It was late in the turn of last century, December 1988 to be precise, that an exploratory meeting occurred that led to the formation of the

'Strategic Industry Research Foundation'

...an initiative of the Victorian Government and CSIRO commissioned to stimulate research and development and improved collaboration between industry and researchers. That collaboration led to the formation of an Industrial Maintenance Roundtable (IMRt) by a group of 12 companies. A number of these companies remain active SIRF members to this day. Maintenance for many companies remains a high leverage business activity and is often one of the highest controllable operating costs. The objective of the Industrial Maintenance Roundtable is to provide a forum and support network for members to share learnings, and to accelerate the progress of all on a path to maintenance excellence with key focus areas of defect elimination, reliability principles, team work and front line engagement. In its formative years senior personnel from DuPont were brought to Australia to share the principles and practices of true world class maintenance and reliability with a focus on methods to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

SIRF has maintained this tradition by bringing international experts and acclaimed authors such as Ron Moore (Operational Excellence & Reliability) and Joel Levitt (Planning and Scheduling) as well as others to the country exclusively. In the time of COVID-19, Ron and Joel’s excellent courses are available to SIRF members online. Ron Moore is also running a webinar covering Operational Excellence & Overall Business Success, free and exclusively for SIRF members this month: details in the link below

Eastern Australia Timezone SIRF Webinar | Ron Moore | Fireside chat including Q & A 

Western Australia Timezone SIRF Webinar | Ron Moore | Fireside chat including Q & A

Central Australia Timezone SIRF Webinar | Ron Moore | Fireside chat including Q & A

NZ Timezone SIRF Webinar | Ron Moore | Fireside chat including Q & A

In 1995, the Manufacturing Excellence Roundtable (MERt) was started following the proven success of IMRt. The MERt provided members with the opportunity to maximise their manufacturing competitiveness via exposure to the principles of Lean Manufacturing and other improved business and manufacturing processes by sharing through the network and also tapping into outside expertise. No matter the industry sector, companies face common manufacturing problems and related issues and the MERt provided a forum for sharing of experiences, tools and methodologies to enable faster improvement of the manufacturing process.

From June 2000, the Strategic Industry Research Foundation became SIRF Roundtables and has grown to cover all States in Australia as well as New Zealand with over 200 member companies. The Manufacturing Excellence Roundtable was replaced by the SIRF Operational Excellence Roundtable to include all factors impacting the total business operations including Supply Chain, Human Resources, Safety, Customer Service as well as manufacturing. SIRF has continued to grow and adapt to meet the needs of our members.

In 2000, it would be hard to foresee the growing impact on all manufacturing the pervasiveness of internet connectivity and with it process and machine automation as well as communications has had. In October, SIRF will hold an excellent Roundtable focused on Automation with 5 excellent speakers with excellent case studies – details below:

Eastern Australia Timezone SIRF Roundtable | Automation with 5 Expert Presenters

Western Australia Timezone SIRF Roundtable | Automation with 5 Expert Presenters

Central Australia Timezone SIRF Roundtable | Automation with 5 Expert Presenters

NZ Timezone SIRF Roundtable | Automation with 5 Expert Presenters

All of us have been impacted by the global pandemic that is COVID-19. SIRF Roundtables has been forced to rapidly adapt to this challenge and change the way we can bring SIRF members together for networking. While site tours are out for the moment in most states or at least impacted in others, the ability for the SIRF membership to readily connect on line and also more easily tap into global expertise has enabled SIRF to continue to provide events and services to meet its members’ needs. In fact, some of our remote members , those outside the metropolitan areas have commented that it has now been easier to join the SIRF sessions via the internet compared with the traditional face to face. Additionally, we have recently tapped into expertise from the US, Canada, the Netherlands to make this available to SIRF members to improve the knowledge sharing. SIRF Roundtables has the advantage that it is not aligned to any one consulting group and it will always endeavour to bring the very best expertise and knowledge available to benefit the SIRF membership.

Even in the time of Covid-19, we have had new company members join the growing SIRF network in each of our States that we represent. We look forward to continuing to grow with our members and remain true to our SIRF Motto of Smarter Together.

Jeff Naylor, Managing Director SIRF Roundtables,

and all of the SIRF team