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The Australian manufacturing industry is often politically charged, with various state governments petitioning for projects that will stimulate the economy and fuel job growth.
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Jens Goennemann, managing director of the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, says the Australian defence industry could do all of this and more – but while the industry is strong on research, its weakness lies in actually commercialising its manufacturing potential.
In this episode of the Defence Connect Podcast, Goennemann joins host Phil Tarrant to explain what manufacturing is and what it is not, as well as share his thoughts on what Australian businesses can do to transform defence capabilities to give the Australian economy the boost it needs and the defence force a stronger global presence.
Enjoy the podcast,
The Defence Connect team.
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Listen to previous episodes of the Defence Connect podcast:
Episode 495: SPOTLIGHT: Navigating the rising tide of trusted autonomy, with Dr Greg Bain and Brigadier James Davis
Episode 494: DEFENCE PROPERTY PODCAST: 10 common property mistakes and how you can avoid them
Episode 493: PODCAST: How geopolitics must influence Australia’s force posture, with Mike Pezzullo
Episode 492: CONTESTED GROUND: Where does the misinformation bill leave free speech?
Episode 491: SPOTLIGHT: Engaging the national innovation ecosystem, with DSTG’s Dr Robert Hunjet
Episode 490: SPOTLIGHT: Protecting your data as Australia moves to an AI future, with Hrvoje Hančević-Grabić from IT Strategy Hub
Episode 489: SPOTLIGHT: Scaling advanced manufacturing, with Anduril’s Brian Schimpf and David Goodrich
Episode 488: SPOTLIGHT: How quantum will revolutionise PNT and RF sensing, with DSTG’s Andrew Seedhouse and QuantX’s Andre Luiten
Episode 487: DEFENCE PROPERTY PODCAST: Investing in property from post to post
Episode 486: SPOTLIGHT: Quantum – revolutionising Defence, health and energy – with Dr Cathy Foley, Australia’s chief scientist
Full transcript
Phil Tarrant: G'day everyone, it's Phil Tarrant here. I'm the host of the Defence Connect Podcast. Thanks for joining us. I have in the studio today, Jens Goennemann, who is the MD of the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre. Jens, how are you going?
Jens Goennemann: Very well, thank you. And you pronounced it very well. It's a mouthful isn't it?
Phil Tarrant: Oh, it is. I practiced beforehand. As you know. I'm excited about today's chat, because we're going to talk about manufacturing. Now, this is a journey that I've gone through, working with the defence industry, where because I chat with a lot of people and I manoeuvre through the market place, you often forget that the basis of good defence is good engineering and manufacturing is the backbone to good engineering. Welding ships, riveting steel. Complex sets of machinery, which enhance our capabilities as a nation, in terms of what we're trying to achieve through our defence forces.
So, today we're going talk about manufacturing. It's an interesting point in time because we have some major projects coming online in the decades ahead. Ship building projects, submarine projects, in particular. But, your role is to fly the flag for manufacturing in Australia now and to really see how we can project Australian manufacturing on a global stage. So, today we're going to talk about manufacturing and- You're quite happy about that aren't you?
Jens Goennemann: Absolutely. I hope I'm speaking to the converted already, but I'm very happy to share some insights about what manufacturing is, and where manufacturing is misunderstood, and what opportunities manufacturing will bring us as a country.
Phil Tarrant: So, a lot of people would be familiar with your name. You were MD Asia Pacific for Airbus for quite some time, building some excellent helicopters. How long have you been out of that role and into this new role now?
Jens Goennemann: I've been with Airbus for 20 years. This company underwent some name changes. But, 20 years with Airbus in total, and the last eight years in Australia. And, by choice of my beautiful Queensland wife, we called it quits with Airbus and we're doing something new now. It has been a fantastic ride. Building and assembling helicopters in Australia what we did, we're in the last stages. I say we because I still feel proud of what my team has accomplished there.
Building helicopters in a country is a good thing to do, because by building you use jigs and tools not only to build them, but also to sustain and upgrade them through the life cycle. You take a composite helicopter today, the shape over the time will not change, but the content, the development, as much as the submarine we once would put into the water, they will look different, but also the build of the first submarine will be a different one at the beginning of the lifecycle than at the end.
If we as a country are able not only to build but to sustain and upgrade them by our own means and learn from that, then we have not only a massive defence capability but also a contribution which translates into the entire economy, if we play our cards smart.
Phil Tarrant: That's good. So, your role now is MD of the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, how long have you been in that job now?
