The Creative Class

Reflecting on a year of New Zealand manufacturing

From The Year in Review, NZ Manufacturer magazine, December issue. By Hon Chris Penk, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing As 2025 draws to a close, it’s a good moment to reflect on a year of resilience and progress for New Zealand’s manufacturing sector. The year brought challenges, but there is much to celebrate, and I’m proud to represent a sector that spans so many different industries. Manufacturing is at the heart of our economy. It’s the petroleum processor in Taranaki, the wood miller in Rotorua, the food and beverage producer in Hastings, the metal fabricator in Hamilton, the chemical technician in New Plymouth, the machinery engineer in Christchurch, and the equipment assembler in Dunedin that we have to thank. The sector employs more than 220,000 people, generates roughly 8 percent of GDP, and accounts for 60 percent of our exports. Over the past year, export growth has been strong, reflecting the dedication and innovation of manufacturers across the country. One highlight for me was hosting the first Minister for Manufacturing Awards at SouthMACH in Christchurch in May, supported by Advanced Manufacturing Aotearoa. These awards celebrated leadership and creativity, with 38 entries narrowed to 16 finalists across four categories. It was a fantastic opportunity to recognise excellence and connect as an industry. More recently, I have been inspired by Kiwi manufacturers winning awards at regional, chamber, and national business events. Gallagher New Zealand Trade and Enterprise received the Supreme Award at the International Business Awards. RML Machinery in the Waikato, AROTEC Diagnostics Limited in the Hutt Valley, and United Machinists in Dunedin each earned top honours in their regions. These successes show how manufacturers are fueling regional prosperity, boosting our competitive edge, and showcasing worldclass expertise. Many parts of the sector are not standing still; they are growing and […]

The Argon Academy: Turning capability into competitive advantage

Scott Adams, Managing Principal, Argon & Co NZ In today’s manufacturing landscape, technology, automation, and efficiency are no longer enough. Your real competitive edge comes from your people — their capability, confidence, and ability to adapt, innovate, and perform. That’s where The Argon Academy stands apart. For more than 20 years, Argon & Co has worked alongside New Zealand and global organisations to lift performance by strengthening skills, embedding continuous improvement, and developing leaders who drive transformation from the inside out. The Academy exists because we saw a critical gap: too much training focuses on delivering content, not building capability. Most programmes are taught by facilitators — not practitioners who have actually led the change and delivered results. The Academy was built to change that. Our learning approach is different. Every programme is grounded in real-world experience from practitioners who have managed transformation, driven productivity gains, and delivered measurable business outcomes across sectors like food and beverage, packaging, industrial manufacturing, and logistics. This means your teams learn from people who’ve done the work — not just talked about it. Rather than providing off-the-shelf courses, The Academy partners with clients to co-design tailored, best-practice learning pathways that align directly with your operational goals. We build capability that sticks — embedding new skills, behaviours, and mindsets into the way people lead, collaborate, and perform every day. This practitioner-led approach transforms training from a cost into a strategic investment. It creates measurable uplift in productivity, safety, and employee engagement — turning learning into a sustained competitive advantage. As businesses face mounting pressure from digitisation, sustainability, and global competition, the need for a digitally capable, future-ready workforce has never been greater. Building that capability takes long-term investment, government and industry collaboration, and access to world-class learning solutions. Quick-fix training won’t get you there — […]

