AMW 2022

by Josh

NH Micro - our workshop's contract manufacturing arm - had one of the biggest weeks it's ever had. Nearly 2 years ago we decided that we would take NH Micro to the next level by expanding our client base - going to Australia's largest manufacturing expo as an exhibitor was the crown jewel of that plan! >From June 7-10, the NH Micro team set up shop at the ICC in Sydney's Darling Harbour. Our ambition was that just showing up and participating was already a success, and that it didn't matter if our booth wasn't perfect. We were simply happy to be the worst team in the best league.  The plan was straight forward: to talk to potential and existing clients, as well as to show case our capabilities with sample parts that we had on display. We had parts from the medical, space, optics/photonics, scientific instrumentation/research, and semiconductor sectors. Coming from a watchmaking background, our unique selling point was expertise in making all the difficult components that no one else wanted to make. Our mantra was, "small, complex and tightly toleranced". With quite tempered and reserved hopes, we began the first day of the fair. Tuesday morning; our relaxed and content attitude did not prepare us for the sheer volume of interest our little 9sqm booth was generating. From Tuesday until the end of the fair on Friday evening, the three of us - Andrew, James and myself, talked non stop to seemingly endless masses of engineers, designers, machinists, inventors and proud NH owners! A common theme started to come together; lead times are long, quality is low, and everything is getting more expensive. Finding suppliers and partners that can execute tasks on time and on budget is the Paul Newman Daytona of the manufacturing world. We barely had a moment to walk through the fair ourselves, but upon a quick stroll some things became obvious. For a manufacturing fair, there was very little manufacturing being exhibited. In fact of all the exhibitors, NH Micro was the only booth that represented a micro-machining capability, and one of only THREE manufacturing companies. The other two companies, Marsh Alliance, and Ronson gears, specialise in spring manufacturing and gear manufacturing respectively. The rest of the fair was a combination of conventional machinery resellers, cutting tool manufacturers and a lot of 3D printer distributors. After a few laps, it became pretty clear- we weren't the worst team in the best league, we were the only team in a nearly non existent league!

For our little, growing company this fair represented a huge milestone. It was our first public outing, and for it to have been so successful (over 200 contacts!) was an extreme confidence boost. The sobering reality of manufacturing in Australia never seems to dissipate, but for us, the show pointed towards a hopeful, exciting future.