Jens Goennemann: A bit more than a year. I started in February last year and yeah, I'm in my early second year now.
Phil Tarrant: Early second year. So I've quite enjoyed doing some background research in preparation for our chat today because it's made me think a little bit more critically about manufacture in Australia. There's a lot of negativity around manufacturing in Australia right now. We try to be very positive and proactive in Defence Connect to fly the flag for-
Jens Goennemann: Good on you.
Phil Tarrant: Highlighting the talent of manufacturing we have in Australia and that manufacturing is not dead.
Jens Goennemann: Phil, it bugs me even to bring it close to death. The misunderstanding starts with that manufacturing and production is not the same. We see car companies closing down to assemble, putting cars together in this country. These are foreign companies, Toyota, General Motors, Ford. They're not Australian companies. We just put these cars together. Other countries can do that much cheaper than we can but this misunderstanding of putting something together, that production is manufacturing, that is not right. Manufacturing is so much more. The manufacturing, value-adding process starts with R&D, design, logistics, then production, sales and services. So putting cars together is only one part. But actually if you manufacture something and own the entire process of the whole entire value chain, we are in a much stronger position as in high ... High cost, high value, high sophisticated country that we are.
I mean I always like to take the example of an iPhone. Apple does the R&D, does the design. The production is something what Apple does not do. The value-add of the production of an iPhone is less than 25 per cent. Apple is definitely an advanced manufacturer, but the only thing they don't do is putting it together. Manufacturing is so much more.
Phil Tarrant: So for people who aren't familiar then with the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre, what is the genesis of this centre? I know it's a relatively new centre and it was born out of the previous government in terms of looking to enhance those areas of Australia, which we have great capabilities and we should be exploiting. But for those of our listeners who don't know what you do, can you please explain it really quickly and then what is your job as part of that?
Jens Goennemann: Sure. The growth centre initiative is an initiative of not trying to do everything in this country a little bit, but focusing on our strengths, playing to our strengths. Let's not forget that Australia is by size as large as the United States without Alaska. But by population, we are as big as Texas. So let's not forget that. By trying to do everything a little bit we are not utilising what we are really good at. So the growth centre idea is to do what we're either naturally good at or good at by choice. And what we are naturally good at are things where we exploit our commodities and where we leverage on profound research, we have done and do in medical technology and pharmaceuticals. So we end up with growth centres which are playing to our strengths and the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre connects them in a horizontal way because in every growth centre, we need to make something. The more complex we make something, the higher up the value chain we are in manufacturing, the better the payoff for Australia.
The mission of the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre is to transform Australia's manufacturing, to make it globally more competitive, and as a consequence to create jobs. High paid, high skilled jobs, onshore but competing out there in the world.
Phil Tarrant: And in terms of your role in steering the ship, what's your main focus?
Jens Goennemann: We have seen enough paper being written, and we have contributed to that as well with our wonderful Sector Competitiveness Plan, which we update on a yearly basis, so we produce some insights, but we don't want to stop there. We want to take these insights and demonstrate the direction setting research we do. We call these projects. And in these projects we would like to work, and we work, with like-minded companies, either global companies who have an establishment in Australia who would like to utilise our profound research, working with universities, working with SME's, and tie them into projects, and advance manufacturing, transform manufacturing, with the aim of commercialisation.
We are very strong in Australia on research, we are not as good in commercialising our smarts. This is one, just one of the roles.
Phil Tarrant: It sounds to me that you're trying to change the definition of what manufacturing is in Australia. I think it's very linear at the moment, where people think about production as you've said, or they think it's actually the physical welding of steel, but that value chain is so much wider, so how are you going on that journey to get people thinking about manufacturing differently than what they do?
Jens Goennemann: Let me come back to the welding in a minute, the dear welders are close to my heart. But you're right, we need to define manufacturing differently and in fact we will produce a piece of definition of that together with the department of innovation – industry innovation and science. We need to define it differently, because in manufacturing, the way we look at it, the way we measure it is very much production centric, and if we would like to capture all the companies who do the right thing and move up and down the value chain, if we count them in our statistics as service companies, as engineering companies, and not as manufacturer, they only exist because of manufacturing! We are doing something wrong.
We see companies, like Ford for example, closing down the assembly of cars but at the same time Ford has built up a workforce of more than a thousand engineers who work in R&D and design. That is high skilled, high value work in Australia, which should be captured as manufacturing, because that's the right thing to do.
