A new development for the New Zealand building and construction industry, Fletcher Aluminium and NALCO have combined to form a joint venture that leverages their scale, market coverage, product innovation and reliability - the new company will now be known as Altus.
Their position will also make them a more attractive supplier in many of the industrial sectors they service. So boat builders, engineers or any business that requires aluminum solutions can look to Altus to have the expertise and capacity to meet all requirements.
Bigger, better, more innovative and more consistent - the word Altus has deep rooted origins and stands for depth and height. Altus with its team of experienced and visionary leaders and highly-skilled staff aim to be at the height of technical excellence and customer service.
'Together we aim to provide our customers with greater levels of service, consistent lead times, improved logistics, and ultimately a wider range of products,' says Altus managing director Ron Holden. 'Combining manufacturing facilities and capabilities will offer accelerated growth in productivity, quality improvement and innovation. Altus aims to lead positive change and make a real difference to our customers' world.'
In the past financial year, both Fletcher Aluminium and NALCO have experienced record manufacturing and sales demand, in part to New Zealand's booming building industry and to their approach on how to best capitalise new opportunities.
'Altus now has the size and scale capable of achieving market-leading outcomes in innovation design, manufacturing, marketing and sales and to be the number one supplier and employer of choice,' says Ron Holden. 'It's about being strong, reliable, customer driven and providing the very best service nationwide.'
'In the immediate future our customers won't notice the change; it will be business as usual while the two businesses continue to integrate with a focus on looking after customers first and foremost. As from today, 28 November, NALCO and Fletcher Aluminium will cease to exist. This change is just the first of many exciting changes for New Zealand's aluminium industry. Watch this space!'
A Fletchers release
Italian Deputy Minister for Economic Development, Ivan Scalfarotto and New Zealand Minister of Trade, Todd McClay, have jointly hosted a business event in Milan today committing to doubling two-way trade between the two countries.
Mr McClay is on a trade promotion visit to Europe and today joined his Italian counterpart at a Business Roundtable with 30 New Zealand and Italian businesses.
“At my last meeting with Mr Scalfarotto, we reaffirmed our commitment to expanding bilateral trade and agreed to bring our business communities together,” says Mr McClay.
Mr Scalfarotto said today's Roundtable event had demonstrated the supportive business environments and commercial opportunities that exist in both countries and celebrated the areas of collaboration and innovation between New Zealand and Italy.
Two way trade currently stands at NZ$1.5 billion and is focused on machinery, hides and wool, food and beverage, and technology.
The two ministers believe two-way trade can double and have committed to create more business-to-business links to allow this to happen.
“Another way to expand trade ties is through the conclusion of a Free Trade agreement between New Zealand and the European Union, which will bring win-win outcomes for both countries,” says Mr McClay.
He thanked Mr Scalfarotto for his support.
Napier Port now plans to lodge its resource consent applications for the proposed wharf development and phased dredging project in the first half of 2017, so it can do further work to confirm the best locations for disposal of dredged material.
Napier Port had planned to submit its applications to Hawke’s Bay Regional Council before the end of this year but, as a result of community input, now wants to allow more time for ongoing investigations for this part of the project.
Napier Port chief executive, Garth Cowie, says the Port chose to consult early and well ahead of formal notification of the applications so it could understand any potential impacts of the project on its stakeholders and the community.
Mr Cowie says most feedback has supported the economic opportunities the project would bring, however several groups, including divers and recreational fishers, have raised concerns about potential impacts from disposal of dredged material.
"We started this process to share our plans and then listen to what people had to say. What we are hearing is that some people are concerned about the possible impact that such a volume of dredged material might have if it’s deposited within the Bay," Mr Cowie says. Continue to full article
Kennards Hire finds itself quite at home in New Zealand. So much so that they continue to build the family-owned business with the acquisition of Tauranga Hire - its 17th branch in New Zealand.
Kennards Hire is an equipment and tool hire company with almost 170 branches across New Zealand and Australia. Following their recent branch opening in Hamilton in August this year, the Tauranga branch opened as Kennards Hire on Monday, 31 October and characterises Kennards Hire’s aim to offer New Zealanders the best of the hire and rental industry.
Tom Kimber, General Manager of Kennards Hire New Zealand said, “Being the largest city in the Bay of Plenty, Tauranga is an exciting step for our network of hire equipment branches. By extending our footprint into Hamilton’s neighbouring region, we are well-situated to help make our customers job easy.
“Infrastructure projects, housing and commercial construction are all projected to see strong growth over the next few years. This is a great opportunity for us to invest in and grow our brand and equipment hire service offering in one of the fastest growing population areas in New Zealand,” said Tom.
