NZ Manufacturer November 2013 November 2013
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Developments
Business News
Business confidence soars.
Page 6
We need the good ideas.
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www.solidtec.co.nz
Report
The changing world of mechanical design.
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Kiwi manufacturing success Is manufacturing story takes on Australia important?
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t a time when many manufacturers are struggling to survive, there is one Kiwi manufacturer that has grown over 1,000 per cent in the last three years - and has just launched across the Tasman. Earthwise, locally manufactures environmentally-sound products for home and body. Earthwise general manager Rory Garvey said.”We have grown over 200 per cent in the last year alone, and have launched in Australia in the past five months, so we are very eager to ensure that we have the strategy in place to fulfil our business contracts and keep our retailers satisfied,”. The company has a range of almost 60 products it supplies into supermarkets in New Zealand and now Australia, ranging from household cleaners to laundry items to baby washes and bubble baths. All of the Earthwise main range is Environmental Choice accredited, and the total portfolio commands almost 40 per cent of the environmentally sound product category. The success of the Earthwise range has helped grow the ‘green’ category of all household cleaners to about 11 per cent of the total sold. But it’s not enough for Earthwise, which has a business goal of gently
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Earthwise general manager Rory Garvey
winning over the household shopper that hasn’t yet thought about buying green. “Our products are designed and made to appeal to mums who want the best for their families, at a reasonable price point - but who also want something highly effective,” says Rory. “We know our products are every bit as effective as the nongreen products - and they are safer for families.” “We also offer the satisfaction of knowing that, even with just the small act of buying a detergent Continues page 26
e regularly see in the media - and general public - discourse and some confusion about what manufacturing actually is, and consequently further discussion on what it might mean and how important it might be to our economy becomes increasingly obscure. These are ideas that need to be crystal clear in order to properly inform and support judgments around policy. What exactly is manufacturing? What do you think right now? Surprisingly, this is often misunderstood. Manufacturing is not simply the act or process associated with the production of goods. Production or the production process is only one part of the manufacturing process. Manufacturing is the art of choosing what to produce, what supporting research and development to fund, how the product or process will go to market, at what price and via what channels, production is the door that connects the intellectual effort to the value acquisition effort post production. That value chain, the focused intellectual effort, the act of production and the process of value captured is the essence of manufacturing and like any system
– John Walley
Chief Executive, New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association all the parts require attention. Once the all embracing nature of manufacturing as a system is in mind as opposed to production as a component of that wider system, then the value of manufacturing to the community can be properly considered.
Manufacturing provides job growth
Manufacturing has the highest job multiplier of any industry; this means that every job in
Continues page 28
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
CONTENTS Advisors
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DEPARTMENTS
19 20 22 23 24 26 28 30 31
➡
• The rise (and rise) of the NZ Pure-Plays. • Great innovators are out there.
BUSINESS NEWS
• NZ business confidence soars. • Times still challenging for SMEs.
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY Pro-Grade 2D CAD.
Page 8 – MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY – Report: Delcam in China.
Craig Carlyle
DEVELOPMENTS
• World’s first commercial nanostructured bulk metal. • Simulation tool visualises complex processes. • The Network Time Machine.
DEVELOPMENTS
We have all the design tools...
WORKSHOP TOOLS
• Complete medium voltage switchgear range. • Blow moulding range expanded.
Larry Wiechern
Is the Manager of the Maintenance and Reliability Centre, Manukau Institute of Technology.
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Craig Carlyle is Director of Maintenance Transformations Ltd, an executive member of the Maintenance Engineering Society and the Event Director of the National Maintenance Engineering Conference.
Catherine Beard
➡
Page 15 – DEVELOPMENTS – East Tamaki company opens most modern facility.
Is Executive Director of Export NZ and Manufacturing, divisions of Business NZ, New Zealand’s largest business advocacy group, representing businesses of all sizes.
BOOKS
• Killing Fairfax. • Lean manufacturing that works. • Makers: The new industrial revolution.
BUSINESS NEWS
• Major new event for Canterbury. • Xero releases farming blueprint.
WAIKATO FOCUS
• Titanium Park land sale signals confidence. • Hydraulic rescue tool set to save lives.
Brian Willoughby Page 17 – WORKSHOP TOOLS – Omniscan SX launched with national roadshow.
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY FOOD MANUFACTURING
• Manuka Health seals China deal. • Oops! World’s thinnest glass made by Accident Materials made from wool.
