CRC for Wood Innovation
Furnitex 2008
18 July 2008
Melbourne Exhibition Centre
Southbank, Victoria
You only have to look around Furnitex to see how big and lively and innovative the Australian furniture industry is.
But I wonder how many people know that. I wonder how many know that Furnitex is in its twentieth year.
I wonder how many know the industry employs 75,000 directly and many more indirectly. (2005-06)
Or that its industry value added was $4.4 billion in 2005-06, or that its output has been growing at an average annual rate of 4.1 per cent for the last five years.
This is an industry we can all be proud of.
But there is no point pretending it doesn’t face challenges.
Like every other sector of Australian manufacturing, it operates in a global environment.
Furnitex showcases furniture not just from Australia, but from around the world – and most of it is pretty impressive.
We have to acknowledge that our industry is competing against a very strong international field.
The good news is that we go into this competition with some important advantages.
For a start, we have a skilled and energetic workforce.
We have a tradition of quality design and craftsmanship.
And we have our native timbers – which we can use to differentiate our product and gain an edge in a style-conscious marketplace.
But we can’t take these advantages for granted. We have to work on them all the time. We must be ready to push ourselves and try new things.
In a word, we have to innovate.
Most Australian furniture manufacturers are SMEs, and I know it isn’t always easy to lift your eyes to the horizon when you are caught up in the day-to-day tribulations of running a small business.
Some days, you don’t even want to raise your head above the parapet.
That probably goes some way towards explaining why SMEs are less likely to introduce new goods, services, operations or organisational arrangements than larger firms – a fact confirmed by surveys here and overseas.
Many things may affect the capacity of a business to invest in R&D.
The challenge for governments is to identify these impediments to innovation and work with industry to remove them.
That’s one of the problems I’ve asked the review of the national innovation system to think about.
The review panel will deliver a green paper in a couple of weeks, and the government will respond with a policy white paper by the end of the year.
One thing we know already is that if we are serious about boosting our innovation performance, we have to encourage collaboration and improve connections across the innovation system.
That might mean establishing alliances between the public and private sectors.
It might mean forging closer links between researchers, craftspeople and entrepreneurs.
Which brings me to the Cooperative Research Centre for Wood Innovation and the publication we are launching today – Technology Transfer: Design in a Scientific Research Program
The Wood Innovation CRC began in July 2001 with an ambitious program to develop and commercialise revolutionary technologies that would establish wood as the sustainable material of choice.
The CRC also set itself the goal of becoming self-sustaining within seven years.
That goal is well on the way to being realised, so this is a fitting time to acknowledge and applaud the centre’s achievements.
It has developed an impressive array of new technologies, it has trained more than fifty students, and it has built enduring relationships with the forestry, construction and manufacturing industries.
One unusual feature of the CRC was the inclusion of designers from Swinburne University of Technology Faculty of Design as an integral part of the research team.
Technology Transfer describes their work and how it has contributed to the centre’s success.
The designers’ job was to create products that could be manufactured from the new materials and technologies developed elsewhere in the CRC.
The idea was that getting designers involved in the R&D process from the outset would result in technologies that were more market-friendly and could be more readily commercialised.
Reading between the lines, I suspect that what really happened was that involving designers changed the whole innovation equation.
We tend to think of innovation as a linear process – step one, research – step two, technology development – step three, product design – step four, sales and marketing.
In reality it is more complicated.
The process doesn’t always begin with a scientist discovering something in a laboratory.
Sometimes it begins with a marketing expert discovering something about what customers want.
Other times it begins with a designer discovering something about what works and what doesn’t.
Everyone involved in the process interacts with everyone else, influences everyone else, and depends on everyone else.
Ideas from marketers and designers can steer scientists in new directions. New materials from scientists can lead marketers and designers to fresh ideas.
And all of these professionals rely on skilled artisans and tradespeople to bring the elements together into real live products – and to contribute their own practical insights into how things might be done better.
This is why we no longer talk about innovation chains, but about innovation ecosystems. It’s a flash phrase, but also an accurate one.
This book gives us a valuable insight into how one particular ecosystem works.
It also reminds us that innovation isn’t just about the gee-whiz stuff.
It can also be about simple things like expanding skills, improving everyday processes, and achieving new forms of cooperation.
It can be about basing decisions on environmental and social criteria instead of just technical and economic ones.
Technology Transfer has a lot to teach other industries and other CRCs, and it is a pleasure to launch it today.
Let me end as I began, by stressing just how important the furniture sector is.
It contributes significantly to our GDP and provides 7 per cent of all manufacturing jobs.
It is a national industry – and yet it doesn’t speak with one national voice.
There would be many advantages in re-establishing an Australia-wide peak body for the industry – and I’m ready to facilitate that process in any way I can.
In the meantime, you can be sure of my continuing support, whatever organisational decisions you make.
These are questions for tomorrow. Our business today is celebration.
Furnitex has turned twenty, the CRC for Wood Innovation is evolving into a group of new businesses, and we now have a permanent record of its design work in this handsome publication.
These are all terrific achievements – achievements befitting one of our oldest and most valuable industries.
Furniture-making has an illustrious past in this country. It will be a pleasure working with you to ensure it has an even more brilliant future.