We are pleased to invite you to the 2011 Metals New Zealand Industry Conference to be held on the 14th and 15th of April at the Duxton Hotel in Wellington. 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 new pan-industry body.

If there is one commonly agreed theme in respect to securing New Zealand’s prosperity then this must be that New Zealand needs to increase its productivity and sped of innovation. The conference organisers have picked up this theme with the intention to put our industry in the driver seat. No doubt this will be an immense challenge considering that the recession is constraining our industry financially in its ability to invest and innovate.

However, if we wish to seriously achieve the government target of catching up with Australia’s GDP per capita growth by 2025 and, from a companyÕs 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 our industry leaders perspectives and solutions to progress and achieve measurable productivity gains.

 It also is about offering the opportunity to network within you sector group or the entire metals engineering industry sector.ÊMembers 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), have teamed up to cover not only the productivity and innovation topic 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, we have changed the format in that we have just one main conference day concluded by the Awards Gala Dinner where we acknowledge outstanding achievements of our peers.

The second conference day allows sector groups to pursue their own interests and we have Wellington based sponsors IRL and BRANZ offering us a guided tour of their research facilities.Sector Group NASH will continue their session from Thursday into Friday and Bill James as well with his NZTE-sponsored workshop.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 Metals Industry Awards Dinner in the Ballroom of the Duxton Hotel.

We are very grateful to all our Conference sponsors and acknowledge their generous support to enable us to run such a conference at a time where the recession forces most of us to tighten the belt. The conference organising committee and the sponsors are looking forward to see you all there.

-Dr Wolfgang Scholz