US bungling must not be repeated
A National Front victory in the pending presidential/general election in France shows every sign of wrong-footing the New Zealand government in the same way that the United States presidential outcome did, writes our European correspondent.
Now rated as the front-runner a National Front victory will also see France quit the EU which in turn will signal the end of the entire EU project.
The New Zealand Foreign Ministry must now forcibly and unambiguously direct its officials to now actively consider a National Front victory in the elections in France---and to adjust their own forecasts around this possibility.
On Wednesday, 25 January 2017 MSC Newswire forecast:-France’s Marine Le Pen is Looking Increasingly Presidential—Likely to pick up Socialist Party Votes in Runoff.
Since then the main challenger to the National Front, the Republican Party’s Francois Fillon has become enmeshed in a high profile corruption case in which his wife appeared to receive a substantial public salary for doing work that has still to be defined.
New Zealand’s foreign service officials should now receive a directive to the effect that they must contemplate an outcome that they passionately and personally abhor - - a National Front electoral victory.
On this occasion the closed-loop elitist nature of foreign service practitioners, far removed from the cares and fears of ordinary people, must be prevented from igniting the same partisanship that unreservedly forecast a victory for Hillary Clinton.
These saw New Zealand taxpayers enmeshed in the Clinton fund, and in taking at the United Nations an unnecessary stance on Israel designed to put New Zealand in an unfavourable light with the unanticipated incoming administration.
The directive to officials should accommodate the understanding that, yes, they may have to reveal their misgivings about the National Front.
But that in operational terms they must be prepared on this occasion for an outcome that horrifies they and the people they professionally associate with.
In short, foreign service officials who tend to be cut from the same rather exquisite cloth, must recall in the words of the French saying that though they talk to the captains “it is the crew that does the voting.”
The outcome of the recent primaries of France’s ruling Socialist Party have been more of an upset than most had imagined.
Manuel Valls, until recently France’s young and tough prime minister was swept out of any party presidential flag bearing role by a much lesser-known outsider Benoit Hamon (pictured) advocating a 32 hour week and a capitation tax on robots.
Wellington, on this occasion, must make it clear to its foreign service and trade representatives that it wants facts rather than hopes.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk | Wednesday 1 February 2017 ||
Most of the smart factory discussion has centred around discrete manufacturing, but modern smart sensing technologies can also be applied to improve many aspects of the food and beverage industry, particularly for food safety and track and trace, improved packaging and new product opportunities.
The concepts of Industry 4.0, IIoT and ‘smart manufacturing’ have been gaining much press in recent times, particularly in relation to discrete manufacturing. Those working in an industry such as food and beverage — overwhelmingly driven by batch manufacturing processes — may find it difficult to see how such technologies could assist and improve their business. There are, however, definite areas in which these modern technologies can help modern food manufacturers improve efficiencies, market share and food safety.Food recalls and traceability
A food or beverage product may be recalled for a number of reasons: complaints from consumers or customers, or by order of retailers or government. It might also be recalled as a result of testing and auditing at a food business or in the upstream supply chain (raw ingredients). Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)1 classifies the types of problems that can occur as including:
Microbial contamination: Pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses or parasites.Labelling errors: Non-compliant labelling, incorrect food ingredients on the ingredient list, incorrect date markings or other food labelling errors.Foreign matter: Contamination with material such as glass, metal or plastic objects.Chemical or other contaminants: Contamination with substances such as cleaning products, pesticides, machine oil, etc.Undeclared allergens: Due to incorrect labelling, incorrect packaging or contamination of the product by an allergen.Biotoxins: Contamination with biological toxins such as histamine in fish and paralytic shellfish toxin in oysters.Other faults: Those not covered above, such as packaging faults or unsafe levels of additives.
In recent times there has been mounting pressure on food and beverage manufacturers to initiate and achieve product recalls in ever decreasing time frames, making effective product track-and-trace imperative.
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Innovative Machinery Group (IMG) announced today that the company will formally change its name to “Tsugami Automation” beginning February 1, 2017.
IMG specializes in the design, fabrication and integration of Precision Tsugami machine tool optimization products, including robotics, vibratory feeder systems, parts collection systems and custom machine tool accessories. The company designed and built the world’s first LaserSwiss machine, which combines Swiss style CNC machining and laser cutting into one machine with a single shared software platform.
“We’re rebranding the company to help manufacturers more easily understand what we do,” IMG President Graham Noake explained. “When they hear ‘Tsugami Automation’ they should immediately recognize that we are entirely focused on customizing and optimizing Tsugami machines.”
The renamed organization is a sister company of Tsugami/Rem Sales, the exclusive North American importer of Precision Tsugami machine tools. Both companies are divisions of Morris Group, Inc., one of North America’s largest machine tool distributors. Tsugami Automation products are distributed through Tsugami/Rem Sales.
