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Beckhoff automation solutions

Founded in 1980, by Hans Beckoff (pictured) as a one-man operation, Beckhoff implements open automation systems using proven PC-based control technology. Primary areas their product range covers include industrial PCs, I/O and fieldbus components, drive technology, automation software as well as control cabinet-free automation. Products that can be used as separate components or integrated into a complete and mutually compatible control system are available for all sectors. The company’s new automation technology stands for universal and industry-independent control and automation solutions that are used worldwide in a large variety of different applications, ranging from CNC-controlled machine tools to intelligent building control. Development of innovative products and solutions based on PC-based control technology is key to the company’s continued success. The company has recognised many standards in automation technology that are taken for granted and introduced to the market as innovations. Beckhoff’s philosophy of PC-based control as well as the invention of the Lightbus system and TwinCAT automation software are milestones in automation technology and have proven themselves as powerful alternatives to traditional control technology. EtherCAT, the real-time Ethernet solution, provides a powerful and future-oriented technology for a new generation of control concepts. Beckhoff is headquartered in Verl, Germany and there are 4,500 employees worldwide and 1,900 engineers. The company has 39 representative offices worldwide from an overall total of 75 representatives worldwide. The corporate headquarters of Beckhoff Automation GmbH & Co. KG in Verl, Germany, is the site of the central departments such as development, production, administration, sales, marketing, support and service. Beckhoff is represented in New Zealand with offices in Auckland. Technical training is available.

EMEX 2022

The long awaited EMEX 2022 expo runs from 31 May to 2 June 2022. With 200+ exhibitors already booked and many visitors expected, the show is looking to be one of the busiest to date. EMEX brings together the technological advancements over the past four years, including applications of the Internet of Things and an exceptional line-up of speakers, show features, new products and new suppliers. Exhibitors at the show include those specialising in Additive Manufacturing; (CNC) Machine Technology; Control and Instrumentation; Health and Safety; Industrial Automation; Industrial Engineering and Maintenance; Industry 4.0 and IoT Applications; Robotics; Tooling; and Welding, Forming and Cutting. Over the years EMEX has worked hard to deliver the best line-up of speakers, presenting on up-to-the-minute topics and 2022 will be no exception. Day 1 starts off with the hot topic, 3D printing, and EMEX presenters bring a range of information on leading edge additives and metal componentry. On Day 2 a stellar line-up of speakers and topics powered by Callaghan Innovation will frame up “what is Industry 4.0?” and how this set of advanced and connected technologies can help a business secure a bright future. Day 3 is all about innovation and how New Zealand companies succeed by doing things differently. With over 40 years hosting EMEX, the team at XPO Exhibitions are looking forward to reuniting the thousands of people in the engineering, manufacturing technology and electronics sectors. Many professionals in the industry won’t have seen each other for three to four years and the opportunity to catch-up with colleagues and technology makes this the most anticipated show ever. NZ Manufacturer has again partnered again with EMEX and you can expect to hear more about the up-and-coming show over the coming months. For those looking to exhibit, limited space is available by contacting Aad […]

Migrant pay gap research reveals concerning inequities

New research into the migrant pay gap in New Zealand has revealed concerning inequities between migrants from different countries of birth. The report, commissioned by Diversity Works New Zealand, shows that migrants from South Africa, Northern America, the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe all earned a higher average hourly wage than migrants from Asia, the rest of the Americas, Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Even when the data was adjusted to compare migrants with similar levels of skills, English language ability, time spent in New Zealand and age, those born in places like Asia and South America earn significantly lower average wages than migrants from Europe and Northern America, says Diversity Works New Zealand Chief Executive Maretha Smit. “In 2018, engineering professionals from the UK, South Africa, and Northern America all earned an average wage above $45 an hour. In contrast, engineering professionals from India, China, and Polynesia all had hourly wages below $40.” Business and Economic Research Limited (BERL) looked a variety of datasets to determine whether there was a migrant pay gap in New Zealand. Key points from the report Migrants from South Africa, Northern America, the United Kingdom (UK), and the rest of Europe all earn a higher average hourly wage than migrants from Asia, the rest of the Americas, Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia. Even when the data was adjusted to compare migrants with similar levels of skills, English language ability, time spent in New Zealand and age, there are inequities based on place of birth and ethnicity. Contributing factors to the migrant pay gap include cultural and language differences, institutional barriers, structural bias and discrimination. Migrants who spoke English and another language were more likely to earn a lower wage than migrants who spoke English only. Migrants from English-speaking, advanced countries can transfer their qualifications […]

Your 2022 sustainability workout programme!