Now with the welders: welding is certainly being perceived as a traditional trade. But it is not about what we do, it is about how we do it. So if welding transforms and merges with robotics for example, welding as a traditional trade will eventually transform itself, and they are on a fantastic track into a trade which combines robotics as a modern technology, with a traditional one. And if I just think forward of all the confined spaces in future ship build, welding has its place, but it should be the smart welding. It should be the welding which deploys, utilises, the technology of robotics, which are then not only building our ships on shore and sustains them, but is a globally competitive feature and technology we possess.
Phil Tarrant: So where do you guys get your money from to do what you're doing? You're government funded in some way, is that right?
Jens Goennemann: That is right. The administration of the growth centres is government funded, and the project money, what we contribute to project, is also government money. Then it would be up to industry to match that funding, at least dollar for dollar, but it's probably a good incentive to work on a project with us to innovate, and pull large companies, small companies, researchers into one project and then get closer to commercialisation with a push of our funding.
Phil Tarrant: So when you stand in front of your government colleagues, when you assess how well you're tracking, how do they know you're doing a good job? How do get runs on the board and how is that tangible?
Jens Goennemann: I asked myself this in my first year, and we're getting a lot of promising feedback from industry, that they consider our work, our insight for research as very valuable. The true test are the incoming projects which we create, where we demonstrate our research in projects which we tackle, and we will walk the talk of getting us closer to commercialisation outcome in projects. So I would like to have membership companies working with us, with researchers, with the other companies, in advanced manufacturing, transform manufacturing, in our projects around certain hub themes.
Phil Tarrant: And you recently got closer with Thales, one of your key defence relationships. Can you me little bit about that and how that started, and what was the attraction there, who courted who, and the dynamics of that?
Jens Goennemann: Well with Thales we have a defence company who is deeply embedded in the Australia defence constituency. Thales does the right thing, has a local presence, works with research. It's not importing defence, but in fact they are exporting. Some of their technology is world leading, so it's not that a French company imports to Australia, in fact it's Thales who export their technology to France and other countries. I think it's a fantastic example. It is a global company with a local presence who utilises Australia's ingenuity in further developing technologies, and Thales is attractive as a partner because with Thales in their mindset, they pull in small, medium-sized companies and research, and that helps transforming manufacturing and makes it globally more competitive.
Phil Tarrant: And your relationship with the other primes then? Is it developing dialogue with them? How are you tracking with them?
Jens Goennemann: Absolutely. We simplified the intake for members, to become a member with us. It's not about the quantity of members. We want to have members who have the mindset to innovate. Innovation has become a bit of a dirty word since recently, but if we as a country would like to be globally competitive, and not competing from state to state, innovation is necessary, and those companies who can set the pace and work with us to demonstrate that in projects, they are the ones we would like to work with, and set the example for the other companies. We have too little examples of globally competitive companies, and we need to get more companies competing on the world stage on value, not on cost.
Phil Tarrant: Now whenever I read or write for Defence Connect it's ... The manufacturing space right now is very politically charged. You have different state governments are all seeking defence projects, they're obviously trying to represent their local constituents, protect jobs, grow jobs, stimulate growth in their local economy, so it's a very politically charged environment. Now you working in conjunction with government is probably how I'd frame it, how involved do you get pulled into the tussle of politics and the manufacturing component versus – and something I wrote down was "the mindset to innovation" which is key – how do you balance the two together because I imagine it could be quite frustrating.
Jens Goennemann: Well first of all I see is it's positive there's an interest in manufacturing, rather than the question "Do we need manufacturing?" We need manufacturing to make complex things, so there is no way around it. The interest is positive. If we would not see local governments fighting for their share, well that would be bad. Because it would show me, "Why bother?" The first thing.
Secondly, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre is a federal initiative and totally bipartisan. In fact ... It's called Growth Centre now, it goes back to an initiative of precincts which was an invention of Labour, and by quoting a former German politician, and forgive my accent ... There is no Labour economic policy, or Liberal economic policy, there's only the right one or the wrong one. And it should be bipartisan. What serves the country is what should be done, and by transforming manufacturing, making it more globally competitive, that creates the demand for jobs. You just don't do, you don't say, "Let's have more jobs." How do you do that? You can bury money and have people digging for it. Here you create a job. But it's not meaningful, it's not sustainable.
