Case Studies

Serious about sustainability? Delve into your supply chain!

-Barbara Nebel, CEO thinkstep-anz Supply chains are ‘having a moment’ – and not an easy one. As a manufacturer, you’re likely to be facing supply chain challenges due to Covid-19 and global unrest. The current situation highlights the critical role supply chains play in manufacturing. Read on to learn how Kawerau-based manufacturer Essity Australasia (formerly Asaleo Care) is future-proofing its supply chain, with benefits to its business, the natural environment and local communities. Zooming out: the global picture and SDG12 But first, let’s start with the global picture. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognise that supply chains play a critical role in creating a more sustainable world. In fact, supply chains have their own SDG. It’s SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production, and it’s linked to many other goals in the SDG framework. Why the link? Because, by purchasing responsibly, manufacturers can have positive impacts far beyond their own businesses. For example, by ‘buying local’, they can help build sustainable cities and communities (SDG11). By using renewable energy, they can contribute to affordable and clean energy (SDG7) and promote climate action (SDG13). Essity Australasia: SDG12 in action Essity Australasia is a good example of SDG12 in action. The manufacturer produces personal care and hygiene products and is the only New Zealand manufacturer of toilet and hand towel tissue products. The company is serious about understanding and managing its environmental and social impacts, including through its supply chain. Understanding the sustainability of its supply chain Essity Australasia uses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to review the environmental impacts of its products across their life cycles. LCAs measure the impacts, including carbon emissions, involved when the manufacturer makes its personal care and hygiene products (using resources like trees, water and energy and services like transport). They also calculate the impacts involved […]

How Tidy International helps float Kingfisher’s boats

When the Mason family bought into a Tauranga-based manufacturer of catamaran-hulled boats, the business management software being used included TidyEnterprise and Xero, critical to the co-ordination and control of their production and supply. After steadily maturing the workflows over the course of the year that followed the Mason family involvement, Kingfisher Boats today enjoys a software system that provides accurate stock and Work-in-Progress reports, with further developments in the works to accelerate overall business efficiency, optimise production processes and deliver company-wide data visibility. Kingfisher Boats is both designer and builder of the Kingfisher range of quality aluminium vessels with catamaran hulls sold through an approved marine distributor network. This growing New Zealand business, with its workshop facilities based in the city of Tauranga, happens to be located in the same city as Tidy’s international headquarters. Kingfisher has built up a solid range of marine-craft products for over 19 years, including commercial and recreational vessels ranging from 3m to 18m in length. Laura Mason, General Manager of the company, comments “what sets Kingfisher Boats apart is our focus on alloy catamarans. We’re unique in producing metal cats under 6 metres with a single engine – delivering a more stable platform in a compact package.” Situation Upon joining the business, Mason soon recognised opportunities for enhancing the manufacturing processes. Applying experience she gained in the automotive industry, with its long history of process standardisation and optimisation; from the production-line efficiency made famous by Henry Ford to Toyota’s Kaizen methodology of continuous improvement, Mason sought to advance the somewhat unstructured approach characteristic of smaller businesses towards a defined and repeatable model. Mason emphasises, “this does need to be differentiated depending on the boat we’re manufacturing. When we’re doing a multimillion dollar 18-metre vessel, there’s a lot of customisation so repeatability isn’t important. But […]

Hutt Valley manufacturer stepping up to fill skill shortages

Like many other industries across New Zealand at present, the manufacturing industry is struggling with a shortage of trained talent due to Covid-19 restrictions on immigration and current work levels. One Hutt Valley manufacturer is taking on this challenge proposing an innovative way to help young people into engineering. MJH Engineering Ltd is one of New Zealand’s leading structural steel fabricators, specialising in the fabrication and installation of large-scale structural steel projects including industrial warehouses, commercial buildings, multi-storey tower-blocks, and seismic strengthening projects. Over the past couple of years, the Seaview-based company has grown in size due to its excellent track record of delivering top quality results and its reputation as one of the preferred steel subcontractors around town. Jeremy Mikoz, HR & Development Manager for MJH Engineering Ltd, says with the demand of projects comes the challenge of finding the right workers. “While there are private training enterprises out there, we’re finding in our industry that many students coming out of these institutions just aren’t receiving the training they need to be ‘job ready’. “On top of that New Zealand is now in one of the worst labour shortages we have seen in the last 10 years which in turn puts more pressure on obtaining talent and solving our work-flow issues.” As a result, Mikoz says they have come up with a solution – the “MJH Welding School.” The school, based at MJH Engineering, would provide a 6-week full-time training course with qualifications to help young people learn on the job skills and theory in welding. At the end of this course, the young people would come out with Unit Standards, a welding qualification, and 240 hours of practical, industry-related training. To top it off MJH Engineering would guarantee the 6 young people with jobs at the end of […]

