Mackay’s Micro Manufacturing Hub Open

A new pilot project will see the design and production of electronics brought to the Mackay region in a world-first shared micro manufacturing facility in Mackay’s CBD.

The Rapid Prototyping and Micro Manufacturing Collaborative Pilot project seeks to remove a significant gap in the design and manufacture of small-scale electronic products and pave a pathway for scale-up and start-up businesses to grow and diversify.

The project, funded by METS Ignited and Mackay Regional Council, is being facilitated by Split Spaces and Resource Industry Network, and Split Spaces community manager Tegan McBride says the facility will give new businesses the opportunity to grow.

“This facility is like all other equipment in Split Spaces, it’s shared-use equipment, which means that if you’re a new business starting out or if you’re trying to scale up your business, you don’t need to purchase this equipment yourself,” she said.

“You’ll be able to manufacture your own electronic components right here in Mackay and make some quick changes to your prototypes which will help you get to market quicker with the product that works for you.”

The new cleanroom facility holds a pick-and-place machine for circuit board assembly in printed circuit board manufacturing.

A robotic placement head picks up electronic surface mounted technology components and places them on a printed circuit board, then a soldering oven reflow station completes the process.

Mackay-based, globally focused technology company Vayeron was the first business to come on board and co-founder and CEO Ryan Norris says the ability to manufacture in Mackay will simplify the process.

“We can now, not only quickly prototype here in Mackay instead of down in Sydney, we can manufacture products for our customers who are in Chile, the US, Taiwan, but also in Western Australia and the Bowen Basin,” he said.

Resource Industry Network General Manager Dean Kirkwood says the facility will prepare the Bowen Basin’s mines for a data-driven future and he hopes to integrate the pilot program with stage two of the Resources Centre of Excellence involving critical minerals processing.

“If we can get raw material being processed through there and actually come up with the materials that are utilised as part of the chipboards and create a supply chain all the way through, imagine that,” he said.

“Everything produced here, on our doorsteps, for our businesses.”

Mackay Regional Council Mayor Greg Williamson says the facility is the only community shared equipment of its type in Australia and will put Mackay on the map, quoting a statistic stating that Australia is ranked 74th based on technological advancements.

“We have to be part of this technology advance that the rest of the world is taking up,” he said.

“We have a long way to go and it’s projects like this that will start to involve the thinking process of a lot of our current organisations around ‘What can we actually do here?’ They are leading the way.”

Tegan says the collaboration is actively seeking additional partners.

“Anything with electronic components,” she said.

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