Business News

Investment in our manufacturing industry is a win-win for all

-Helen Down,Chief Executive, Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce. “The most important thing the Government can do in these turbulent times is to keep a strong manufacturing base in New Zealand. This will not only help solve the unemployment situation but it supports local supply chains and has a strong flow on effect to all society. “The Hutt Valley itself has a huge manufacturing base. There’s not a lot we can’t do in this valley and across New Zealand. “We have all the skills and resources as well as business owners motivated and keen to act with speed and manufacture things quickly,” said Helen Down, Chief Executive of Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce. Since March the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce, along with Hutt City Council and Upper Hutt City Council, has been running a Hutt Valley Covid 19 Business Support Programme through various levels of lockdown. It has been working to ensure local companies get all the support they can and has been raising the profile of the needs of the manufacturing sector with government. “Several of our local manufacturers instantly pivoted their business during lockdown earlier in the year and have proven they can very quickly adapt their products and services to meet sudden domestic demand changes. “We all need to see this sector for what it can be going forward, and not what it used to be decades ago.” One example came as a result of a significant downturn in business at Lockdown. Local packaging and supplies company Packaging Products partnered with local manufacturer Aluminium Extrusions to create and supply a pedal operated freestanding hand foam sanitiser dispenser which requires no batteries or sensors. Aluminium Extrusions quickly designed and manufactured the unit with Packaging Products supplying the hand sanitiser as well as some distribution. Together, with the Hutt […]

Cheers to a good brew

Sam Wood (left) and Willy Cowper. -Aaldert Verplanke Brewing your own beer is a challenge for most people and more known for the disasters than the good ”batch”. This story is about Kiwi ingenuity, passion, perseverance, believing in the product and a “sustainability” philosophy. Ian Williams is a brew master and has travelled the world practicing his trade. Encouraged by his uncle to come up with a “fail proof” brewing kit for home brewers, Ian spent about 2 years developing the process and ingredients to produce high quality beer at home. When he finished his first prototype, it was time to consider manufacturing a saleable product. He took the design to Sam Wood at ATI engineering in Hastings to manufacture the brewing appliance. Sam was keen and thought, “great – all the design and development work is done; now we just have to make it.” However, to get to a sellable product it took another year and a half. Producing an appliance that involves heating, cooling and pressure, has lots of challenges. Keeping the cost down was one of them, and still is. The WilliamsWarn BrewMaster was finally created, capable of producing consistently good beer with ingredients supplied by WilliamsWarn. This would not have happened if it were not for NZ and overseas investors who believed in the product – Sam had also become a shareholder. However, the small number of appliances produced meant that costs were prohibitive, so the decision was made to design a lower cost product that could be manufactured offshore using mass manufacturing techniques not available here in NZ. A complete rethink and redesign by Sam resulted in the introduction of the BrewKeg™ that is now produced in four different brew batch sizes, from a small 10L homebrew kit up to 150L for the microbreweries. It […]

Can we grow our future leaders?

Ian Walsh, Managing Director, Intent Group New Zealand’s fall from grace in the OECD rankings over the past 50 years, and our poor productivity overall, is underpinned by factors such as our geographic location and lack of investment in research and development. The primary reasons though, are our poor performance and second level leadership, with studies exposing our lag in this regard. Kiwis work in a unique commercial situation in that 90% of our businesses are SME’s, typically with less than 50 people employed. In this environment, the ability of businesses to invest in talent development, provide mentoring and to create a culture of excellence, is limited. Many business owners and managers need training themselves to develop their skills in finance, business planning and suchlike. In an environment where they are building a business, developing new products or services, employing people, managing finances and capital plans, there is limited ability and understanding to grow the human capital as well. It’s a day to day struggle just to remain afloat, and even more so since Covid-19 hit our shores. In such an environment, every hire is a big decision. It is a serious commitment. So, when confronted with graduates, businesses are naturally uncertain, recognising that it will be some time before their investment pays off and aware that the employee may soon head off on an OE. All of these considerations make it tough for graduates to get jobs, and create problems for the entire system, with people rightly questioning the value of a university degree. Many large companies have stated publicly that a degree is not required for a great number of roles. The reality is that if you can demonstrate you can do the job without the degree, then your experience becomes more valuable than the piece of paper […]