REPORT
Lewis Woodward
Is managing director of Connection Technologies Ltd, Wellington and is passionate about industry supporting NZ based companies, which in turn builds local expertise and knowledge, and provides education and employment for future generations.
Improving titanium implants by composite coatings.
DEVELOPMENTS
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Is president of the NZ Manufacturers and Exporters Association and managing director of Contex Engineers and Plinius Audio.
Page 25 – DESIGN – Does design equal trial and error?
The Changing World of Mechanical Design.
Professor John Raine ➡ Is Head of the School of Engineering and Pro Vice Chancellor – Innovation and Enterprise at the Auckland University of Technology.
FOOD MANUFACTURING
• Organic manufacturer keeps cool. • The great green invention.
DEVELOPMENTS
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14 16 18
BUSINESS NEWS
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5 6 7 12
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Stratford youth scholarship winner.
REAR VIEW
Four million to four billion – a gap too far.
Page 29 – ENERGY REPORT – RSB certification for wastegas process.
Bruce Goldsworthy
An advocate for NZ manufacturing for 40 years, he was Chief Executive of the Auckland Manufacturers Association for seven years He has been Manager of EMA’s Advocacy and Manufacturing Services, and lately manager for Export New Zealand in the north.
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
EDITORIAL Publisher
Media Hawke’s Bay Ltd, 1/121 Russell Street North, Hastings, New Zealand 4122.
MANAGING Editor
Doug Green T: +64 6 870 9029 E: publisher@xtra.co.nz
CONTRIBUTORS
Holly Green, John Walley, Craig Carlyle, Bruce Goldsworthy, Larry Wiechern, Jurgen Brand, Greg Thompson.
ADVERTISING
Doug Green T: + 64 6 870 9029 E: publisher@xtra.co.nz
Design & PRODUCTION
Karl Grant T: + 64 6 857 7942 E: daylightmarketing@xtra.co.nz
WEB MASTER
Dan Browne E: dan@membrana.co.nz
PUBLISHING SERVICES
On-Line Publisher Media Hawke’s Bay Ltd
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS
E: info@nzmanufacturer.co.nz Free of Charge.
MEDIA HAWKES BAY LTD
T: +64 6 870 4506 F: +64 6 878 8150 E: mediahb@xtra.co.nz 1/121 Russell Street North, Hastings PO Box 1109, Hastings, NZ NZ Manufacturer ISSN 1179-4992
Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. – John Wooden
Is there water in Lake Taupo?
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e all want to be like Sebastian Vettel. Successive wins on the trot, lots of space between us and our rivals, utilising a fantastic product that keeps us in the lead. In Vettel’s case 13 wins in a season which probably means the manufacturing technology used to put his car together is pretty damn good.
Made me wonder recently when I heard the talk of making a car of part paper, thanks to 3D developments. Maybe there is such a thing as horses for courses and the song Blowing in the Wind was ahead of its time. John Walley (Page 1) has an article entitled, Is Manufacturing Important? My answer to this is, Is there water in Lake Taupo? Manufacturing is pretty serious stuff. The nation wouldn’t be a nation without it and if there was no manufacturing (nigh impossible!) we’d all be wandering around wearing sarongs made from banana skins – from bananas imported from Equador. I suppose this does raise the point of who makes the sarong? But let’s not dwell on that... The pride we have as a nation in what we do is seeing sustainable success now consistently occurring. New Zealand is currently sixth in the world for business optimism, our highest ranking since 2010. Along with the United Kingdom and United States we are playing a part in driving global business growth. Little old New Zealand, I hear you say. How can we be...an influencer? Lots of factors play into this; security as a nation, stable democratic government, a reasonably decent standard of living and an environment – most important – for designers, developers and manufacturers to get on with making great products. There are a few downers, however. The wages we take home aren’t that flash, and frankly, some employers are lucky to have dedicated staff who work for moderate rates of pay. There‘ll come a time when employers ignore this point to their peril. So let’s be happy with where we are heading. Lots more to do, things that can be done better, complacency is not an option.
Vol. 4 No. 10 November 2013 Copyright: NZ Manufacturer is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher. Neither editorial opinions expressed, nor facts stated in the advertisements, are necessarily agreed to by the editor or publisher of NZ Manufacturer and, whilst all efforts are made to ensure accuracy, no responsibility will be taken by the publishers for inaccurate information, or for any consequences of reliance on this information. NZ Manufacturer welcomes your contributions which may not necessarily be used because of the philosophy of the publication.
