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Company Profile: Nelson Honey

Around 85% of their products are destined for export, with China, Australia, South East Asia and the USA being some of their primary markets Nelson Honey is a family owned producer and exporter of high quality honey based goods, based out of Motupiko, 50km south of Nelson. Their focus is on producing high grade active manuka honey, although the larger section of the business revolves around high value bee venom and honey based cosmetic products. First opening in 1973, the company has ties to the industry and region stretching back much further – the business was formed by Philip Cropp, a third generation beekeeper whose grandfather started beekeeping in the Nelson region over 100 years ago. Nelson Honey employ around 60 people, many of which work to care for and maintain the 4000 beehives the firm has spread throughout the top of the South Island. Around 85% of their products are destined for export, with China, Australia, South East Asia and the USA being some of their primary markets. They also established a UK-based office to further expand their export markets, marketing their honey products throughout Europe, which has been most successful in creating interest and demand for their cosmetic ranges so far. One particular success for Nelson Honey has been their Royal Nectar brand, which is venom and honey based cosmetic range, with demand currently out stripping production. “As a pioneer of this market Nelson Honey has managed to cement a solid position for the brand worldwide in a relatively short space of time” said Rob Hawkes, the Chief Executive of Nelson Honey. Whilst the Royal Nectar range has a dedicated market following, Nelson Honey plan to continually expand and adapt the variety of products they offer as demand in certain markets changes. “All markets are continually evolving and […]

Manufacturing never stands still

-Doug Green, Publisher, NZ Manufacturer www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz Revolutionary technologies are changing the face of manufacturing in New Zealand and around the world. Remember when the first mobile phones came out? They looked like bricks, were the weight (practically) of bricks and there was really no place to put them. Walking down the busy street talking on one – with lots of other people around you doing the same thing – took up quite a lot of space. And how it’s all changed. The phones we use now are so much better as is the technology we are using to drive our manufacturing environments. If you can get your head around the on-going, refined technology, there are loads of opportunities staring you right in the face. And you can do it all in one place. Design engineers with their own research and development departments are taking on the world, developing products that five years ago would have been pretty hard to comprehend. From Invercargill to Whangarei there are great examples of New Zealand companies finding success by rolling up their sleeves and getting stuck in – using the best of manufacturing equipment and technology. Manufacturers do need to focus on the TPP agreement. Currently sitting there like a very, very large pimple, this inter-arrangement may even see foreign workers in New Zealand performing jobs New Zealanders ought to be doing at cheaper rates. The control of many workforces using Orwellian pay rates in a time when the price of an ice-cream is way over the top! Ice-cream may be available using the latest technology – but who determines its price? Why should TPP serve us any better? Technopak and Nelson Honey are prominent in this issue of NZ Manufacturer, companies who have been making it for a number of years. They haven’t […]

Toyota invests $US 50 million in artificial intelligence research

Kiyotaka Ise, Toyota’s Chief Officer of its Research and Development Group. The opportunities to improve every-day living through artificial intelligence supported technologies are boundless. Toyota will invest $US 50 million in the research and development of intelligent vehicle and mobility technologies with an ambitious new collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, California. Joint research centres will be established at each university with Toyota investing $US50 million over the next five years. Dr. Gill Pratt, former Program Manager at DARPA (the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) and leader of its recent Robotics Challenge, has joined Toyota to direct and accelerate these research activities and their application to intelligent vehicles and robotics. Toyota believes the opportunities to improve every-day living through artificial intelligence supported technologies are boundless, with significant breakthrough potential for the development of life-saving intelligent vehicles and life-improving robots. “We’re here to mark the beginning of an unprecedented commitment. We will initially focus on the acceleration of intelligent vehicle technology, with the immediate goal of helping eliminate traffic casualties and the ultimate goal of helping improve quality of life through enhanced mobility and robotics,” said Kiyotaka Ise, Toyota’s Chief Officer of its Research and Development Group. Combined research will be targeted at improving the ability of intelligent vehicle technologies to recognise objects around the vehicle, provide elevated judgment of surrounding conditions, and safely collaborate with vehicle occupants, other vehicles, and pedestrians. The joint research will also look at applications of the same technology to human-interactive robotics and information service, said Dr. Pratt. Both Universities already have computer science and artificial intelligence research facilities. Beyond Toyota’s longstanding work on autonomous vehicles and advanced driving support systems, the company has been developing robots for industrial use since the 1970s, and for Partner and Human Support Robot applications for […]

