Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

A view from afar - While a project is underway to make a bike path that would stretch along the East Coast of the U.S., in Auckland, New Zealand, some clever designers have covered a former highway offramp with a shocking pink nonslip resin to create a bike path that has just been shortlisted for this year’s World Architecture Awards.

Designed by Monk Mackenzie architects and landscape architecture firm LandLab, the Nelson Street Cycleway (known as “the Light Path”) opened in December and has already been christened by more than 100,000 cyclists.The 0.37-mile offramp turned bike path cuts through the surrounding asphalt like a pink ribbon, a bold and unconventional piece of urban infrastructure if there ever was one. How did the designers settle on that particularly vibrant shade of pink?

“From the outset we wanted something extremely vivid to contrast against the highway network it passes through,” partner Dean Mackenzie told me in an email. He said that they wanted to pick a color that didn’t connote a bus or typical bike lane (which in New Zealand, tend to be green or blue).

They considered bright oranges, yellows, reds, and pinks, before settling on a shade known as telemagenta. “Pink is a colour that a lot of people seem to be afraid of using (and hence not commonly used),” he said, “and we also felt looked beautiful against black.”

Mackenzie said that they approached the project as “a citywide artwork” that “had to be considered at that scale rather than just for the cyclist or pedestrian on the bridge.” In addition to the swath of pink, they installed 300 individual LED light poles at the eastern edge of the bike path to create a programmable interactive “spine” that transforms the space at dusk.

Check out the video here to see happy cyclists of all ages using the bike path

Source:  Slate  - Written by Kristin Hohenadel whos writing on design has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Fast Company, Vogue, Elle Decor, Lonny, and Apartment Therapy. Images Russ Flatt

NZ idealogues continue to suppress any airing of the real water issue

India has triggered the escape clause on dozens of bilateral investment treaties, aiming to renegotiate toward securing better protection from foreign litigation.

New Zealand's Ministry of Health has accepted Microsoft's Trusted Public Cloud services for advancing the country's electronic health service capabilities.

Microsoft's core cloud services Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online, have been successful in meeting the Ministry's requirements for storage of personal health information.

St John's Ambulance Service and Plunket are the other New Zealand health providers that are currently using Microsoft's cloud services.

These cloud services are also used by IT solution providers for the health sector, including Datacom, Stratos, Volpara, McKesson and Intergen.

"I am delighted by this news as it further supports the ability for health providers and digital partners to utilise advanced technologies to enable the delivery of enhanced services to New Zealanders," said Scott Arrol, chief executive of New Zealand Health IT (NZHIT).

US$1.3 billion health tech industry

New Zealand's health tech industry is worth US$1.3 billion to the local economy, and boasts established exporters like Orion Health, and more than a hundred other smaller independent software vendors.

The health tech sector in New Zealand is continuously growing and provides burgeoning opportunity for export to the fast growing global health market.

New Zealand's health tech industry and Microsoft will work closely for the next five years and aim for an increased export growth built on a strong local market.

The synergy focuses on supporting the development of new models of care and enabling health service delivery.

"The Ministry of Health's decision to accept the use of Microsoft's public cloud for storage of personal health records will help transform the eHealth agenda in New Zealand. It comes at exactly the right time, as globally we are at an inflexion point of all of this innovation in the sector," said Gabe Rijpma, senior director of Health and Social Services Asia at Microsoft.

Source: MISAsia

Trade Minister Todd McClay says outcomes of the G20 Trade Ministers’ meeting held in Shanghai 9-10 July, are likely to be extremely important for New Zealand's trade interests.

"This was a positive meeting for our core interests in trade and investment,” says Mr McClay.

"There is a clear political will to build on the successes of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Nairobi Ministerial last year, which agreed to eliminate agricultural export subsidies, and to make progress towards concluding an Environmental Goods Agreement."

In respect of the WTO, G20 ministers have committed to advance negotiations in a number of areas, including on the trade-distorting effects of agricultural domestic support.

Mr McClay says this is vitally important to New Zealand's export interests and would be welcome news to our rural sector.

"While much remains to be done, this meeting has been a useful step in the process toward the next WTO ministerial in 2017,” says Mr McClay.

G20 ministers negotiating the WTO Environmental Goods Agreement also reaffirmed their intention to conclude an ambitious agreement and to do so quickly, seeking to finish later this year.

"New Zealand has been a strong advocate of the Environmental Goods Agreement and I have pushed for an outcome that has clear benefits for both trade and the environment whilst in Shanghai. A successful outcome in this area could be beneficial for New Zealand trade,” says Mr McClay.

While at the G20 meeting, Mr McClay had bilateral discussions with counterparts from a number of countries including Argentina, United States, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Mexico, Laos, Russia, and China.

"The diversity of New Zealand trade means we are active in a wide range of markets. This meeting was an invaluable opportunity to progress our specific bilateral trade issues with these countries."

New Zealand was one of only two non-G20 members to be invited by China to attend the trade ministers' meeting.

Source:  A  press release from the Beehive

BEUMER Group - a leading global supplier of automated parcel and post distribution systems - has been awarded the contract to supply an automated material handling system in Freightways’ new South Island Hub at Christchurch Airport, New Zealand.

BEUMER Group’s automated sortation system will be based on a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient LS-4000CB cross-belt sorter with the capacity to handle up to 15,000 items per hour. The system has been specifically designed to enable efficient handling of the high volume of items in a short window, including wine boxes and fresh fish polystyrene containers which are shipped through the Freightways Courier Network. “The decision to award the contract to BEUMER Group was influenced by the fact that they took the time to understand our business and operations, and transferred that knowledge into a system design that met and exceeded our operational requirements,” explains John Charles, National Operations Manager, New Zealand Couriers, part of Freightways. The Freightways group, which also includes Post Haste, Castle Parcels and Now Couriers, is New Zealand's largest independent courier network. “In addition to industry-leading energy-efficiency and high-speed sortation the LS-4000CB sorter will provide the flexibility to enable Freightways to increase system capacity to meet future growth forecasts,” says Stephen Clark, Sales Director Logistics Systems BEUMER Group Australia. The new hub will provide Freightways with direct airside access when it goes live in June 2017.