“Tsugami Automation has a uniquely wide range of experience and skillsets in custom tooling, integrated laser cutting and laser welding and the development of mechanical and robotic loading, marking, cleaning, measuring, and unloading systems for Tsugami machine tools,” Noake said. “We are completely focused on expanding the capabilities of these machines and optimizing their performance.”
Tsugami Automation and Tsugami/Rem Sales expect to launch their newest LaserSwiss, an SS207-5AX LaserSwiss with an integrated welding system, at the MD&M West show in Anaheim, CA in February. The 20 mm, seven-axis CNC machine integrates two SPI laser systems, one for cutting operations and a second one for welding.
“It’s the first machine of its kind,” Noake noted, “and we expect it to provide significant competitive advantages to manufacturers of small precision parts.”
About Tsugami Automation
Tsugami Automation is a division of Morris Group, Inc. of Windsor, Connecticut. The company specializes in the design, manufacture, and delivery of Tsugami machine tool optimization products, including robotics, lasers, vibratory feeder systems, parts collection systems, and custom machine tool accessories.
About Morris Group, Inc.
Morris Group, Inc. (http://www.morrisgroupinc.com/), whose history dates to 1941, is one of the largest machine tool distribution networks in North America. Based in Windsor, Connecticut, the family-owned and operated company has 14 business units throughout the United States.
Ξ Callaghan Innovation reviewed
Ξ The NZ General Election date is set for: September 23, 2017
Ξ Sacked for falling asleep on the job, Auckland welder wins $11K compensation
Ξ Overseas Investment Office approves Chinese buyer Cuilam to buy Prime Range Meats for $13.5m
Ξ NZ's jobless rate unexpectedly rises to 5.2% in 4th qtr; kiwi drops
Ξ Toyota confirms date for end of Australian assembly
Ξ Motorists are finding ways to get around petrol prices
Ξ Head above water when it comes to boatbuilding
Ξ Oceana sets 500,000oz gold target
On 1 February 2017, we merged with traffic and transportation engineering specialists, T2, creating a new business called HGT2.
This is the first merger in our 131-year history and is a significant milestone for both companies.
‘Much thought and effort has gone into our decision to merge with T2 and we’re excited about the new opportunities it will create and the additional specialist services we can offer clients,’ says our Managing Director, Glen Cornelius.
T2 employs people in Auckland and Wellington. Its services include transportation planning studies, transport assessments, economic analyses, detailed design, safety studies and assessment, policy development and transportation research.
HGT2 will continue to operate from T2’s Auckland CBD premises, with minimal change to personnel roles and responsibilities.
In January, Harrison Grierson and T2 were jointly appointed to the new Traffic and Transportation Engineering Professional Services panel for Auckland Transport.
A review of the government's flagship agency for commercialising innovation has found Callaghan Innovation has "weak" management, and is "struggling internally" to complete a strategy guiding how it offers services to companies with high-value, high-tech commercial ideas.
Three and a half years after its creation from the Crown Research Institute, IRL, Callaghan appears to be "caught mid-stream between two very different operating models", the Performance Improvement Framework (PIF) review by former public sector leader Paula Rebstock says. Compared to the needs of an organisation intended to bridge the gap between its mission as a "customer-driven, integrator" of commercialisation assistance to high value manufacturing and services (HVMS), its "earlier hierarchical leadership models managing the production and delivery of products and services are no longer suitable to deliver Callaghan Innovation's vision, mission and strategy."
"A number of external critical friends questioned whether Callaghan Innovation had grasped the implications of its customer-driven, integrator role for the way it leads and the people it recruits."
The PIF report was published in December, five months after the resignation of the agency's inaugural chief executive, Mary Quin, an expatriate New Zealander lured home after a high-flying career in high-tech product development, corporate management and experience with businesses creating opportunities for indigenous people in Alaska. A replacement CEO is still being sought.
Callaghan's Maori enterprise unit was singled out for praise, with the review finding innovative Maori businesses increasingly turning to the organisation.
However, it had still to complete a strategy identified in an internal review in 2015 to guide its change in focus.
"Callaghan Innovation will not be able to operate below the highest level of business planning until its strategy is complete," the review says. "The role of integrator in the innovation system is widely seen as critical to New Zealand's success. However, Callaghan Innovation is seen as only partially meeting its mission."
It was only able to assist firms in the "very early stage phase", leading the PIF review to question "whether its workforce has the required depth and breadth of experience and whether its current model sufficiently addresses its full potential client base across the likely trajectory path from start-up to IPO (public capital-raising)."
The report suggests at several points that greater integration with elements of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise's operations would be worth considering.
However, the report also finds an organisation aware of the challenges it faces and likely to benefit from work it's undertaking with the Productivity Commission and the economic consultancy MOTU "on how to measure the impact of interventions such as grants on innovation and R&D".
