Engineering industry players should be interested in attending the Metals New Zealand Industry Conference 2011, to be held on the 14th and 15th of April at the Duxton Hotel in Wellington.

Formerly known as the Metals Industry Conference, this event comes as a result of the fantastic success of four previous Metals Industry Conferences with each event attended by well over 300 key people from the industry,Government and academia.

However, for the first time this event is organised by the newly-formed Metals New Zealand society and the Conference is used to officially launch this pan industry body.

If there is one common agreed theme in respect to securing New Zealand’s prosperity, then this must be that New Zealand needs to improve its productivity and innovation. The Conference organisers have picked up this theme with the intention to put our industry in the driving seat.

No doubt this will be an immense challenge considering that the recession is constraining the industry in its ability to innovate due to financial and capability constraints.

However, if the Industry and New Zealand in general wishes to seriously achieve the Government target of catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita growth by 2025 and, from a company’s perspective, to make profits, we need not just adjust the way we do things, we do need to transform dramatically.

This Conference, with its theme  ‘Driving Productivity and Innovation’, is about informing on the big picture from a national perspective but most of all, it is about giving industry leaders perspectives and solutions to progress and achieve measurable productivity gains.

It also is about offering the opportunity to network with sector groups or the entire metals engineering industry.

Members of Metals New Zealand such as the Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA), Steel Construction NZ (SCNZ), NZ Stainless Steel Development Association (NZSSDA), National Association of Steel Framed Housing (NASH), Light Alloys Manufacturing (LAM-NZ),Titanium Industry Development Association (TiDA), Galvanisers Association of NZ (GANZ), have teamed up to cover not only the productivity and innovation topics but also focus in their specific sessions – typically conducted in a workshop-type environment – on their particular sector group development needs.

Following feedback from the last Conference, the format has been changed in that there is just one main conference day concluded by the Industry Awards Gala Dinner, where outstanding achievements of peers is acknowledge .

The second Conference day allows sector groups to pursue their own interests and Wellington-based sponsors IRL and BRANZ offer a guided tour of their research facilities.

For partners, you will be in the heart of the city which offers an ideal base for exploring the many attractions of ‘ Positively Wellington’. We particularly encourage partners to come along for Thursday night’s Industry Awards Gala Dinner in the Ballroom of the Duxton Hotel.

nextSTEP  visit www.metals.org.nz