National Survey of Research Commercialisation - Australian ...

NATIONAL SURVEY OF RESEARCH COMMERCIALISATION
The company now employs 25 staff in Melbourne and 2 in North America, and uses a
network of trainers and consultants around the world.
In October 2001, QSR was announced as the winner of the ‘Information and
Communication Technology Award’ in the Governor of Victoria Export Awards for 2001,
Victoria’s most prestigious export award. The award cited the company’s international
focus and its ability to provide leading edge QDA software solutions.
QSR itself has been the sole funder of its R&D; its founders are still with the company —
Tom Richards as its chief scientist and Lyn Richards as Director of Research Services.
QUANTM
A technology that charts the best route for road and rail construction has delivered
millions of dollars of savings to Australian road and rail agencies.
The Quantm system calculates such key issues as when to tunnel or when to cut, and the
height at which constructing a viaduct is less expensive than filling — with a dollar sign
attached to each of its deductions. For major overseas projects, the potential savings run
into billions of dollars.
It enables engineers to determine “best option” road and rail routes in a matter of
hours, taking account of economic, environmental and social constraints, as well as the
geography of the terrain.
Quantm Ltd was formed to commercialise the CSIRO technology used to determine
the most cost-effective route for the proposed $3.7 billion Canberra–Sydney Very High
Speed Train Service Project (VHST Project).
Changes to the original alignment identified ways to significantly reduce earthworks for
the railway and offered alignment construction cost savings of up to 42%. The system
allows planners to optimise whole-of-life costs by evaluating the impact of particular
options on both construction and ongoing costs.
The company now employs 17 people after completing a capital raising last year.
With CSIRO, it won the Australian Technology Award for the best public sector new
technology in 2001.
Its system has been widely adopted in Australia and New Zealand and is being applied
on a third US project. It has been used on both high-speed rail and highway projects in
Europe, and a contract has been signed for an expressway project in China, due to begin
later this year.
Leading German firm, Dorsch Consulting, describes the technology as ‘the missing link’
in road and rail construction. It helps cut project planning time by up to a third, but even
more important are the alignment construction cost savings, which can be 20% or higher.
For example, the California High Speed Rail Authority has stated that its study team was
able to deliver potential savings of US$4.8 billion dollars using the Quantm system.
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