Recent News

Jane Finlayson, EMA Head of Manufacturing Harm in New Zealand manufacturing is unacceptably high and urgent action is needed. The good news is that through a recent partnership between the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA), help is on the way. ACC claims costs for the manufacturing sector have skyrocketed, exceeding $165 million annually, with weekly compensation costs doubling from $51 million to $109 million between 2015 and 2024. Health and safety regulator WorkSafe estimates that chronic harm results in a staggering loss of 5,000 disability-adjusted life years each year, contributing to an economic burden of approximately $1.23 billion. The breakdown of this burden is alarming: 27% of injuries stem from musculoskeletal disorders, 17% from mental health issues, 16% from cancers, and 15% from respiratory problems. In a significant stride towards addressing this harm, ACC appointed the EMA to lead a by industry for industry project to create a harm reduction action plan.  The EMA stood up Project Whakahaumaru, which translates to ‘safeguard’ or ‘protect’, and gathered the perspectives of around  200 stakeholders from the manufacturing sector, health and safety professionals, and WorkSafe via focus groups, one-to-one interviews, co-designed workshops and surveys. EMA Head of Manufacturing Jane Finlayson says the recently released results of this discovery phase have been sobering. “We embarked on this journey to safeguard our industry, and the findings highlight a pressing need for change,” Finlayson says. “Injuries are not just numbers; they represent lives affected, families impacted, and potential futures altered. “We cannot ignore the implications of these injuries – not only for the workers but for businesses and the economy as a whole. “These figures are a call to action.” Over the past year, the EMA has worked with stakeholders across the sector to develop the Project Whakahaumaru Harm Reduction […]

Ian Walsh, Partner, Argon & Co NZ I was reflecting recently on how many business owners have started an improvement program with 5S and failed. Before I talk about the “why” and the “how” 5S implementations fail in these businesses, and for those who haven’t come across 5S before, allow me to briefly explain what 5S is. 5S is a practice that was developed at Toyota in the 1960s. 5S consists of 5 “S’s” based on Japanese words and the associated anglicised word: Seiri (Sort) – Eliminate unnecessary items from the workplace. Seiton (Set in Order) – Organize the necessary items so they are easy to use and accessible. Seiso (Shine) – Clean the workplace and keep it clean. Seiketsu (Standardise) – Standardise the best practices within the workplace. Shitsuke (Sustain) – Ensure discipline and commitment to maintain the 5S processes. All the business leaders that I’ve talked to about failed 5S implementations were unable to maintain the “standardise” and “sustain” the initiative. After a period of time, standards slipped and then eventually (or quite quickly) returned to the previous level with a few artifacts remaining. Most of these leaders said “we tried that, it didn’t work”. This needs a deeper analysis. There are examples across the globe of world-class companies that rely on 5S as a core practice and have succeeded in sustaining the practice. On that evidence, surely it’s not that 5S itself fails, but that particular implementations fail? Many of these business leaders I talked to stated that they were told something along the lines of “if you can’t do 5S you can’t do anything”, and so they started their improvement journey with 5S, usually with help from a “mentor”. Typically, they would do a 5S exercise in an area in 1-2 days and then move into […]