GLT Trailers CEO and HVIA Director Shay Chalmers delivered the opening industry keynote at the AMTIL Australian Manufacturing Conference in Brisbane on May 12, urging a renewed, coordinated focus on building Australia’s manufacturing capability.
Her message focused on adaptation, innovation and practical problem solving – arguing that manufacturing strength is built by engaging with disruption, not avoiding it.
Chalmers says manufacturing nations are built by deliberately backing capability: investing in skills, partnering across industry, government and academia, and having the courage to pivot – even when the path forward is not perfectly clear.
She challenged businesses and policy makers to stop treating manufacturing as a cost to manage and instead recognise it as a strategic asset to protect and grow.
With global markets shifting away from lowest-cost supply toward resilience, she says the world is looking for reliable partners – organisations that can deliver under pressure, adapt quickly and be trusted.
Chalmers argues this creates a timely opportunity for Australia to step up, not by trying to be the cheapest, but by being the most capable.
She also points to the “VUCA” environment – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – shaped by global supply chain disruption, geopolitical tensions, the energy transition, rapid technology change, cost pressures, regulation and compliance demands, workforce constraints and rising customer expectations.
Drawing on more than two decades in manufacturing, including in the nation’s heavy vehicle and transport supply chain, Chalmers outlined what resilient leadership looks like in a high-pressure operating environment – and why capability, not cost, will determine Australia’s competitiveness.