Settling on its "intervention logic and impact measures" is a critical need.
"Having been formed from a partial start-up and a partial merger, it is not surprising that the formative period has been focused on institution-building. Looking forward ... its current performance challenge is to accelerate its pace of execution, delivering on its full mission and demonstrating impact" in New Zealand's "busy and complex" innovation eco-system, which firms habitually found "hard to navigate".
"External stakeholders and partners do not see Callaghan Innovation consistently, strongly and visibly leading the innovation eco-system."
BusinessDesk receives assistance from Callaghan Innovation to cover the commercialisation of innovation.
The company’s new tools let businesses manage several teams together
After a long wait, Slack has announced the version of its popular work chat application that is designed for enterprises. On Tuesday in San Francisco, the company unveiled its new Enterprise Grid product, aimed at helping companies administer and connect multiple chat instances.
Grid allows business administrators to set up each team inside their organization with their own centrally managed Slack instance. Those workspaces can then be linked together using shared channels, and all of the people inside an enterprise can direct- message one another, even if they’re not part of the same workspace.
Those features help deal with one of the biggest issues enterprises have encountered with Slack. The chat application isn’t really designed to support an entire business with thousands of people all working inside the same instance. But the only other option prior to the launch of Grid was to use a series of isolated Slack teams and give users membership to each one they needed to take part in.
Now, it’s possible for companies to create an archipelago of connected teams, which should be more useful for larger organizations.
An Air New Zealand Boeing 737 cockpit nose has been installed outside Canterbury Museum next to the Botanic Gardens as part of the airline’s 75th anniversary exhibition.
Visitors will be able to sit behind the plane’s controls in the pilot and co-pilot seats, entering the flight deck in small groups from steps in the Botanic Gardens. The cockpit nose opens to the public from Friday 3 February, 10.00 am to 5.00 pm daily, weather permitting.
Air New Zealand General Manager Global Brand & Content Marketing Jodi Williams says the cockpit nose has proven to be a much photographed attraction at the Air New Zealand 75 Years: Our Nation. The World. Connected exhibition.
“We’ve had nearly 170,000 people take up our invitation to ‘pose with the nose’ while the cockpit was on display as part of the exhibition which debuted at Te Papa in the capital and featured at the Auckland War Memorial Museum before arriving at Canterbury Museum in September last year. More than 900,000 people have now visited the exhibition across the three cities.”
Canterbury Museum Director Anthony Wright says the Air New Zealand exhibition is proving very popular and has certainly been the major factor in attracting record visitor numbers each month since it opened in September.
“We’ve had excellent visitor numbers in January with large numbers of tourists, locals and visitors from throughout the South Island coming to see the exhibition. The Boeing 737 cockpit nose will be a great addition to the exhibition experience.”
The cockpit nose was transported by truck from the Aviation Training Institute near Christchurch International Airport to the museum in the city centre in the early hours of Monday morning.
Air New Zealand 75 Years: Our Nation. The World. Connected runs until Sunday 26 March 2017. The cockpit nose will be open to the public throughout.
Ξ Fisher & Paykel Healthcare has started building a new manufacturing plant in Mexico
Ξ Hellers acquires specialty food company Flavour House
Ξ Why Are All the Billionaires Moving to New Zealand?
Ξ Six years of concrete fraud - four accused
Ξ While you were sleeping: Trump depresses stocks
Ξ How many construction workers will there be?
Ξ US wine market looks promising for NZ
Ξ Widening petrol price margins hurting motorists - AA
Ξ New Zealand hires former Trump campaign director to lobby for business visas
The Automobile Association is calling for fuel companies to explain to motorists why the national price of fuel rose 5 cents per litre during January, despite no increase in commodity prices or a drop in the exchange rate.
“Normally retail prices rise following an increase in the cost of importing fuel, but that wasn’t the case in January,” says AA PetrolWatch spokesperson Mark Stockdale.
“While commodity prices did rise in December, they have since fallen slightly while the New Zealand dollar has strengthened by over three cents. If anything, the retail price should have fallen, not risen by five cents. This is most unusual, and motorists deserve an explanation,” Mr Stockdale said.
Mr Stockdale said some service stations had been substantially discounting fuel, selling it for under $1.70 a litre. “At those prices, the service stations are selling it at or below cost. The AA suspects the rise in the national price – excluding any discount – is to help cover the cost of selling fuel at substantially lower prices elsewhere, and we’d like the fuel companies to confirm that.”
“The last time fuel company margins came close to the current level, the Government put the fuel companies on notice and asked them to justify the high margins.
“The AA believes the current high margins, and the unexpected January price rises, warrant further investigation as our Members are very confused by the large range in pricing,” Mr Stockdale said.
| An AA release | January 31, 2017 ||
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