- Manufacturers across Australia are shifting from their traditional work to help meet domestic shortfalls of essential products.
- These new product lines may benefit from guidance available in the standards that have been developed by industry and governments, to support a quick shift into new areas.
The entire country is now deeply entrenched in the fight against COVID-19, with domestic manufacturing on a new frontline meeting shortfalls of essential products. The manufacturing of such products is often underpinned by standards, a summary list of which we have collated into an easy to read directory.
“Our organisation has been shaping the landscape of Australian industry for nearly 100 years, and through every challenge we have faced as a nation we have risen in response,” said CEO of Standards Australia, Adrian O’Connell.
“After the Second World War, standards were essential to the domestic market and have been enabling economic growth ever since. While the challenge we face today is different, the need for our domestic manufacturing is much the same and we are established to support Australian businesses as they strive to build essential domestic manufacturing capacity.”
“Industry solutions to fulfil market and community needs have been the focus of our efforts for many years and in this case, we have been working to deliver support to the national response to COVID-19,” said Mr O’Connell.
The directory and industry reference material being released outlines information on standards that may be relevant to key areas of current domestic product shortfall, such as respiratory protection, surgical masks, gloves, and other protective clothing.
“Standards Australia works with industry and government to manage over 7,000 standards and in this time of national crisis we don’t want people to be wasting their time trying to find certain information depending on their situation,” said Head of Stakeholder Engagement, Daniel Chidgey.
“Being able to switch from producing gin to hand sanitiser, or t-shirts to surgical gowns are priority for manufacturers and where their efforts should be focused, not trawling through our database for relevant standards.”
“This is a first practical step among others Standards Australia is exploring, and we are excited by what it has the potential to achieve,” continued Mr Chidgey. “We are working with multiple levels of government, in different areas of work to respond to this situation to the extent that we can. We remain committed to taking practical steps to help our nation respond to this global pandemic.”
Our directory material can be found
here.