Women in Engineering: Insa Errey

Insa Errey is a female engineer originally from Sydney who now calls Auckland home. She currently operates as an independent consultant under Curios Sustainability. How long have you been an engineer? Almost 10 years. I was a late bloomer into engineering. What field of engineering do you specialise in? I specialise in Industrial sustainability. My background is in Chemical biomolecular engineering, with my past experiences being in beverage manufacturing. What projects are you most proud of? It is always rewarding to complete large-scale implementations such as fuel switching projects and wastewater recycling projects. But I think my proudest project is more subtle. In my previous company I mobilised employee awareness toward the issues of sustainability and energy efficiency. My campaign drove awareness through cultural change and started a larger shift toward collaboration on energy efficiency. This has seen year on year energy efficiency improvements driving down operational costs, increasing competitive advantage and most of all reducing emissions from their major manufacturing sites across Australia and NZ. Is there scope for creativity, creative thinking? Absolutely. Creativity is the foundation on innovation. I actually went to a performing arts high school, now a long time ago, and I think that is what dew me to engineering was the ability to still be creative and think outside the box but also make significant impact toward system pressures facing us today. What challenges do engineers face in today’s business world? I think that the main challenge facing engineers is that which we are all facing, climate change, and how this is impacting all areas of how we do business. Businesses and, in particular, manufacturing, are facing and experiencing risks associated with operational disruption, impacts of market forces and future stranded assets with the changing energy market. Here I see engineers having the important role […]

Asmuss talks to NZ Manufacturer

Interview with Dean Brown, CEO of Asmuss Steel & Flow Control What does your business do? Asmuss Steel and Flow Control supplies steel and flow control products to some of New Zealand’s biggest infrastructure and construction projects; Asmuss Steel supplies the construction and manufacturing industry through to a large array of Civil projects. Our dedicated team are adept at providing solutions in what is regularly a demanding environment, requiring tight lead times, material integrity and competitive pricing. Steel is procured from the most reputable mills around the world, to certify product quality and traceability. Asmuss Flow Control supplies to the water and wastewater industry; supporting water distribution, pump stations, treatment plants, reservoirs and irrigation, and to the industrial field; supplying to chemical processing sites, power and energy generation, pulp and paper, oil and gas sites. The Flow Control side of the business also supplies to the building industry for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, siphonic, sanitary, trade waste, chemical waste and fire protection. Every day we live out our purpose to create a stronger New Zealand by helping our customers, communities and people succeed. How long has Asmuss been in business? Asmuss is a 100 percent New Zealand-owned business, founded by H J Asmuss in 1920. It is one of the largest privately-owned companies in its field. Family-owned for four generations, with the fourth generation of Asmuss family members now shareholders in the business, the Asmuss family continue what their predecessors did – directing profits back into the business, making smart acquisitions and supporting the NZ economy. Asmuss is one of the few companies in New Zealand that holds such an intergenerational legacy and has stayed loyal to what it means to be a New Zealand owned and operated company. In 2020 we marked 100 years in business, however due […]

EcoStruxure solution meets Mataura Valley Milk’s requirements

Building the world’s best nutritional business is the ambitious goal that New Zealand dairy company Mataura Valley Milk set out to achieve in August 2016. Now the company’s milk production plant is an impressive accomplishment that comfortably justifies its early ambition. Mataura Valley Milk is now benchmarking innovation and performance for other milk plants. Situated north of Gore at the bottom of the South Island, the state-of-the-art facility was delivered on-time and within budget, an impressive achievement for a greenfield project. “To achieve our goal, we knew that choosing only the best people, partners, and infrastructure was crucial,” says Brent Robinson, Mataura Valley Milk’s Projects Manager. “The success of the project was a consequence of meticulous planning and strategy. We sought out and hired the most skilled staff; we chose construction partners with proven expertise; we purchased best-in-class plant and equipment; and we partnered with industry-leading suppliers and fabricators.” Schneider Electric was one such expert partner that delivered its EcoStruxure solution, tailored to Mataura Valley Milk’s strict requirements for a fully connected and integrated facility with real-time visibility of every process. Connectivity At Mataura Valley Milk’s core is its dedication to customers. “We must have agility around what we produce with no sacrifice of quality. Producing nutritional products is a complex, high reward approach so the plant must be nimble and our expertise unmatched. To confidently make these decisions, visibility and trust in our data is crucial” says Robinson. Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Plant solution delivers and provides context to live, real-time data on every process at the plant through AVEVA’s System Platform, Batch Management and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software. In short, Mataura Valley employees receive any data they require immediately and know they can trust it. Goal Mataura Valley Milk wanted to build a business that could quickly tailor production […]