For Australia, we need to transform, we need to be a globally competitive country, and we need to focus on areas where we're good at, and defence can be a fantastic primer for that. Bill Ferris calls it the moonshot opportunity. It's a moonshot opportunity if we play our cards right. It's a massive task ahead, but if that can be triggering the transformation of manufacturing, that would be a good thing, and we want to certainly tap into that.
Phil Tarrant: So you see defence then as Australia's manufacturing capabilities evolve or change in a global market place which is dominated by people seeking cost efficiencies, you're saying that defence can be the new paradigm for how manufacturing is done in other markets in Australia?
Jens Goennemann: Let's put your question in two elements, the one competing on cost, and the other one, what defence can do to advance manufacturing.
Let's think about competing on cost first. Australia is not a country which is cost competitive. Competing on cost will not get us anywhere when we want to sustain the lifestyle we have. We actually in our Sector Competitiveness Plan, ask global purchasing manager, "Why do you bother coming to Australia and buy here?" And nobody, nobody from the 50 we asked said "We are here 'cause you are cost competitive." No, we're not. But they came to Australia because we either had something to offer in technology leadership, or a specific service or combination of both. 60% mentioned that as their first answer. So we need to compete on value. We need to be better than the others, not cheaper. That's the first thing.
So with defence, the ambition for example to do the most complex thing you can do in the world, building a conventionally driven submarine. This is such a massive task ... I'm not commenting on whether we can achieve that or whether we should have done this. That's not my mission. But what I know is the complexity we as a country can master right now, is not sufficient to do that. I can evidence that. So by putting that ambition out there, this moonshot opportunity, it can be a primer for getting our manufacturing base to a higher level for the benefit of pulling that defence task off, but not stop there, but getting the entire industry, the entire country, into a mode to innovate and to transform manufacturing, and to make more complex things for defence and for non-defense. I think it's a fantastic opportunity.
Phil Tarrant: So what's the key things that need to happen to achieve that? So obviously we have skilled workers who can do the physical work, but it sounds like more of a mindset shift around understanding where the value's created. So what are those couple of things for us to deliver that to Australia, Australian people?
Jens Goennemann: I would like to make the analogy with the growth centre. By trying to do everything a little bit, we will not utilise, and play to, our strengths. Let's focus. Let's find the elements which are absolutely dear for us, which are the elements - which are the "must do's" for us. Let's look into work packages which gives us depth of knowledge, where we can utilise existing knowledge and make it even more competitive, and be really, really good at it. Instead of doing everything a little bit. I think that is important. It is not about- It's like with the car manufacturing. It's not about the assembly, where a submarine or a ship is being assembled. And so far I'm standing a bit amused on the sideline and see again, the battle of who assembles it, and where should the assembly be. The question is "How do I, as a country, as a company, as a state, as a community, get into that moonshot opportunity and do something smart. Something what is unique, something what is requiring skills and further developing skills. What makes me, as a supplier, indispensable in the defence and in the non-defense space?"
Phil Tarrant: So when you think about the role we collectively have ahead ... So if we truly enhance our manufacturing capabilities, if we truly understand the value we can create in manufacturing in Australia, outside of production and the other key facets, when you look at that and when you think about that, and you lie in bed at night and you worry about your role, what are the things that scare you the most, and what are the things that excite you the most.
Jens Goennemann: What scares me the most is probably a realistic stocktake of where we stand as a country in mastering complexity. There are investigations from smarter organisations like the MIT, who have like a complexity index. This complexity index is put into a relation of income what we as per capita earn. Australia sits on the higher income level on that statistics, together with other economic powerhouses, but in regards to complexity we are sitting in the midfield. And that worries me. Because if we have the ambition to pull something so complex off as a nation, and we are at the moment only able to pull off medium complexity, then my moonshot rocket will miss the moon. We will not utilise this opportunity, and this is why I think we need to be very clear what in this process we want to do. We want to focus our strengths not trying to do everything a little bit. That's my worry.
On the positive, it is widely known that Australia struggles with commercialisation of the research but we have very strong research in itself. So we have the smarts, and to contribute, and as I said earlier, big defence procurement can be the catalyst for that.
Phil Tarrant: And this gap that you talk about, has it got a name?
Jens Goennemann: Let's find one Phil.
Phil Tarrant: I think we need to frame that because I think you articulated that exceptionally well – that we're mediocre or adequate at this but we're right at the top end in here. So there's a big gap there, and I think that probably needs to be explored a lot more. And obviously the government is investing in this, because you know, we have the centre, but it sounds like a lot more needs to be done. It's very worrying.