-thinkstep anz Is your business feeling carbon-heavy? Are your waste bins bulging? Is your product a bit out-of-shape? Then a sustainability tune-up’s in order! Here’s our four-step sustainability workout programme to help your business trim down, tone up, and stay in shape in 2022. (And if you already have a sustainability programme, early in the year is a great time to review it.) The good news: this programme is a business plan. So, while your efforts will help sustain the planet and its people, your business will be fitter too. You’ll spot opportunities for your products, uncover risks in your processes, and strengthen relationships with your team, customers, and suppliers. And you’ll become known as a manufacturer who’s doing the right thing. Let’s get started. Step one: build a plan Every sustainability programme needs a plan. Decide what ‘sustainability’ means for your business. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a good place to start. These 17 inter-related goals form an urgent ‘call to action’ for companies to protect the environment, tackle climate change, and improve people’s lives. The good news? All these actions help businesses like yours get ahead too. You can’t tackle all 17 goals and you shouldn’t try. Instead, choose four or five SDGs that are relevant to your business: where can you have the greatest impact? Here are some SDGs which fellow manufacturers have chosen. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has picked SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing) as one of their goals. It’s relevant to their customers and their team. Seafood company Sanford is using SDG 14 (Life Below Water) as one of their goals, to focus their sustainability work. Trans-Tasman manufacturer Eagle Lighting has made SDG 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption) a priority goal. Focus on what matters. Identify your main stakeholders, like your team, […]

The Interview: Mike Hendry, chief digital officer, Steel & Tube

HERA member, Steel & Tube is one of the oldest and largest providers of steel products and solutions in New Zealand. It sources, processes and distributes steel products to customers across New Zealand through its national network and also makes steel products to order on a project basis. The company has expertise across a broad range of sectors, from residential to commercial construction, large infrastructure products, manufacturing, rural and bespoke design. HERA spoke to Chief Digital Officer, Mike Hendry, about the future of the steel and construction sectors and the opportunity and challenges the company faces. How are you finding current business conditions? While demand growth for steel has been strong, macro conditions have been challenging with global supply chain constraints, a higher pricing environment and Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions. The key focus for our team has been to maintain availability of product and high levels of service for our customers while navigating the current market conditions. We have seen strong growth in demand over the past year across a range of sectors and are fortunate to have a significant pipeline of secured contract work in place across the country. The residential construction market remains strong, particularly in Auckland, and government investment is driving large infrastructure projects across the regions. Commercial construction activity has been increasing and manufacturing expanding which is also driving up demand for steel products and solutions. Market conditions look to remain positive. How has your company been impacted by the pandemic? Our scale, diversity across a range of sectors and the ability of our team to adapt to new working conditions have helped to offset the impacts of the pandemic and the current challenging market conditions. We are very proud of our team and their efforts which have ensured we can keep providing our customers with […]

Foster productivity growth for a strong recovery and better living standards

Strong government support to protect jobs and incomes in the face of the pandemic helped New Zealand recover rapidly from the severe Covid-19-induced downturn, but challenges remain to set the economy on a sustainable growth path, according to a new OECD report. The unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since 2007 while the employment rate rose to its highest level on record in the third quarter of 2021. However, inflation and house prices have picked up significantly and both household and government debt have increased. The latest OECD Economic Survey of New Zealand recommends that fiscal policy be adjusted in the near term to help stabilise the economy. Boosting productivity, particularly by making better use of digital technologies, would support further increases in living standards. Economic growth is expected to slow as capacity constraints bite and macroeconomic policies are tightened. Consumption growth is also expected to ease to a more sustainable pace as employment growth slows. After surging to 4.7% in 2021, New Zealand’s GDP is expected to rise by 3.8% this year before easing to 2.5% growth in 2023. “The near-term economic outlook is positive. The New Zealand economy has recovered strongly from the pandemic. The need for policy action is pressing in a number of areas to make economic growth sustainable. For instance, helping the digital sector to grow would help boost labour productivity.” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said, presenting the Survey alongside Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson and Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications David Clark. “Linking pension eligibility to life expectancy and adopting long-term debt-to-GDP targets would help address the projected increase in government debt.” With affordability for first homebuyers at low levels and a buoyant housing market, it is important for the government to complete reforms to increase housing supply and […]

Panel Building: Everything you need to build and maintain your panel

RS PRO are experts in Industrial Control Panels. And for good reason. They are the control centre of countless industrial operations, and without them production stands still. This guide gives buyers, and experts alike, a quick guide to the ins and outs of control panels. Where to start? Panels are effectively the brains, containing the components necessary to control and manage devices, electrical systems, production plants and industrial machines. They function as the interface point between the machine operator and the production line, and transmit acoustic, visual, and video signals to ensure constant monitoring. The operator input commands can be completely digital (touch screen panel) or physical (buttons, switches) while the output signals (machine side) are sound and visual alarms, and video responses on how the plant is working. From the outside The meters on the outside serve as an interface with a machine-operator and employee. They display energy, temperature, counters, and voltmeters. The ammeters show the numerical values that the panel commands and switch to intervene on the machinery. This can turn the machinery on and off and use sounders & beacons to signal possible problems. The human touch RS PRO now boasts a human-machine interface (HMI) for the first time in its range. A user-friendly and interactive touchscreen panel displays the plant graphically, enabling users to operate and evaluate functionality via the software. The graphic interface can be programmed, and reprogrammed for different functions and in the case of modifications to the plant. Inside the Box A panel cannot exist without an enclosure containing all its components. Known as a wall box even if it does not hang exclusively on walls. The DIN Rail components contain everything from power supplies and contactors, relays, terminal blocks and Ethernet switches, to timer relays and axial fans. Connected by cables & […]

