update

Conference & support

Weattended the Master Joiners Conference for 2021 in Hamilton recently. It was my first conference, the first for Laminex New Zealand as Host Sponsor and what a pleasure it was to be there.It was great to meet so many of the industry’s best in one room (despite how busy we all are!). I thoroughly enjoyed the thought-provoking key-note presentations, particularly that of Rob Waddell and Mike King and meeting so many customers. Before conference kicked off, we held a tour of the Laminex Hamilton site, where we press our Melteca product range. We had a fantastic turnout and were pleased everyone enjoyed learning and gaining insights into how we work and schedule your orders. The Master Joiners Committee will be preparing for the next conference, and we look forward to the opportunity to catch up as an industry, share learnings and continue to focus on improving our collective high standards.

Our business recently took people leaders through a workshop focused on Safety Leadership. Well-being was a strong recurring theme and it’s no surprise given the environment we’ve worked across over the last 12 months; this strongly resonated with what Mike King discussed at conference. It’s important we are finding ways to help and support each other to manage stress and fatigue, and to recognise success rather than just focussing on safety improvement initiatives.

The latest Residential consent data for the year to March 2021 reached an all-time record of 41,028, surpassing the previous record from 1974 and up 9% on the same period in 2020. March was also the highest monthly figure on record with 4,128 consents issued. Townhouses continue to show strength, up 40% in the year to March 2021, with the Auckland region being a major driver of growth, up 58%. Non-residential (Commercial) consents also showed promising signs, with the year to March 2021 seeing a 5% increase. Education, storage, and office buildings were the largest contributors to growth. All of this bodes well for our industry over the next year and beyond.

We appreciate and listen to feedback on how we can better serve our customers. A frequent comment we’ve heard from laminate fabricators is the restriction of delivery method on online ordering. Based on your feedback we’ve updated the platform to enable laminate fabricators to receive delivery by courier! Online ordering provides the option to see in real time expected delivery dates for your order. If you haven’t given online ordering a go, now is the time! Visit www.laminex. co.nz/e-commerce-registration to apply.

If you have any feedback you want to share directly, please feel free to get in touch!

Mike Arthur General Manager Laminex New Zealand