2026: It’s Now or Never

From December issue, NZ Manufacturer – The Year in Review Ian Walsh, Partner, Argon & Co NZ We have finally seen the “green shoots” and those businesses still going can finally tick the survive (till) 2025 box. Confidence is on the up and activity is starting to move, what a ride! But what have we learned? Here are a few reflections from me. Traditional approaches to getting through the hard times are no longer enough. Many businesses tightened their belts, let people go, stopped all discretionary spending, travel etc. and didn’t make it. Waiting for things to get better is not a strategy. This is just giving your competitors, especially those overseas, a free pass. We can no longer rely on distance and separation for protection. NZ is easy to access and service from anywhere, if you think you are safe you may be deluding yourself. It is all about productivity. We must face into this reality, we can’t work harder or longer we already top this league, we must work differently and recognise the rest of the world is and has adapted, and so must we. There’s no avoiding it or waiting for government intervention. We have some core industries and capabilities which are world leading. Our dairy and tech sectors are world-leading, with aspirational companies. Let’s not be complacent; let’s push on and assert and grow these advantages. We have a window of opportunity. Carpe Diem. Now is the time, before the next global uncertainty. It is now or maybe never. Identify your strategic competitive advantage and actualise it? Need help? Seek it. We are brave and innovative, the pioneering spirit lives strong, we can do this. There are enough tall poppy killers out there, lets celebrate the go getters, the achievers, the adopters and the triers and […]

Through the mill: Tokoroa’s tough year was about much more than job losses

Fionna Hurd, Associate Professor, Marketing & International Business, Auckland University of Technology. Suzette Dyer, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management, University of Waikato For Kinleith Mill, cycles of new owners, restructuring and retrenchment have been a fact of life since the 1980s. Each ownership change and downsizing has affected the mill’s workforce – and, inevitably, the Tokoroa community. In July this year, foreign-owned Oji Fibre Solutions closed the mill’s last paper machine, effectively stopping all manufacturing. Not long after, Carter Holt Harvey announced it was also shutting its Tokoroa plywood plant. The double impact and loss of 249 jobs was seen by many as simply the latest blow to a dying forestry company town. Elsewhere, the sale of Fonterra’s consumer brands and the closure of Carter Holt Harvey’s Nelson-Tasman sawmill seemed to underscore the fragility of New Zealand’s manufacturing base. These decisions were no doubt justified commercially: competing with international firms that enjoy cheaper production and larger consumer markets has become increasingly difficult. And, as ownership of major industrial facilities has shifted overseas, those making the decisions have become further removed from the local context – and from the communities that bear the consequences. But it hasn’t always been this way. Building the forestry industry was central to Aotearoa New Zealand’s postwar economic and employment strategies. As our research has shown, community identity and cohesion cannot be easily separated from that political and economic history. Life of a forestry town When the government issued its first pulp licence in 1943, it had two clear aims: to create jobs for returning servicemen after World War II, and to make use of the forests planted during the Depression-era work schemes of the 1930s. The establishment of the privately-owned Kinleith mill, and the development of Tokoroa, fitted neatly within these national priorities. The mill was entirely funded by private equity, common […]

NZ needs more entrepreneurs. Will its new tertiary strategy reward real risk takers?

Rod McNaughton, Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau The government’s recently released Tertiary Education Strategy 2025–2030 signals a shift towards harnessing the sector to address New Zealand’s long-standing productivity issues. But the strategy and its goals aren’t necessarily aligned. Universities and polytechnics are now expected to promote innovation, accelerate commercialisation and build significantly stronger entrepreneurial capabilities. Measuring those things will be the challenge. The strategy identifies “particular gaps in market-driven entrepreneurial skills” and instructs universities to expand entrepreneurial education, especially for graduate researchers. It also acknowledges that more people will build careers through self-employment, freelancing or portfolio work. In parallel, a new national intellectual property policy gives academic staff the first right to commercialise government-funded research, signalling a stronger expectation that universities will generate new ventures and technologies. The country wants more innovators, founders and risk-takers. Yet several elements of the strategy, especially the way performance may be assessed, risk unintentionally discouraging the very entrepreneurial pathways it aims to promote. The wrong metrics? Graduate earnings are one example. Early-career income is widely used internationally as a marker of labour-market relevance, and the strategy treats it as a key success measure. But entrepreneurship rarely begins with high or stable income. Founders typically experience several years of irregular or low earnings before ventures become viable. When systems use earnings as a key indicator, the fear is universities will shift focus toward producing graduates for established, well-paid sectors, and away from entrepreneurial endeavours. But earnings are only one of several tensions. The strategy’s strong emphasis on labour-market alignment, employer co-design and responsiveness to current skill shortages can tilt institutions toward preparing graduates for today’s jobs rather than tomorrow’s industries. Many entrepreneurial opportunities emerge in sectors too new to appear in occupational forecasts, from synthetic biology and climate technologies to AI and autonomous systems. […]

