Submitted by: Keryn Hughes

Let us hope the recent attention to Australian made focuses debate and leads to some longterm solutions for the Australian furniture industry, among many other sectors.

On 5 March 2010 Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research launched Australian Made Media. This initiative will see the products of Australian made licensees promoted via various arms of the media. However, as Senator Carr highlighted, the campaign also aims to ensure Australia remains a country that actually makes things. It s also about defending Australian jobs and building sustainable prosperity.

Creative Enablers is the term coined by the Australian Design Unit (see Issue 4, 16 March 2010) to describe manufacturers who develop a symbiotic relationship with designers, with each party valuing the skills and processes the other brings to the table. The ADU points out that by having this dialogue and fostering these relationships, both the manufacturing industry and Australian designers stand to gain.

So does the Australian community and models such as this deserve close scrutiny.

Seminars are part of many high profile trade events and details of the DesignEX/Form & Function Seminar Series (Sydney, April 2010) have just been announced. Interestingly, one seminar, titled Australian Design Sunrise or Sunset mentions in its synopsis local designers struggle to survive and manufacturing in Australia is said to be at an all time low . A snapshot of where we are now and the benefits of supporting Australian design are on the agenda for discussion.

As a designer whose moulded plywood furniture products have been designed and made in Australia for ten years, I have witnessed first hand how critical a strong, local manufacturing furniture industry is. To make moulded plywood furniture such as ours on anything other than a very small scale generally involves the use of presses, moulds (which are heavy, moved by a forklift), sawing equipment etc. Most small, independent furniture designers have neither the funds nor time nor knowledge to set up factories of their own, so it is common practice to contract out the manufacturing of their own design to an already established, specialist factory.

To make moulded plywood furniture in a commercial quantity involves specialised equipment primarily moulds and presses. The designer of the piece of furniture usually comes up with the specifications size, shape etc of a mould. There are 2 components to each mould, a male and female part, which come together to make the furniture. Common materials for these moulds are plywood itself, medium density fibreboard (MDF) or concrete. They are often heavy and sometimes a forklift is required to move the moulds around the factory.

There are now only three moulded plywood furniture factories in Australia where the finished, wood product is of such a quality that it can stand alone i.e. not be upholstered. The production at one of these has already been seriously curtailed, in part due to a steady stream of previous clients shifting their manufacturing overseas in recent years. If this trend is not arrested, then more Australian workers will lose jobs, valuable skills will be lost and we risk losing that manufacturing process in Australia.

About the Author: Keryn Hughes is an Australian

contemporary furniture designer

promoting the proudly Australian Made brand. Her designs have own many design awards for furniture designed for

kids and children

of all ages. She particularly designs

kids tables and chairs

in

moulded plywood

Source:

isnare.com

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