In true Kennards Hire form, the current team will be joining the family. Tauranga Hire customers will be pleased to know that the friendly and knowledgeable Kris Wright and the team will still be behind the counter. The name above the door may have changed but the faces and excellent customer service remains strong.
The team at the Tauranga branch will continue to give their customers, both current and new, great customer service and a wide range of well-maintained, modern and reliable equipment designed to make every job easy.
Kennards Hire customers in New Zealand can also take advantage of their industry-leading online hire website. Hire online day or night and pick up your equipment at your local branch or have it delivered direct to your door.
The Airbus A350-1000 is scheduled to go into operation during the second half of next year made it's maiden flight yesterday. The A350-1000, the longest and largest of the three A350 XWB base models, took off from Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, France, and flew for four-hours and 18-minutes, above southwestern France before touching back down at 3:00 pm.
A crew of six explored the aircraft's handling and its flight envelope, the ways in which it can combine capabilities like speed, altitude and angle-of-attack while remaining safe. It was accompanied by a chase plane from which the testing was observed and filmed and a team of experts on the ground also monitored the flight via a live telemetry link.
The A350-1000 measures nearly 74 m (243 ft) from nose to tail, allowing it to accommodate 40 more passengers than the smaller A350-900. Airbus says a typical three-class configuration can accommodate 366 passengers, or a higher density configuration up to 440.
Autodesk - creating drawings
Manfeild track renamed after New Zealand motor racing great Chris Amon
Alliance Group invests in new technology
Diverseco acquires RTA, Australia’s leading robotic automation company
Italy and NZ commit to doubling two-way trade
While you were sleeping: Wall St slips from record
Napier Port looks to big future growth despite dip in profit
Investigators to probe cause of fire at Taupo timber packaging busines
Expect interesting economic data from tomorrow
Creating drawings in Autodesk - a few tips from Matthew Weake
Chinese-made $100 billion city near Singapore 'scares everybody'
Goff wants $5 bed levy for Auckland visitors
New Zealand's weak labour productivity
Non-tariff barriers costing Kiwi firms billions each year, NZIER says
Matthew Weake is a valuable member of CADPRO System's Autodesk training and support team. In regular conatct with operators he is in the unique position of being able to identify those procedures that require a little more attention - creating drawings in Autodesk Fabrication ESTmep and CAMduct is one of them.
Here is an article that has been prepared by Matthew and can be accessed in full on the CADPRO Systems website
Creating drawings in Autodesk Fabrication ESTmep and CAMduct is not the most intuitive or CAD-like experience so I thought I would share a few tips here to get you started.
Setup Report Printer
When designing your reports, you may find you use up lots of paper only to find the report is not quite right.
A useful tip here is to add a pdf printer as your report printer until you have the Report looking like you want. This will save paper and many trips to the printer.
Most printers can be made to print black and white as default and the options can be found in the printer setup dialog box. Try the awesome Bluebeam Revu CAD – it does a lot more than just creating great pdf’s. Bluebeam Revu
Add Layouts
To create drawings in Autodesk Fabrication ESTmep of a selection of items you should add a layout with those items in it.
Most of us have seen the Global Tab at the bottom of the page but paid no notice to it. It is, in fact, the second tip here. You should add your own Layout Tab and give it a short meaningful name. My example uses really good names – test and test2!
McLaren Automotive has awarded its first international internship to a student from the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Following in the footsteps of the McLaren founder, Bruce McLaren, Andrew McLaren (no relation), a third-year student in the Faculty of Engineering studying Mechatronics Engineering, will spend nine weeks at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, working alongside the company’s Research and Development engineers.
Nearly 60 years beforehand, the McLaren founder, Bruce McLaren, travelled to England on a similar ‘Driver to Europe’ scholarship to pursue his motorsport aspirations and founded his own racing company in 1963.
Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Bruce McLaren studied at the Auckland University of Technology and was an accomplished engineer and innovator as well as a successful racing driver.
Andrew McLaren was born in Dargaville, New Zealand and attended Dargaville High School before starting his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechatronics.
Mechatronics is a mix of mechanical, electrical and computer engineering. Andrew McLaren’s particular focus is in the Research and Development of future products, and especially the company’s efforts to reduce the emissions of the next generation of sports and supercars.
Andrew said: “I can’t wait, it’s a field that is very hard to get into because there is very little opportunity in New Zealand, so I thought I would never get a chance like this.
"I would love to be at the forefront of that kind of innovative thinking. I’d really like to do something that would benefit society."
Brand Ambassador for McLaren Automotive and daughter of Bruce, Amanda McLaren added: “I’m delighted to welcome Andrew to McLaren Automotive to continue his education.
"Even though my father passed away many years ago, the connection between McLaren and New Zealand still remains very strong and the parallels in both of their early careers is especially poignant.”