Jens Goennemann: Well in our Sector Competitiveness Plan we investigated, in our first round, medical technology and aerospace. So we thought we'd take two sectors which are so far apart from each other that when we find commonalities, it would be probably fair to assume that all the sectors in between, we could apply this insight and findings as well. And we also could learn the differences between the two. By doing that we found that competing on value is rather promising than competing on cost for example. And if we do this well we can conquer the global market rather than competing one state against the other.
Phil Tarrant: So Jens, how far do you think we are behind people in the rest of the world who are doing it well. So who have great complexity, great workforce. America for example. Great manufacturing capabilities, very sophisticated. Your home country, Germany, always been known as being exceptional in the manufacturing space. Where does Australia sit? Are we really behind or just sort of lagging a little bit?
Jens Goennemann: With manufacturing we have a massive opportunity. Let's do a stocktake first. Besides having seen manufacturing being talked down, what are the facts? The facts are that we have more than 900,000 people directly working in manufacturing, and if we count all the jobs who are indirectly benefiting and working 100 per cent for manufacturing, we have 1.2 million in Australia working for manufacturing. Manufacturing is the innovator number one. Manufacturing files, as a sector, the most patents in this country. And it is a top contributor for our gross value added with ... I think we have more than 100 billion of gross value added in Australian manufacturing, and export volume from around 9 billion per month. And the- I call it the "Manufacturing Happy Index", is as good as it has been in the last 15 years.
So that is something I see. First of all the tide changing in manufacturing's perception, and we need to exploit the whole value chain of manufacturing, not limiting our views on production. So that being said, that makes me hopeful. I also see that Australia has now signed an agreement with Germany. You mentioned, you passed me the ball, so ... In Industry 4.0, the digitalisation, the fourth industrial revolution, where it is being seen that Australia is getting it earlier than other countries. So we are jumping on the train. We need to exploit that opportunity. That again comes back to, it's not about what we make, but how we make it. We can basically take an existing trait and digitalise it, and transform it that way. So if you take that and take Australia's ingenuity, and as islanders, which I am one now, despite the accent, my barbecuing is terrific – if you take that ingenuity and bring it into play, I'm quite positive.
The gap is big, but I think if you're honestly acknowledging that gap and working in that gap, and focusing our strengths in niches rather than trying everything a little bit like we have done in the past, then I think we'll be doing the right thing.
So in regards to a future ship build, I would probably recommend that Australia needs to first do a stocktake of all the defence capabilities we have in country. From A to Z. And then we can make the choice as a country. "Okay, this is what we have. What from all of that do we really need and want to have?" The less more criticals we want to keep, and the more depth and knowledge we then develop and use for future ship builds and other massive defence procurement for that. That will play to our strengths. We have to be very honest, we have to be strategic, we have to be clear.
I have a concern that we aren’t doing the strategic approach, but this is what I would recommend.
Phil Tarrant: So we're talking about manufacturing in the future which is very complex, very sophisticated, which is good, and we have some ground to catch up on our global counterparts, but do the blue collar workers have a role in this moving forward. Is there a job for them?
Jens Goennemann: Absolutely. I'm rather concerned, when I look to other nations who build ships, that we do not have enough workforce. Blue collar and white collar. I don't really like the-
Phil Tarrant: I don't like the terminology either, but-
Jens Goennemann: I think we should call it multicolor. It's more diverse anyway, huh?
Phil Tarrant: It is.
Jens Goennemann: But if we look at ... There are four categories of countries for ship builds. You have countries like the US, and they build enough of naval ships, warships that they can sustain a workforce in its own right. Then you have countries like Korea and Japan who have such a massive commercial ship build industry that they can grow on that workforce to build naval ships. Then you have countries in the third category. I would give them the yellow light. Not the green light, the yellow light, like Spain, France, Germany and Italy, to name a few, who have a healthy mix of both. They can get by. And then you have countries who have the ambition to build and sustain their own ships, but don't have the supporting industry for that. And Australia and Canada and the United Kingdom, they fall into this category.
The United Kingdom has used the build of their nuclear submarines as their moonshot opportunity and built an industry around it. And if we do that, and learn from that, and do that in Australia I think that provides a massive opportunity. It is so tempting from the manufacturing viewpoint that we will not leave that opportunity untapped.
Phil Tarrant: So your time as boss at Airbus defence and aerospace sector. What is it do you think, from steering Airbus through that period of time, and you delivered some great stuff, what is it that you think has given you the right skills, or given you the right background to excel in the role that you have right now? What's gonna make the difference do you think?