Unmanned helicopters to revolutionise agricultural industry

Yamaha Sky Division New Zealand represents the future of the agricultural industry. The introduction of the Yamaha RMAX unmanned helicopters will enable property owners, licensed operators and contractors to maintain the land and crops remotely, from the air, and without the hassles that come with more traditional farming methods. Weighing in at 99kg and at a total length of 3.63m and a height of 1.08m, each helicopter has a load capacity of 28kgs and runs on a 2 stroke, horizontally opposed 2-cylinder engine. The newest member of the Yamaha Sky Division is the ultimate piece of farm machinery for the 21st century. The versatility of this new technology means that operators can spray weeds, crops, or spread seed in a more cost effective and accurate manner. Because RMAX is completely airborne, terrain is no longer an issue. Spraying dangerous aquatic weeds or accessing uneven ground is all part of the package, and can be done in a time efficient way. Liquids and granules can be dispersed across a 400m range from the location of the operator, covering up to 2 acres in just 6 minutes depending on the target and payload. The Yamaha RMAX unmanned helicopter has become the first drone to be certified for flight in New Zealand under Part 102 of the Civil Aviation Rules. Coming into effect in August 2015, the new law establishes a framework for the safe operation of unmanned crafts in New Zealand. Yamaha Motor New Zealand received their operating certificate on the 1st August and wasted no time in conducting its first flight under the new CAA rule regime at its test site near Auckland. A high-performance Global Positioning System (GPS) combined with the Yamaha Attitude Control System makes operation incredibly simple. These sophisticated technologies, combined with a highly capable operator, ensure that […]

Business talent scouts looking for next superstar

Business talent scouts are looking for a startup with the potential to be New Zealand’s next global agritech superstar. Sprout, a national agritech business accelerator, is searching the country for eight budding entrepreneurs with embryonic agritech businesses for a new development programme. The chosen eight will receive a cash injection of $20,000 and be placed in a 20-week part time and remotely delivered programme that will see them flown around the country for mentoring from world-class business and technical experts. The programme will culminate in an opportunity to pitch for investment to a hand picked group of potential investors, business leaders and industry experts. Sprout Programme Manager James Bell-Booth says Sprout wants to grow businesses in their hometowns. “We’re looking for new businesses from around New Zealand that have big ideas but would benefit from the network, expertise and funding to grow globally. Those engaging in the programme have no need to move from their home locality. This initiative is about finding the next global stars, and boosting regional economies at the same time,” he says. Sprout is being supported and funded by a mix of public and private sector leaders in agritech and startup investment, including Callaghan Innovation, Massey University, Gallagher Group, Livestock Improvement Corporation, NZTE, Sir Stephen Tindall’s K1W1 fund, Enterprise Angels and Manawatu Investment Group. The Sprout accelerator programme was designed by BCC, a Palmerston North-based business incubator. Over the last two years BCC has helped establish four globally focused agritech startups, BioLumic, CalfSMART, CropX and Polybatics, which have raised in excess of $15 million in growth capital from New Zealand and overseas investors. Bell-Booth says lessons from those companies successful start up journeys have contributed to the Sprout programme. “Our focus is on helping entrepreneurs grow their startups from great ideas into investment-ready early stage companies,” […]

Delcam launches 2016 FeatureCAM with new high-efficiency roughing

Delcam has launched the 2016 release of its FeatureCAM feature-based CAM software. This includes a range of enhancements, in particular more options for the Vortex high-efficiency area-clearance strategy, support for bar-fed mills, more efficient turning and user-interface improvements to make programming even easier and faster. FeatureCAM was the world’s first feature-based programming software when it was launched in 1995. Constant development since then has ensured that the system has retained its leadership in programming speed and ease of use, while an increased range of strategies has been added to provide more efficient toolpaths that give greater productivity on a wider range of machinery, including mill-turn machines, five-axis mills and wire EDM equipment. The 2016 release includes a number of enhancements to the Vortex area-clearance strategy. Vortex gives the fastest safe metal removal from solid carbide tooling, in particular designs that give deeper cuts by using the full flute length as the cutting surface. It produces toolpaths with a controlled engagement angle and so maintains the optimum cutting conditions for the complete roughing cycle, giving faster machining and longer tool life. The ability has now been added to adjust and fine tune the non-cutting moves of 2.5D and 3D Vortex toolpaths, with options to retract the tool and/or to increase the feedrate. These options can be set individually, or can be combined to achieve an optimum toolpath, with a reduced cycle time. Other roughing improvements include the ability to take into account any remaining stock on the model during holder collision checking, ensuring that Z-level roughing toolpaths are completely free of tool-holder collisions. Milling of inside or outside groove features has been upgraded with a number of improvements. These include support for different types of roughing links, wind-fan approach and retract moves for finishing, better gouge checking for plunges and retracts, […]

Got a Trade Week: connecting manufacturers with their future workforce

Opening their West Auckland plant to students to host a Competenz Discovery Tour during August’s national Got a Trade Week proved a good way for award-winning winemaker Matua Valley Wines to help young people learn about a career in their industry and connect with a potential future workforce. Matua winemaker Nikolai St George who led the tour says the company was pleased to host the students and help them learn about the career opportunities available to them. “I can remember being in the situation these students are in, and I know that getting the right careers advice early on is really important,” says Nikolai. “It gives you direction and something to work towards – and that’s motivating. Employers and schools need to do more of this.” Students from Te Kura Kaupapa Māori a Rohe in Mangere, Auckland were among those attending the tour. “Today was a great experience,” says student Ruhia Henare-Samuels. “I learnt the whole cycle of how wine is made and how it is put into bottles. I’d like to thank the staff at Matua for having me on this taster day.” Got a Trade Week was also a chance for students and jobseekers to hear from current learners, including apprentices, who are enjoying the benefits of training on-the job in their chosen trade. Trainees earn while they learn and finish their training with a job in their chosen field – not looking for one. They also gain practical skills they can use from day one and qualifications that are recognised by employers across New Zealand. Competenz customer Matua joined 18 other companies around the country in generously opening their doors to host a Competenz Discovery Tour.

