There's something big brewing in the basement at Swinburne University.

The university's Advanced Manufacturing and Design Centre has just won access to technology from industrial giant Siemens with an estimated value of $135 million.

The grant is the largest of its kind ever awarded in Australia and will allow researchers to design and develop products in a virtual environment without having to build physical prototypes. This will also help train future Australian engineers and other students in cutting edge manufacturing skills they are likely to need as manufacturing becomes digitised.

Siemens' software will be put to use in Swinburne's "Factory of the Future", a hub for cutting edge and experimental digital manufacturing tech which occupies the whole bottom level of the university's AMDC building in Hawthorn.

The factory is "the most mature platform for developing industry 4.0 development technologies" says Professor Aleksandar Subic, Swinburne's deputy vice-chancellor of research and development.

"The Factory of the Future is a co-creation space that involves digital manufacturing and advanced virtual reality environments ... where we can digitalise the entire manufacturing process".

The term "industry 4.0" refers to the rise of smart factories where cyber-physical systems control most of the processes without the need for human involvement. With the internet of things (IoT) allowing these systems to co-operate with each other and with humans, the role of people will become less physical.

One of the core pillars of industry 4.0, Professor Subic says, is the idea of a "digital twin", a perfect virtual representation of the physical world that allows products to be designed, rapidly prototyped and tested without ever having to be created physically. 

"The software is the technology that enables all the things we're talking about", Professor Subic says. "And it also allows us to connect to other facilities around the world to exchange designs, or distribute manufacturing".

The software includes a portfolio of systems that ties workflows together across the entire lifecycle of a given product, from ideation and design all the way to disposal, as well as an operating system called MindSphere, which connects computer systems and physical infrastructure to enable automated digital manufacturing, and to crunch the huge amounts of data it all creates.

While this kind of software is industry standard now, Professor Subic says, what sets the Factory of the Future apart is that "under our umbrella we have the whole lifecycle of education, from apprenticeships to PhDs", and the system will adjust to suit projects of all scales.

Swinburne even plans to open its facilities up to SMEs so they can become familiar with implementing industry 4.0 practices, with the goal of keeping Australian workforces and businesses viable 

This is a goal that Siemens shares as well.

"Our country's future relies on companies working with key educational and research institutions to get our workforce ready for the fourth industrial revolution", says Siemens Australia chief exeuctive Jeff Connolly, by way of explaining the unprecedented grant awarded to Swinburne.

"The world is changing rapidly through technology and Australia needs to equip our future generations and our existing workforce with the necessary capabilities and tools to make things faster, cheaper and better. Ultimately this is about jobs and competition."