Jens Goennemann: I have seen what works, and I have seen what does not work. First of all the decision to assemble a complex military system in country is a good decision, because it is primarily by using the jigs and tools to build a complex system, and understanding the softer side of it with software tools and kits and that, that you will use these jigs and tools and knowledge to sustain the hardware and the software of that system. By doing that you make an investment into the sustainability and the capability to upgrade a military system. It's a good decision.
Compared to assembling a military helicopter in Australia, and I know that our assembly line was, in the Airbus world, one of the best. But this is still being seen as a program – it's being seen as critical, because it continues to fail to deliver against the high expectation for the operational user, of the end user. And if I compare that complexity with the complexity we endeavour to master, I must say that is more complex and more ambitious. So this is why I think a fair stocktake of what we want to accomplish and what it takes to get there, and to focus, focus on the areas we want to do, and decide the areas we do not want to do. Making that strategic decision is concentrating our strengths in similarity to the Growth Centre idea.
Phil Tarrant: What's your view on global primes who are setting up shop now in Australia, or looking to capitalise on major manufacturing -
Jens Goennemann: Let's exploit them. Let them do that. It's a good thing. We can learn, we can cooperate. We need to have them in order to bring the much smaller and more fragmented, small medium size landscape of defence and non-defense companies into play with global companies. It is not so much about assembling a whole product, be it a car, be it a ship. It is about being part of the global value chain, being part of that. That we not only deliver elements into the systems being built in Australia, but that these elements can be so good and so sophisticated, that we deliver them onto the global stage.
I know from own example that companies who have been really small in my early days, let’s take a company like Cablex, who have started to build cable booms for the ARH Tiger, then eventually for the NH-90, not only for the Australian fleet but for the global fleet, and I would be surprised if Cablex will eventually not use this boost, and become a competitor of Airbus one day. Because their opportunity to compete successfully, and deliver successfully in a domestic defence product has enabled them to be globally competitive. These are the darling stories where I can see small companies to become medium companies, to see local players becoming global players. Defence, and the massive amount, the massive ambition we have and we want to spend in that area provides a magnificent opportunity to see other manufacturers transforming their way.
Phil Tarrant: We're running out of time. I've enjoyed the chat. It's felt quite sort of energised. I guess to sort of bookend the initial comments I made around manufacturing, it is a politically charged space right now, but it's essential to our ongoing economic health as a nation to ensure that we extract this knowledge and capabilities that we have, and play it out on a global stage, so I think we've got some challenges ahead and I think you've outlined those, but I think we're aware of it.
Jens Goennemann: Phil, you and I together, I think so far, we have six children. I mean, we need to think about what meaningful jobs do we give our children one day to make a living out of that. We cannot live from digging stuff out of the ground and sell each other houses. By being able to master complexity, and to be globally competitive, and do this in a wonderful country like in Australia, I think that's the way to go. Defence is certainly one enabler for doing that. Not the only one, but it's one –
And let me tell you, making things is the backbone of an economy, You mentioned Germany. Germany has deliberately made the decision to invest in industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution. Because more than 20 per cent of the German economy is manufacturing. In Australia, for the moment, depending on how we count it, it's 7 per cent. We are the third largest sector. Defence and the massive defence build of the future will make that rather bigger than smaller. Let's us it. Let's use it for us, let's use it for our children.
Phil Tarrant: So you've got the ear of the defence industry right now. If there was the one thing that if you're listening to this podcast that you want defence and defence industry to think differently about manufacturing, how would you summarise that in a sentence?
Jens Goennemann: Let's focus on less, let's focus on what is really important for us as a country, and rigorously pursue that less.
Phil Tarrant: Very succinct. I like it. I do appreciate you giving me a copy of the Sector Competitive Plan 2017, but I understand it's also available on the web, so if anyone wants some more information about you guys, or to download and extract this information, how can they track you down?
Jens Goennemann: amgc.org.au
Phil Tarrant: Okay. Brilliant. So I've really enjoyed the chat. Love to keep connecting, keep engaged and let's keep this conversation going 'cause I think we can help shape the way in which Australia makes its march ahead in terms of its manufacturing capabilities, and we're all invested in it. Every single one of us.
Jens Goennemann: Anytime, thanks for having me.
Phil Tarrant: That's good. If you've got any questions for myself or for Jens, I'm sure he'll be happy to take any. You can contact the team here, we'll pass it on.
