Fiona Schroeder, General Manager

How are you finding current business conditions?

Business has been tough over the last 12 months, across the board, our customers have been “down” and experiencing lower demand.

However, it would seem there are some green shoots which will hopefully mean that we have hit the bottom and are now looking forward to a period of gradual growth.

What are the main activities of your company?

South Waikato Precision Engineering is a manufacturing engineering business.

We design and manufacture KNAPP spreader bars, lifting beams, man cages, skid steer attachments and excavator attachments including thumbs.

We also manufacture parts for other New Zealand Manufacturers. With 11 CNCs and offline programming, we machine a wide variety of precision parts including tooling steels.

We also have fabrication and welding, giving us the capability to manufacture welded parts that require machining in one place rather than having to use two separate suppliers.

Our assembly team assemble manufactured parts into sub-assemblies for customers to streamline their manufacturing production.

Where are future opportunities for growth, for your company?

From a production manufacturing perspective, South Waikato Precision Engineering is partnering with New Zealand manufacturers to produce parts and provide sub-assemblies with the goal to reduce production costs and increase efficiencies to ensure our customers remain competitive in the global market.

We believe this approach of assisting our manufacturing customers to reduce costs and use an external supplier to change fixed costs to variable costs will continue to create opportunities for growth both for South Waikato Precision Engineering and our customers.

For our own products, KNAPP has the largest range of certified spreader bars and lifting beams available in New Zealand with growing demand from Crane and Hiab companies, manufacturers and warehouses that require compliant, certified lifting equipment.

We also see growth in opportunities with KNAPP excavator and skid steer attachments from the agricultural and construction industries.

How do you find staff recruitment at present?

As with most businesses, we have found staff recruitment to be more challenging since Covid. Fortunately, as we have a very stable staff, staff recruitment requirements have been rare over the past few years as we have very low staff turnover.

As the business grows, our intention is to recruit and train apprentices to future proof the business going forward and maintain our high-quality standards.

Do you export?

South Waikato Precision Engineering operates predominantly in the domestic New Zealand market. However, we supply many New Zealand manufacturers who export overseas.

South Waikato – what is the entrepreneurial spirit like?

South Waikato is an entrepreneurial region with many manufacturing and engineering businesses in the forestry and agricultural industries that have grown to become large employers.

52South Waikato Precision Engineering has followed in the same spirit creating our own range of KNAPP products including certified spreader bars and lifting beams, man cages, excavator and skid steer attachments.

What one thing would make business better for you?

Confidence and certainty in overseas markets and trade conditions resulting in increased demand for New Zealand manufacturers which will, in turn, flow on to growth for suppliers.