Why our car dependence is now a strategic liability
Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau The war in Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz have sent oil prices past US$100 a barrel – and Kiwis flocking to fill up. Petrol just hit NZ$3 a litre and some stations have reported running […]
Tech companies are blaming massive layoffs on AI
Uri Gal, Professor in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney In the past few months, a wave of tech corporations have announced significant staff cuts and attributed them to efficiency gains driven by artificial intelligence (AI). Companies such as Atlassian, Block and Amazon have announced they would lay off thousands of employees due to increased […]
Workplace literacy: The hidden lever of performance
Adam Harvey, Business Performance Partner – Manufacturing, The Learning Wave We all know the story: New Zealand productivity lags behind much of the OECD. For years, it’s been in reports, debated at conferences and written in board packs. You feel it when the same issues resurface, rework creeps back […]
In God we trust: All others bring data
David Altena is Head of Growth & Partnerships at SmartSpace.ai & Co-Founder & Host of The Better SMB Podcast. david@altena.solutions Rob Bull is Director of the New Zealand Lean Academy. rob@nzla.nz Edwards Deming’s line has been quoted so often it risks becoming wallpaper. But for New Zealand […]
Uncertainty and opportunity for Kiwi exporters
By EMA Head of Membership and Export, Simon Devoy With the global trading environment shifting rapidly, uncertainty is the new normal for Kiwi exporters. The latest developments around tariffs from the Trump Administration show just how quickly the rules can change, and how vulnerable small, open trading economies like […]
Busy Isn’t Productive: The Hidden Cost of Broken Flow
A practical reset for factories stuck in firefighting, batching and workarounds. By Neil Robinson, a Senior Business Consultant with Argon & Co (Auckland) specialising in productivity improvement, Lean systems and capability building. A Six Sigma Black Belt and experienced facilitator, he helps manufacturing teams make flow visible, stabilise performance […]
Find a Business Partner – DIY or Not ?
Mike Warmington, Director, Platform1 New Zealanders often like to try their hand at projects especially when it comes to DIY jobs around the house. We pride ourselves on having a can-do attitude. This can transcend itself into business when owners are looking at exit planning strategies. It may sound […]
Q & A Stephanie Fry, General Manager, Stratmore
Stratmore is proud to be a 100% New Zealand owned and operated, family business, with over 71 years expertise in building and construction products supply. Stratmore manufactures and distributes premium, high-performance products for construction and repair and provides comprehensive consulting for the New Zealand construction industry. Stratmore is also […]
Power Politics: How high electricity prices are squeezing NZ Manufacturers in an Election Year
By Sean Doherty,Manufacturing Commentator | NZ Industry Trends New Zealand’s electricity market is producing two parallel realities. For the country’s four major generator-retailers, business has never been better. For manufacturers, the same market is steadily destroying the economics of making things in this country. If the balance is not […]
Prevention is the strategy for performance in infrastructure delivery
From March issue, NZ Manufacturer magazine Stephanie Pretorius, Managing Principal, Argon & Co Infrastructure projects operate under relentless pressure: tightening margins, rising complexity, public scrutiny, and near-zero tolerance for delay. Yet many delivery environments still default to recovery — catch-up programmes, overtime, task-force escalation — only after performance has […]
Unlocking productivity: The National Launch of the 35 by 35 Business Performance Programme
New Zealand’s productivity challenge is well documented — but what if lifting performance across small and medium-sized businesses could be systemised, measured, and accelerated at scale? That is the ambition behind 35 by 35, a national business performance movement designed to help New Zealand businesses lift productivity, capability, and resilience […]
University programme expands to help manufacturers go digital
New funding will enable a University initiative to help more small manufacturers access affordable digital technology and improve productivity. Key facts The Government has committed up to $475,000 per year for three years from 1 April 2026 to expand the University of Auckland-led Digital Manufacturing Light programme. Digital Manufacturing Light […]
The world wants Kiwi manufacturing: Turning acquisitions into advantage
By Sean Doherty,Manufacturing Commentator | NZ Industry Trends Global investment is reshaping the future of Kiwi manufacturers—and the outlook is surprisingly positive. It has been a historic couple of years for New Zealand’s manufacturing and food processing sectors. From Invercargill to Auckland, a remarkable string of large manufacturing companies have been acquired by overseas buyers—or are in the process of changing hands. Fonterra’s consumer brands, Alliance Group, Synlait Milk, MHM Automation, Robotics Plus, Bremworth, Rakon, and a host of others have all attracted international attention. At first glance, headlines about foreign buyers snapping up New Zealand businesses can feel unsettling. The instinct is to ask: are we losing jobs and intellectual property? But when you dig into the details, a more encouraging picture emerges — one of fresh capital, global market access, jobs protected, and innovation accelerated. Here’s what’s really going on, and why there’s reason to be optimistic. The world wants what we’ve built The sheer scale of interest in New Zealand companies tells a story of success, not failure. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, 52 deals were announced, a 41 percent increase on the same period a year earlier. International investors from France, Ireland, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Australia, and Sri Lanka have all been writing cheques. Why? Because New Zealand companies have built something genuinely valuable. Robotics Plus, a Tauranga-based agricultural robotics company, attracted Yamaha Motor—one of the world’s leading industrial conglomerates—because its autonomous orchard vehicles and AI-powered systems are among the best in the world. Yamaha has now made Robotics Plus part of the foundation of its new global agricultural automation company, Yamaha Agriculture Inc. That’s not a loss. It’s a global validation of Kiwi ingenuity. Similarly, Christchurch’s MHM Automation caught the eye of Fortifi Food Processing Solutions because its post-harvest, […]