Streamlining the stamping process to improve the panels on the new model Falcons is the research driving Deakin University masters student Tim Hilditch.
Tim, 25, is one of several graduate students from Deakin conducting research on the factory floor for the international car manufacturer Ford.
This ‘in-house’ research model is causing a quiet revolution in partnerships between Australian industry and universities.
Already the research is helping Ford introduce newer and more radical vehicle designs and gain higher productivity. It will eventually shorten lead-times from concept to launch for the new model vehicles.
The research model creates a win - win situation for the company and the research students. Firms gain authentic, non-simulated results, while students learn the company culture and gain valuable industry experience.
And the research students are becoming hot property in the jobs market.
Deakin engineering graduate Natasha Skoric, 25, was ‘head-hunted’ by another company while still conducting research for Ford. ‘My work experience inside Ford made me very employable, without a doubt’, she said.
Education programs manager for Ford Australia, Mr Noel Miller said: ‘This research model gives Ford an innovative way of recruiting high potential employees with the technical skills necessary to sustain the needs of the business.’
Deakin Professor of Engineering and Technology, Peter Hodgon explains: ‘Our students get the best of both worlds. It gives our research much greater relevance - if you don’t understand the working culture, you’re not going to get the right answers. Our students love it.’
Deakin now has two major research partnerships in place with Ford, both located inside the company’s Geelong manufacturing plant.
The $2.5 million STAMP research collaboration on sheet metal forming was launched in mid-1997, with the Australian National University (ANU) as the other major partner.
The $3 million FAST project aims to develop world-best practices in iron and aluminum casting operations, and export the knowledge and practices to Ford plants worldwide. This partnership includes the University of Queensland and was launched in mid-August 1999.
While still working for STAMP Natasha Skoric was offered a graduate position as a program engineer with the Victorian plastics manufacturer Venture Industries.
Venture supplies plastic components to the Ford Assembly Plant in Broadmeadows, including bumper bars, door trims, instrument panels, consoles and fuel tanks.
As program engineer, Natasha oversees all manufacturing issues and engineering changes to fuel tanks for Venture, liasing closely with Ford.
She says: ‘STAMP gave me the technical skills I needed, an extra qualification, and important industry-based work experience. These all made me more qualified for a position as a graduate engineer in industry’.
Deakin collaborations including STAMP and FAST are attracting national attention - on 25 August, Deakin was named Australian University of the Year for the second time since the inception of the award, this time for its outstanding partnerships in education and training.
Deakin is the only university to have won the award twice, and the only Victorian winner. (In 1999, Deakin has taken out the award jointly with the University of Wollongong.)