ACPaQ automation technology award winner

Swisslog’s ACPaQ fully automated mixed case palletising solution – of which the first installation globally was in New Zealand – has won a major German logistics award for delivering new levels of efficiency to German retail leader dm-drogerie markt Global logistics automation leader Swisslog has featured in a major international award for its fully-automated mixed case retail palletising solution, ACPaQ, which is also currently delivering heightened efficiencies for Coca Cola Amatil in Australia and New Zealand. Swisslog’s ACPaQ solution was the key component in an automation solution that won retail chain dm-drogerie markt the prestigious German Logistics Award 2020 for delivering new levels of efficiency to dm-drogerie markt’s new distribution centre in Westermark, near Berlin. The same ACPacQ technology has already been implemented Down Under by Cocal-Cola Amatil in Auckland, and is widely applicable to logistics, distribution, food and beverage and retail applications in Australasia. dm-drogerie markt is a leading German retail chain that sells cosmetics, healthcare items, household products and health food. Their innovative new distribution centre is part of the group’s investment in automation and robotics with a focus on sustainability and competitiveness. Swisslog’s ACPaQ technology is an evolution of the company’s advanced automation technology, which combines robotics solutions for palletising and depalletising with Swisslog’s CycloneCarrier shuttle technology to create a fully automated process that facilitates high throughput and reliable picking of orders. After the distribution centres in Waghäusel and Weilerswist, the new building in Wustermark is already the third major logistics project that Swisslog has completed for dm-drogerie markt. Using the “Load Build Manager” functionality from Swisslog’s “SynQ” software, the robots perform palletising in a sequential packing order – individually adapted to the depalletising or shelf-filling routes in each dm store, according to the last-in-first-out principle. Overall control of the ACPaQ system is handled by Swisslog’s “SynQ” […]

Setting the pace: Starting a step change in construction performance

By Stephanie Pretorius, Senior Consultant, Intent Group Lean in construction is still well behind manufacturing in terms of uptake in New Zealand. There are some key factors affecting the pace of change, including lack of an industry standard for ‘what good looks like’. Construction has just begun to realise the potential benefit that comes from a focus on continuous improvement to processes, maximising customer value and improving throughput. How can construction pick up the pace and make sustained progress towards performance improvement? Construction is a collaborative industry that has a number of recognised issues. A joint initiative between Government and Industry was started last year in an effort to address known issues and kick-start closing the gap towards better performance. The 2019 Construction Accord sent a clear signal that sector transformation is needed over a three-year span with improved performance being the goal. Downer’s Transport Services Northern business is an excellent example showcasing ways to actively realise the intent of the Accord. One of the objectives of the Accord is to lift performance through better business management practices. Downer started an improvement journey in 2017 that was aimed at introducing better practice and creating a stable foundation for continuous improvement (CI). Their culture was transformed over the last three years as the business pursued CI with dedication and commitment. While it is still the beginning of their journey, they have made remarkable progress due to strong leadership and wide team engagement towards the new direction. The initial driver for the business was a step change in culture with a focus on continuous improvement to better protect intellectual property across core processes within the business. Setting an intention to be significantly different in three years, the Northern Leadership team embarked on a transformation journey. The goal was to develop the capability […]

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 […]

Just the right chemistry

New Zealand family-owned and operated, Chemfreight is a specialised 3PL distributor offering the complete solution of hazardous, non-hazardous and separate dedicated food storage and chemical toll blending backed by a national transport network. Started in 1989, it was the brainchild of Harry Price who, having worked in the chemical industry for many years, saw an opportunity and industry need for the specialist third party storage and distribution of hazardous goods. Three years ago, his son Joseph Price, took the helm as General Manager bringing his well-rounded business experience following years in insolvency and accounting. The business has undergone substantial changes and almost doubled in size from a staff of 40 to 80, and 100 clients to 200. Chemfreight does not have a sales or marketing function and has used their reputation for operating class leading facilities and delivering an excellent 3PL supply chain service to attract new business and also retain their existing valued clients. With their Head Office in East Tamaki, Chemfreight operates three Major Hazardous Facilities with two state-of-the-art storage facilities in Auckland and a large storage facility servicing the South Island located in Christchurch. They process approximately 3000 inbound containers per year and store in excess of 20,000 pallets across nine warehouses. Next year construction is planned to commence on a specialised concrete walled and roofed store for flammable substances with a capacity of 5,000 pallet spaces. Low staff turnover Many of the staff have worked at Chemfreight for years, and it is very much a family focussed business. “There are some families where as many as three family members are employed here as part of our team,” says Joseph. In an industry that sees a high staff turnover, Chemfreight has very low turnover. “Finding high calibre skilled staff is a challenge,” says Joseph, “and we have […]

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