Source: Packaging europe News, July 11, 2016

The latest New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association (NZMEA) Survey of Business Conditions completed during June 2016, shows total sales in May 2016 increased 5.37% (year on year export sales increased by 1.43% with domestic sales increasing by 13.87%) on May 2015.

For results table and historical series, click here.

In the 3 months to May, export sales increased an average of 0.5%, and domestic sales increased 3.9%.

The NZMEA survey sample this month covered NZ$347m in annualised sales, with an export content of 66%.

Net confidence fell to 33, down from 40 in April.

The current performance index (a combination of profitability and cash flow) is at 102, up from 99 last month, the change index (capacity utilisation, staff levels, orders and inventories) was at 101, no change from the last survey, and the forecast index (investment, sales, profitability and staff) is at 104, up on the last result of 102. Anything over 100 indicates expansion.

Constraints reported were 44% markets, 28% production capacity, 17% skilled staff, and 11% capital.

A net 22.22% of respondents reported productivity increases for May.

Staff numbers for May increased 0.73% year on year.

Supervisors, tradespersons, managers, professional/scientists reported a moderate shortage and operators/labourers reported a minor shortage.

“May’s export sales moved back into year on year improvements, however modest, after a fall last month. On the 3 month average measure, exports remained slightly positive at 0.5%. Domestic sales showed a large year on year increase, 13.87% in May, a significant improvement on the 2.72% increase last month, and the year on year fall seen in March. May’s improvement moved the 3 month average up to 3.9%.” says Dieter Adam, Chief Executive of the NZMEA.

“The performance, forecast and change indexes all reported increases on April’s result and all were in expansion – manufacturers continue to implement changes and improvements in their businesses. However, the capital constraint was reported at the highest level since September 2014.

“Brexit has added more uncertainty into global markets, and has had immediate effects on our exchange rate, but the longer term effects are yet to be seen – in times of uncertainty orders can become more cautious, which could hit some New Zealand exports into the UK and EU.

“The currency continues to be reported as a risk in comments – our dollar has increased more than 5 cents on the Trade Weighted Index in the last month, to over 77. This is also about 5 cents above the level the RBNZ was forecasting for June in their last Monetary Policy Statement.

"We have now hit record highs against the British Pound, and our currency has gained significant ground against the Australian dollar, now sitting at very challenging levels for exporters. We need to see action from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) to bring down our overvalued currency, in conjucntion with restrictions on housing investor lending and additional measures from Government to relieve the housing pressure that is tying the RBNZ's hands." said Dieter.

For further comment contact Dieter Adam, 027 495 3276.

The New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association survey gathers results from members around New Zealand. It provides a monthly snapshot of manufacturers and exporters’ sales and sentiment.

The Reserve Bank today, Monday 11 July 2016,  published a Bulletin article that explains the monetary policy decision-making process.

Seven times a year, the Reserve Bank makes a decision on the appropriate Official Cash Rate (OCR) setting.

The Reserve Bank conducts monetary policy to achieve the goals of the Policy Targets Agreement, but is faced with significant uncertainty when making OCR decisions.

A robust system is needed to address the inherent uncertainty that the Reserve Bank faces when making these decisions. The Bulletin article describes the detail of this process. The article discusses: the research behind a monetary policy decision; how the Governing Committee reaches a monetary policy decision; how the Bank communicates the decision to its key stakeholders; and how the decision-making framework is reviewed in the face of new developments.

The Bulletin article notes that a key element of the monetary policy decision making process is the need for constant review and innovation, and the Reserve Bank’s approach to decision making will continue to evolve over time.

Read the article: Behind the scenes of an OCR decision in New Zealand

Source: A RSBNZ press release

Doors fly open with global re-alignment. But payment and copying pitfalls still haunt manufacturers & production engineers

New rules to move more with fewer trips

Proposed changes to the Vehicle Dimensions and Mass (VDAM) Rule 2002 mean heavy vehicles can carry more freight or passengers on fewer trips, increasing efficiency while maintaining safety for road users, Associate Transport Minister Craig Foss says.

“This is the first comprehensive review of the VDAM Rule in 13 years,” Mr Foss says.

“Trucks move 91 per cent of New Zealand freight tonnage — about 215.6 million tonnes per year — around the country. That’s projected to increase by over 50 per cent in the next 30 years so it’s essential that we make changes to manage the increase and enable growth.”

The VDAM proposals include:

Re-defining the width limit for trucks from 2.50m, plus 50mm for load securing devices; to 2.55m, inclusive of securing devicesIncreasing weight limits for some trucks and buses to allow operators to carry more freight or passengers

“Safety is always the Government’s primary consideration. These changes will encourage the purchase of newer vehicles aligned to international dimensions with more technology and safety features,” Mr Foss says.

“The changes also have tangible benefits for both the heavy vehicle industry and other road users. For example, the re-defined width limit will allow enclosed vehicles such as refrigerated trailers to load three more pallets side-by-side, increasing capacity by 10 per cent and reducing the number of these vehicles on the road by a similar amount.

“Increasing weight limits will help reduce the number of trips heavy vehicles currently make and therefore ease congestion. One operator says it will result in 100 less tanker loads a day for his operation.”

Road Controlling Authorities, such as local councils, will still have the authority to approve specialist vehicles and decide where heavier vehicles can travel.

Make a submission: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/vdam-2016

Source: beehive press release