Steel industry leading the charge into the next industrial revolution

Q & A Wayne Carson, Managing Director, D & H Steel…December issue NZ Manufacturer. D&H Steel is one of the oldest and most respected steel fabricators in New Zealand. It is behind some of the largest projects in the country including Auckland Airport, Deloitte Tower, Viaduct Event Centre, and the Kopu River Bridge. In a sector that is constantly changing to meet the latest technological advances, D&H Steel is an industry leader. From an early adopter of welded beams to the latest ISO standards, the company has placed innovation at the heart of its business. HERA spoke to Managing Director, Wayne Carson, about the future of the steel and construction sectors and the opportunity and challenges they face. How are you finding current business conditions? We are enormously thankful to have full order books and our facilities are working 24/6 to keep up with demand. The Auckland market is still very buoyant, and I do not foresee this changing as demand for apartments, office space, and large infrastructure projects continue. The regions are also benefitting both from an increase in government spending and ironically the growth of Auckland as a world city. Auckland is simply becoming too expensive for some industries that are moving to the regions to grow and develop. We are working on several large regional projects including the building of hospitals and large industrial warehousing. Has the pandemic affected your business? Our market share is still strong, but the pandemic has certainly affected our business. Lockdowns, managing close contact staff isolation, skyrocketing labour costs, increases in the cost of materials, and supply chain disruption have been the cause of some very challenging conditions. We are fortunate to be of a size to be more resilient to change but I suspect many smaller manufacturers, are less able to […]

What gets measured gets managed

Ian Walsh, Managing Director, Intent Group I have recently visited a couple of companies and was surprised to see little, if any, data collection in real time. What’s more surprising is that many SMEs don’t even have good in-process data collection. “Oh, that old chestnut”, I hear you say. It is fundamental to any improvement program to have a good understanding of what is going on in your process. Yet here we are nearly in 2022 with a significant number of companies having little-to-no structured data collection to manage their processes. What’s even more criminal is that in this new technology-enabled Internet-of-Things (IoT), industry 4.0 stage, that there really is no excuse. There are many off-the-shelf systems that can be installed, connected up and set going in just an afternoon! These aren’t expensive either – compared to the cost of manual collection, they pay for themselves many times over in a year, not only in the time saved, but also in the quality of information provided. The critical thing with many processes is that many of the “losses” (time, quality defects, lost product and other wastes) are not easily visible as you move further and further from the process. The quality of the data available therefore becomes more and more critical to driving improvement efforts and maximising the best use of your critical resources. The best manual systems can achieve up to 95% accuracy, but most are operating in the 70-90% range and this require overhead to maintain. The issue with these systems is that the data that is usually not captured is the high-frequency short-duration stops. Of course, the low-frequency long-duration stops (like mechanical breakdowns) everyone knows about because everything has stopped. The short duration, high frequency stops however, is more like death by a thousand cuts. It seems […]

Sustainable ways of working = business innovation

-thinkstep – nz In a tough year for many manufacturers, it’s heartening to see innovation continuing to show up through more sustainable ways of working. In this article, we bring you three local people and businesses who’ve used Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and responsible procurement to build ‘new’ into their packaging, their manufacturing processes, and their products. The business benefits? Opportunities to gain market share, build reputation, strengthen relationships with suppliers, manage supply chain risk, and reduce the costs of materials and disposing of waste. Lorde: making a zero-carbon album Quote Early in making this album, I wanted to look closely at the environmental impact of its manufacture and distribution. Working to achieve zero-carbon status for Solar Power was an eye-opening experience. Lorde Grammy Award-winner Lorde is determined to reduce her carbon footprint. That’s why one of the formats of her long-awaited third album, Solar Power, released in August, is zero-carbon. (Even the name is environmentally apt!) How has Lorde achieved this? By releasing a discless album in a ‘Greenbox’. A Greenbox is an innovative, discless album package made of cardboard. Now, we have a few Lorde fans in our thinkstep-anz team and there were plenty of technical experts eager to help our Kiwi songstress meet her zero-carbon goals. So, we set to calculating the packaging’s carbon footprint using a sustainability tool known as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA measures a product’s carbon footprint over its life. In this case, this involved calculating the carbon in the raw materials used to make the Greenbox (including paper, inks, and glue), to transport the Greenbox to music retailers, and to landfill the Greenbox at the end of its life. (We hope Lorde’s many fans are ardent recyclers, but we assumed a worst-case scenario, landfilling. In any case, we suspect they’re unlikely to […]

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