Bringing youth into industry

-Ben Connolly Industry for me started when I was 16 with a part time job in a plastics manufacturing plant. The company had some fascinating processes. I wasn’t allowed to do any of the ‘fun’ stuff though, my job was to sweep the driveway and process production waste. At 16 I only had a few years left of school and needed to start making some plans for what I would do afterwards. The good old gap year tends to be well advertised towards the end of school. This was all pencilled in for me until I learnt about an engineering degree majoring in Industrial Management. The course was a good fit giving me the base skills to do the stuff I had been watching others do in the factory. I was the only person who enrolled that year for the course, and with no further enrolments in the following year or the year after, the course was cancelled. Why weren’t people enrolling? Lack of knowledge about industry is my best guess. Most youth won’t have an insight to the potential careers available in industry. I was fortunate that I was given a job in industry which gave me the inspiration to take my studies further and consider manufacturing and production as a career. The job opportunity was a gateway that led me to where I am now. I know few people who have followed a similar path into industry and even fewer who are getting the opportunities I got at the age I was. It is becoming a big issue in some industries that there is no young following through to take the positions of their elders. Should we be putting more effort into attracting young blood into industry as a contingency for the future? Could we be offering base […]

Shop floor monitoring goes high tech

Individual operations on the shop floor of an industrial plant can be tracked using a sophisticated automated monitoring system that employs advanced mathematical techniques. To track work in progress, A*STAR scientists combined the popular radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags with rigorous computational processing of ‘discrete-event observers’. This system will enable managers to make better, more timely decisions. “The factory of the future will have zero defects, zero waste and zero accidents,” explains Jinwen Hu, who developed the system with colleagues from the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology. To eliminate the trifecta of defects, waste and accidents, monitoring systems need to extract timely, precise and, most importantly, usable information. To design such a monitoring system, Hu and co-workers, through consultation with manufacturers, identified specific areas of concern as being machine breakdown, staff availability, machine status and work order flow. Getting data from machinery was relatively simple — RFID tags are ubiquitous, being used in everything from shoplifting prevention technology to electronic road-toll collection. However, it was not so easy to figure out how to best use the collected data. “The biggest challenge was designing an efficient scheme that allowed computers to rapidly process the data and engineers to conveniently modify the monitoring rules,” notes Hu. Accordingly, Hu and colleagues incorporated a discrete-event observer in their program. This observer constructs complex events — such as delays in delivery — by using probabilities derived from past plant operations to extrapolate ‘simple event’ raw data collected by scanning RFID tags. In testing the system on the shop floor of a precision machining plant, a simple event occurred when a worker received a work order and scanned the associated RFID. Once the worker had completed the task, the order was passed to another operator and the RFID was rescanned. This process was repeated until the […]

Nuance Power PDF not the traditional PDF solution

Nuance Power PDF offers the PDF software features that business users need to be productive at a price that supports deployment across the entire enterprise. Power PDF delivers high performance, an intuitive user experience, and value, freeing users from the compromises of traditional PDF applications. To see a demonstration of the new features and benefits of Power PDF, and learn more about Nuance’s Document Imaging division view the Power PDF on-demand broadcast available now. With Power PDF, business users get all the tools they need to create, manage, share, and secure PDF files plus additional features only available from Nuance for document conversion, search, connectivity and more. Power PDF has powerful features to accurately convert PDFs to editable Microsoft Office documents, combine and assemble documents from many sources into a single PDF, and collaborate on PDF files with a powerful toolset. Before Nuance Power PDF, businesses had to make compromises and choose between the limited capabilities of free PDF reader software, low-end PDF solutions, or an expensive solution designed for graphic designers that isn’t engineered for today’s business environment. With its Microsoft Office-style ribbon user interface, Power PDF minimises the learning curve and maximises productivity by enabling users to transition effortlessly between word processing and PDF publishing. The software makes it easy to share and collaborate on work seamlessly across an organisation as well as externally – all while providing document control and security. Power PDF is priced to be affordably deployed to all business users in an enterprise, enabling all employees to assemble, compare, convert, create, dictate, edit, read, redact, scan, search, secure, sign, print and validate PDF documents and forms with unprecedented ease and speed. Key features in Power PDF include: Combine and assemble documents with ease. Combine files and remove or replace pages in complex documents with […]

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doug

About doug

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