Material passports for construction: Why I see them less as banks… and more as donor registries

From December NZ Manufacturer -Troy Coyle,CEO,HERA Across the infrastructure and construction sectors, material passports are emerging as a promising tool for enabling circularity. They’re often described as a “bank of materials,” and I understand why (in fact HERA even describes them this way). After all, they catalogue the materials embedded within a building so they can be withdrawn at the end of life and reused elsewhere. The more I’ve worked with the concept, the more I’ve found that the banking analogy falls short. In fact, my own conceptualisation has shifted quite significantly: I now see material passports as closer in spirit to a donor organ registry than to a passport or financial ledger. This is because for reuse to work in construction, it’s not enough to know what materials exist. We also need to understand which components are actually compatible with which future projects- this makes it much like donors and recipients in medical systems. This compatibility challenge is where I believe the next evolution of thinking must occur. Why the “Material Bank” analogy isn’t enough Material passports are often framed as banks because they identify valuable materials for future “withdrawal.” The logic is sound: buildings act as repositories of steel, timber, concrete elements, glass, fixtures, and systems that shouldn’t be lost to landfill or downcycling. However, in a bank, all currency of the same denomination is interchangeable. One dollar equals another dollar. Construction materials are not interchangeable in this way. Two steel beams of the same nominal specification may have vastly different histories, including different loading conditions, different environments, different coatings, different compliance requirements. Their future use potential can vary dramatically. This is where the financial metaphor starts to break down for me. Why I think the organ donor registry analogy fits better In my view, material passports need […]

Building psychologically safe, high-performance cultures: Why ISO 45003 matters for NZ manufacturing

From December issue, NZ Manufacturer www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz Theresa Grainger, General Manager, The Lean Hub Every manufacturing site I visit, whether it is a busy factory floor or a small specialised workshop, I believe has one universal truth and that is that people want to feel valued, supported, and safe to share their ideas and do meaningful work. This is where ISO 45003 adds real value, released in 2021 as the world’s first global standard dedicated to managing psychosocial risks and it has become increasingly relevant as organisations recognise that wellbeing and high performance go hand in hand. Building on the foundation established by ISO 45001, ISO 45003 extends workplace safety into an area many organisations still find challenging to define and measure: the mental, emotional, and social conditions of work. It provides guidance for creating environments where people can not only perform well but genuinely thrive. At its core, ISO 45003 is about both preventing harm and protecting workers from psychosocial risks before they escalate. It encourages organisations to take a proactive approach, identifying early warning signs and addressing the root causes of stress or conflict, and designing work environments that reduce the likelihood of harm. The standard offers not just compliance guidance, but a roadmap for building resilient, high-performing and people-centric operations. Personally, this is where it really resonates for me, I love what it represents because it speaks to something I have witnessed again and again in my work: when we design workplaces around people, when we honour their wellbeing, their voices, and their value, the entire organisation lifts. It is also deeply aligned with the principles of Lean and Continuous Improvement, at its heart, Lean isn’t just about eliminating waste, it is about creating environments where people can collaborate openly, feel safe to speak up and bring their […]