Workers in elementary occupations such as cleaners, rubbish collectors, and labourers had the highest rate of injury in 2015, Statistics NZ said today, as the rate for agriculture and fishery workers moved down from the top spot for the first time in eight years.
Elementary occupation workers, which also includes jobs such as pest controllers, hotel porters, and courier drivers, had 238 claims per 1,000 full-time equivalent employees in 2015, which was the same rate as the year before.
However, the injury rate for agriculture and fishery group workers, which includes forestry workers, fell from 242 per 1,000 workers, to 233 in 2015.
The provisional figures are based on work-related injury claims accepted by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). They also show workers in elementary occupations had the highest rate of claims for more serious injuries, with 40 entitlement claims for every 1,000 full time workers. These claims could include death benefits, weekly compensation, lump sums, and rehabilitation payments.
Injury Statistics – Work-related Claims: 2015 – for more data and analysis
The future of manufacturing has always been a topic of much discussion and debate. In a rapidly changing economic and technological environment, this future may be more volatile and hard to predict, but bring with it greater opportunities for those who adapt and lead.
Despite recent improvements in confidence and sentiment in the manufacturing sector, many of our members are quite uncertain about future orders, both in the short and long term. Is this part of a current crisis or part of a new and developing economic reality for manufacturers in New Zealand?
Globalisation comes with many benefits; allowing our manufacturers to get over the problems of distance and a small domestic market. On the downside, volatility has increased through greater exposure to conditions and competition in overseas markets, global commodity cycles, and even larger currency fluctuations; due to financial liberalisation and larger monetary flows, particularly with the large global stimulus (a.k.a. printing of money) following the Global Financial Crisis.
This increasing exposure to global markets, paired with ever improving communication technology, means changes in markets can quickly affect demand and prices for our exporters, and allow purchasers to easily find a more competitive supplier if we can’t keep up. These changing dynamics could explain some of the increased volatility manufacturers have continued to experience – trends that are likely to continue and potentially accelerate, particularly around the use of new manufacturing technologies, and represent significant challenges as well as opportunities for our manufacturers in the future.
Looking forward, the coming wave of technology-led disruption has been referred to as “Industry 4.0”. Industry 4.0 is described in a recent report on manufacturing by McKinsey & Company, saying "we define Industry 4.0 as the next phase in the digitisation of the manufacturing sector, driven by four disruptions: the astonishing rise in data volumes, computational power, and connectivity, especially new low-power wide-area networks; the emergence of analytics and business-intelligence capabilities; new forms of human-machine interaction such as touch interfaces and augmented-reality systems; and improvements in transferring digital instructions to the physical world, such as advanced robotics and 3-D printing.”
These advancements will affect different sub-sectors of manufacturing in different ways. For many manufacturers, this may mean increased use of more advanced and adaptive robots, and increased use of real-time data to analyse production systems and more complex supply chains across different firms. This could lead to huge increases in productivity and potentially make production processes more adaptive and customisable for making multiple products. Given that being highly responsive in terms of volumes and delivery times has become a big part of the value proposition for a lot of our manufacturers, does the increased flexibility awarded by new manufacturing technologies pose a big threat to our manufacturers? It could do – but it should also equip New Zealand manufacturers with the tools to get much better at something they excel at already.
It is impossible to predict how exactly all these changing technologies will effect manufacturing businesses and global markets - whether it will be a revolution in how manufacturing is done, or just a continuation of current trends. But we do know many of these technologies are being used in some manufacturing operations already, and will become more widely used in the next five to ten years. We will all need to prepare for this, first and foremost by being aware of the potential changes that will affect your business, and starting to plan and invest in them early. Investing will be essential both in the technology and systems required, but more importantly in your staff through training and recruitment, as a new and changing mix of skills will be needed.
As well as individual manufacturers preparing for these changes, government also has a big role to play. Firstly through education, ensuring modern skill requirements are focused on throughout our education system, and providing opportunities for people to retrain and develop new skills. A longer term view of education will be needed, as new skills take time to work through the system. Secondly, there may be areas in which the government can invest to encourage the uptake of new technologies, particularly where up-front cost is large, as well as incentivisingbusinesses to conduct R&D to stay ahead.
Technology change in manufacturing will have ramifications for jobs and workers. It is true some lower level jobs may be replaced by advanced robots. But these new technologies will also create new jobs that are more highly paid and require a new, more adaptive skill set. These jobs require a mix of production knowledge and IT skills to make full use of even more automated systems.
This continual adaption and development of technology may well mean that market volatility is indeed the new normal for businesses operating on the world stage. Continued volatility coupled with technological disruptions may mean many manufacturers need to revisit and adapt their business models as time goes on. But in the mean time, the most important thing is trying to be aware of the potential changes to your businesses, prepare, and invest early.
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242