high-efficiency collaborative manufacturing and has a great future in Australia.’