Post-Covid-19 construction crunch – From survive to thrive

– Stephanie Pretorius, Intent Group New Zealand’s construction industry has been heavily disrupted since the arrival of Covid-19 to our shores. A relief package is now available, with the New Zealand Government investing heavily in the industry to the tune of $3B. Funded infrastructure projects include a significant amount of ‘shovel ready’ projects identified to support the short-term pipeline over the next 12 months. Despite extra funding, certain segments of construction are likely to still be negatively impacted. As an example, Auckland alone recently lost $500 from Council revenue budgets; the flow on effects are still to be determined. The funding pipeline may be affected for multiple years and there is risk of misalignment of capacity as funding may swing between years. The intent of the fast tracked ‘shovel ready’ projects is to quickly stabilise cashflow, as well as the pipeline for the industry, and to help construction survive in the short term. But how can we take this further and help construction to thrive in the long term? As a sector, construction has been ‘sailing close to the wind’ for a long time with tight margins and low productivity. The Construction Accord (Accord) has set the tone for the future, outlining goals for improved productivity, capability and resilience. Now is the time for industry players to take ownership of the direction for their own long-term sustainability. If improving productivity is an Accord goal – who will be the first to take bold action? Staking a claim to become excellent at what you do, and getting better every day, is going to pay dividends in terms of preferred supplier status, higher profitability, people retention and development, and ultimately long term survival. Many construction businesses took away lessons learnt from their Covid-19 experience as the ability to respond and adapt to […]

Manufacturers call for urgent decision on Level 4 operating

Manufacturers are calling on the Government for a pre‐emptive decision to allow all manufacturing (including exports) to remain operating if there is a move to Level 4. New Zealand Manufacturing Alliance* spokesperson Rachel Barker, CEO of Plastics New Zealand, says New Zealand cannot afford to shut down its manufacturing again and businesses need a decision now. “Another shutdown of our manufacturing businesses would be devastating not just for sector businesses but for New Zealand,” says Barker. “The Government has had months to work on a decision to keep manufacturing open during Level 4. “Our businesses are prepared, with proven safe work protocols in place for operating under Level 3, keeping thousands of Kiwis in jobs and safe. It would be a smooth transition into operations under Level 4. “We need to see a proactive and pre‐emptive decision now from Government to allow all manufacturing businesses to remain operating ahead of any possible move into Level 4.” “Keeping all manufacturing operating will be critical to keeping people in jobs, domestic and export supply chains moving and helping our economy keep ticking over.”

Businesses urged to adapt to keep trading

The Employers and Manufacturers Association is urging businesses to adapt to the restrictions of Alert Level 3 so they can stay open and keep trading. “With Health Minister Chris Hipkins more or less ruling out Alert Level 4 restrictions today it’s important for businesses to remember that they can open under Level 3 restrictions as long as they meet the conditions,” says EMA Chief Executive Brett O’Riley. “That means you can open if your staff can’t work from home, you can meet social distancing requirements of 1m within the workplace or 2m with customers, and you don’t have physical contact between you and your customers or deliveries. “Level 3 does not mean you have to be an essential service, it means you can function if you meet those conditions. It is a not a complete lockdown like Level 4.” Mr O’Riley says it was good to see how many businesses had adapted to Level 3 in the past couple of days in Auckland with many food service businesses trading on a click and collect basis or delivery only, and it is pleasing to see manufacturers and construction companies able to operate by adopting the Level 3 guidelines. “We didn’t see that last time but we have seen businesses adapt this time.” The EMA also had a message for Government to provide more notice and lead-in times for business to adapt to changing alert levels. “It’s understandable that the Government moved so quickly to go to Level 3 this time and it doesn’t look like Auckland or the rest of the country is going to Level 4 as some feared. But if, for example, the announcement at 5.30pm tonight is for Auckland to go to Level 2, then businesses will have no time to prepare for that overnight and it would […]

Treotham New Zealand merges with Automation Equipment

Treotham New Zealand is excited to announce the merger of their business operations to offer customers even more support as well as a larger range of products to provide a more complete solution. Treotham has acquired the Automation Equipment assets, staff and customer contacts and the merged business will operate under Treotham Automation. Treotham New Zealand, established in 2010, is a leading supplier of high-quality electrical components and products to a wide range of industrial markets. Its years of experience in industrial automation and long-term partnerships with key suppliers including igus, Kabeltec, PMA, Wittenstein and more, provide a market leading position. “Automation Equipment offers an exciting opportunity for Treotham to strengthen and expand its service offering in the industrial automation market”, explains Alec Stanley, National Sales Manager of Treotham NZ. “With their range of high-quality products and skilled staff, the acquisition of Automation Equipment supports Treotham’s strategy to provide customers with a total solution throughout the New Zealand market”. Wendy Garrett, Manager of Automation Equipment also commented “This is a very positive change for all our customers across New Zealand, expanding their product selection and support available to them”. Wendy will join Treotham as Business Development Manager. The expanded business will operate out of both Auckland and Hamilton, making it even more convenient for customers. With the introduction of the new range of products from suppliers such as Schmalz (vacuum technology), Pneumax (pneumatics), Interroll (conveyor components) and others, Treotham Automation is now able to offer customers across New Zealand a more complete solution. With their increased support and engineering staff, Treotham and Automation Equipment are able to combine their years of experience to offer even better customer service and greater opportunity for technical visits enabling stronger engineering support. The merger was effective from the 1st of August.

