Thermo Fisher Scientific is bringing its unique problem-solving expertise to the AFCG. Recent technological and commercial success by high profile Cluster members has attracted the attention of the NYSE-listed firm, which operates worldwide with annual revenues of more than $30 billion and employs over 80,000.
Thermo Fisher, which pledges to “enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer,” has historically focused on life sciences and has become a major player in the pandemic as a producer of diagnostic test kits for COVID-19 as well as laboratory equipment and supplies.
Now, a 25-strong materials and structural analysis team is focused on helping drive innovation in advanced composites, producing multi model workflows to help cutting edge businesses better understand their materials and their manufacturing processes and overcome obstacles.
“With growth happening in this area — and companies like Quickstep and Carbon Revolution and a number of other organisations really having some recent success in terms of the technology and in the commercial space — we wanted to see how we could support the Cluster and its members,” local manager of Analytical Instruments in the Materials & Structural Analysis division Ryan Shaw says.
An ideal fit in the AFCG, the company supplies unique tools that enable clients to design and characterise optimal materials for light-weighting, rigidity and other requirements driven by changing global needs.
“We have an interest and a capability to work with companies to help build better things and that’s really where the interest in the Cluster came from.”
Dr Ryan Shaw | Analytical Instruments in the Materials & Structural Analysis Division
The tools promise to help Cluster members understand what characterisation techniques are available and “what these advanced nanoscale characterisation strategies could do to improve their products and document their commercial competitive advantage,” he says.
Thermo Fisher’s core business is in the provision of instruments for R&D, which in Australia has historically been in the mining and mineral sector and academia.
The firm now wants to collaborate with companies and leaders about what’s important in the composite materials sector and learn what is required regarding characterisation and how it can best deliver a suite of tools that provides clients with the best information to deliver the most valuable product.
“We can’t continue to grow and advance just talking to people we’ve always spoken to before,” Dr Shaw says. “Without talking to people who are engaged in this process on a day to day basis we can only assume.”
May 2021