The tough year that was 2025

From December issue of NZ Manufacturer www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz The Year That Was -Sean Doherty 2025 was a brutal year for most New Zealand manufacturers, with many focused on staying afloat rather than growing. Rising costs for electricity, gas, labour, and raw materials squeezed margins across almost every subsector. Official data shows manufacturing employment fell by 2.6% meaning around 6,300 jobs were lost in just 12 months. The pain was felt from the factory floor to senior leaders, with many firms freezing hiring, cutting shifts, or closing lines to survive. Primary processing feeling the strain New Zealand’s traditional strengths in meat, timber, and dairy processing were not enough to shield the manufacturing sector from mounting cost pressures. Even large, historically resilient processors were forced to seek offshore funding and recapitalisation to keep plants running. These moves reflect a deeper reality: high input costs and intense international competition are eroding the ability of local processors to reinvest in plant, technology, and people at the pace required to stay globally competitive. Construction-linked manufacturing hit hard Manufacturers tied to the domestic building and construction sector took the a big hit in 2025. As the pipeline of new housing and commercial projects shrank, demand for building-related products dropped sharply. Several major timber mills closed, leading to hundreds of job losses. While high electricity and operating costs were part of the story, the real challenge was a combination of a weaker local construction pipeline and new international competitors, which made large, capital-intensive investments in New Zealand mills increasingly hard to justify. Ownership changes: selling to survive The need for capital and stability drove some of the most significant ownership changes the sector has seen in decades. Farmer-shareholders at Alliance Group voted to sell a 65% majority stake to Ireland’s Dawn Meats for $270 million, ending 77 years […]

Lifting Productivity from the Ground Up

How project engineering keeps NZ manufacturing efficient, safe, and moving Caliber Design, Christchurch Productivity is one of the most talked-about issues in New Zealand manufacturing. We all want to do more with less: more output with fewer delays, more progress with leaner teams, and more innovation with limited budgets. Yet productivity is not only about machines or technology. It is just as much about how projects are delivered. Every year, manufacturers invest millions in upgrades, automation, and plant improvements. Whether those projects add real productivity depends on one thing: how well design transitions to delivery. That is where project engineering makes a quiet but measurable difference. Planning that prevents waste Every successful project needs more planning than just a timeline. A good project engineer will identify risks early, validate the scope and technical deliverables, and plan sequencing so that the right work happens in the right order. We saw this recently on a multi-site upgrade where the factory could not afford any unplanned downtime. By mapping out isolations, access, and parallel work streams, the project engineer saved two weeks on installation and avoided a costly mid-project rework. These savings rarely show up as headlines, but they result in less time lost to rework, fewer hours spent chasing decisions, and smoother commissioning. Coordination that keeps people productive Even the best design will stall without good coordination. Modern manufacturing projects bring together multiple suppliers, contractors, and compliance demands. Someone has to keep the stakeholders all aligned on the actual deliverables for successful execution. On a large materials-handling project, one of our project engineers managed more than 20 subcontractors. Rather than reacting to site issues, they held short daily stand-ups with each trade, resolved bottlenecks on the spot, and kept everyone working to a clear, shared schedule. The project finished ahead of plan […]

Wired for success: Re-engineering apprenticeships to power New Zealand’s workforce

Toni Christie, Competenz General Manager, Employer and Learner Experience. A strengthened apprenticeship support system is driving higher completion rates across engineering and manufacturing — helping New Zealand build the skilled workforce it needs. Toni Christie explains how industry training organisation Competenz redesigned their apprentice learning experience to give every one of their learners the tools – and confidence – to finish what they start. In the three years since COVID-19, Māori credit achievement in mechanical engineering apprenticeships has surged from 49 percent to 72 percent, while Pasifika learners have lifted from 45 percent to 64 percent. For decades, Māori and Pasifika apprentices were among the least likely to complete their training. Now, in some of New Zealand’s most technically demanding industries, they’re leading the way. These outcomes prove that when learner support is reimagined, equity is not only possible – it’s measurable. A few years ago, too many apprentices were falling through the cracks. They arrived to on-job-training with potential but little guidance – like trying to start an engine with half the wiring missing. In 2019, a review of the New Zealand Certificate in Mechanical Engineering revealed that 42 percent of first-year learners were inactive, meaning they weren’t making enough progress within a defined period. Many were under 25, struggling with self-directed study or the literacy and numeracy skills their training required. By 2024, only 42 percent of new learners entered training above the national benchmark for literacy and numeracy – down from 70 percent just two years earlier. In other words, most apprentices now need extra support simply to get started. Many of our apprentices arrive with talent and ambition, but the system alone wasn’t giving them the tools to succeed. We needed to design a framework that met apprentices and trainees where they were. That framework, introduced in 2021 […]

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