The IoT supply chain risk: Why everyone should pay attention to Ripple20 vulnerabilities

By Michael DeCesare, chief executive officer and president, Forescout. We see IoT and connected devices all around us – there are billions of them, and they are hard to miss. I speak all the time about the cybersecurity challenges these devices pose, and advocate for organisations to protect themselves. But sometimes the threat lies under the surface. The reality is that when you buy an IoT device, you are buying a lot of embedded components and you do not really know where those components come from. For a variety of reasons, most IoT devices do not run standard Windows operating systems. Instead, they use organically developed and various third-party sourced code libraries for essential functions such as network communication. These code libraries pose just as much of a risk as the devices themselves, if not more so because a user or company likely has no idea what lies under the hood. Forescout Research Labs has been working closely on the disclosure of vulnerabilities of this type that could potentially impact tens of millions of IoT and OT devices. Working closely in partnership with JSOF, who first discovered the Ripple20 vulnerabilities, our researchers have leveraged the 12 million devices in our Device Cloud data lake to together identify nearly 100 vendors that are potentially affected. The Ripple20 vulnerabilities are in a software library and TCP/IP networking stack made by Treck. You probably haven’t heard of Treck, but the company has been around for 20+ years and its TCP/IP stack is used in many common devices, including industrial control systems, medical devices, VoIP phones, printers, etc. In total, JSOF estimates these vulnerabilities could affect tens of millions of IoT and OT devices. Given the widespread nature of the findings, JSOF has been working closely with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), national CERTS (Computer Emergency Response Teams), as well as Treck to ensure a proper disclosure […]

Reimagining supply chains to build long term resilience in a post-Covid world

By Richard Morgan, Country Manager, Genpact The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted all facets of supply chains. Whether it is in the retail, telco, or transport industries both global and local supply chains have been severely tested, having to adapt to new demand patterns, supply constraints and logistical challenges. This unprecedented disruption has only magnified changes in consumer behaviour, under-investment in supply chain tools, technology, and people that were already challenging organisations. As the risk landscape is set to only get more uncertain and complex in the future, building resilient and more agile supply chains is crucial. Learning the Covid-19 lessons If Covid-19 has taught us something is that the strength of a supply chain is only as good as its weakest link. Organisations must use the current disruption as an opportunity to do a full audit and assess how well its supply chain functions can better respond to future disruptions. To build long term resilience companies must re-examine their old supply chain assumptions and evaluate the strength of their end-to-end supply chains. Businesses need to fine tune demand planning, search for deeper visibility of material planning, test supply planning technologies and continuously evaluate logistics plans. Supply chains must move from executors and a cost centre to a source of competitive advantage that unlocks operational margins and builds stability in an uncertain world. Stabilising supply chains: a cross collaboration with risk management teams To address the volatile nature of current – and likely future – supply chain operations, organisations should start by mobilising a dedicated crisis and risk management team that can help advise supply chain teams. A cross collaboration with risk management experts can help build focused risk scenarios and assessments, as well as design new processes and frameworks for rapid replanning, demand forecasts, supplied engagement and reporting and governance. Working […]

Siemens delivers Artificial Intelligence-powered CAD sketching technology

Siemens Digital Industries Software has a new solution for capturing concepts in 2D. The new NX Sketch software tool revolutionises sketching in CAD, which is an essential part of the design process. By changing the underlying technology, users are now able to sketch without pre-defining parameters, design intent and relationships. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to infer relationships on the fly, users can move away from a paper hand sketch and truly create concept designs within NX software. This technology offers significant flexibility in concept design sketching, and makes it easy to work with imported data, allowing rapid design iteration on legacy data, and to work with tens of thousands of curves within a single sketch. With these latest enhancements to NX, Siemens’ Xcelerator portfolio continues to bring together advanced technology, even within the core of modelling techniques, helping remove the traditional barriers users have experienced to dramatically improve productivity. The ability to make intelligent changes to 2D entities that one imports into the new sketcher is astounding,” said Steve Samuels, CEO of Design Visionaries Inc. Analysis has shown that in an average day or workflow, around 10% of a typical user’s day is spent sketching. In addition, within current design environments most concept sketching is happening outside of the CAD software due to the level of rules and relationships that must be decided on and built into the sketch by the user up front. Often designers in concept design stage do not necessarily know what thefinal product may be, which requires a sketching environment that is flexible and can evolve with the design. NX offers the flexibility of 2D paper concept design within the 3D CAD environment, as the first in the industry to eliminate upfront constraints on the design. Instead of defining and being limited by constraints such as size or relationships, […]

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