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Doug Green
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
BUSINESS NEWS
One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency. – Arnold Glasow
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The rise (and rise) of the NZ Pure-Plays
he world has changed. The Internet is everywhere and everywhere you look business is thriving on the web. The opportunities are endless and none so much as if you have the drive and vision to develop a focussed, targeted sector of business and the community, especially ones that success just reeks from. In a (relatively) new book, called Killing Fairfax (Books Page 18), you can read how the Murdoch/ Packer connection financially supported three start up Pure-Plays in Australia; one focussing on jobs, another on cars and the third on property. They did this because of a strong dislike for Fairfax who at the time held a monopoly through their classified sections for the employment, real estate and car markets. Now in New Zealand add three more Pure-Plays – Snaffle www. snafflejobs.co.nz , The Manufacturers Success Connection www. manufacturerssuccessconnection. co.nz. and www.Hometopia.co.nz. Snaffle is purely employment, the Manufacturers Success Connection manufacturing and Hometopia real estate. Snaffle is the great idea developed by Cromwell businessman Carl McNulty, working with his sister Amber, which represents companies looking for staff who can’t employ an employment agency. On this site, employers can look for staff who match the requirements of the company. Snaffle provides companies with potential people to fill the job vacancy and includes for the employer such information as qualifications ranking the person as to how well they meet the requirement. After that, employees pay to see the full profile of candidates they like and their contact details. Fees are based on a sliding scale, based on the remuneration of the job they
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– Doug Green
Snaffle’s founders Amber and Carl McNulty
Max Farndale of the Manufacturers Success Connection (MSC)
want to fill. Once the employers pay some money, and have the full profiles they can directly discuss the position with the applicants. With the Manufacturers Success Connection (MSC), publisher, Max Farndale is following a passion
Hometopia’s creator, Stephen Hart
he believes in – the future of manufacturing in New Zealand, assisting companies grow to find new markets for their products both in New Zealand and overseas. You could say that MSC is in competition to specialist manufacturing magazines and
Great innovators out there
here has been mixed reviews of late regarding the state of manufacturing in New Zealand but according to the latest Business NZ Performance of Manufacturers index ( PMI) there has been continued high levels of orders. This ensures that the manufacturing sector is expanding and has been for the last 10 months. This means 2013 is on track to be one of the best years for the sector is some time. Residential building projects throughout the country have been one of the main drivers, domestic New Zealand appears to be doing better than export New Zealand.
Certain companies have experienced a loss. For instance Moa group, boutique beer maker say they anticipate a loss of between 5 and 6 million by the end of March 2014, blaming the distributor for not meeting agreed targets. The company’s local market had a lack of focus on targeting the higher end reserve and estate ranges. In the US, the strong kiwi dollar means they have struggled there also. This making the company focus more on the Australian market, looking more profitable than first thought. Brother and sister, Austin and Pearl Delaney-Girdlestone, have just launched their own online
business. It’s called Lucky You and is a range of caps. In their early 20s they recognised that it was the most popular way that young people shop so knew that was the right path to take. They are both passionate about manufacturing in New Zealand, wanting to utilise the talent we have here. Blender Design was established in 2006. Massey graduates in industrial design, Oliver McDermott and Ben Thompson, help to take New Zealand businesses from inception to manufacturing, either here or overseas. It has worked with mainly consumer products and the business has a partnership with a Guangzhou-
their associated websites, but that would be too simplistic. Others have websites for their magazines, this is a magazine in a website! MSC is only in competition with itself and its long internet arm stretches right around the world with its overseas affiliates spreading the word of great New Zealand made goods and services to targeted markets for its clients benefit. You can, for example, specialise in five specific category areas (importers, high-tech companies, trade fairs etc) and know that that is where your product will be read. And maybe bought! Another advantage of MSC is the fantastic offer of free press releases which can assist greatly with your marketing campaigns and growth in overseas markets. There are some great category choices on MSC. You can sell and buy machinery, list your activities in the directory as you keep up to date with the latest manufacturing news. Not on a monthly basis as the manufacturing magazines do it, but every day. Hometopia is the brain child of Stephen Hart who also has considerable publishing experience. Buying a home in New Zealand just got a whole lot easier with this website which has over 250 pages of practical resources to help home buyers and sellers. Stephen Hart says, “There are all sorts of helpful resources all over the internet that can make home buying and selling easier. But that’s the problem. They’re all over the internet. “We’ve pulled together all of those resources and put them in one, easily accessible place.” Snaffle, MSC and Hometopia are examples of three terrific, NZ –born Pure-Plays which can greatly assist in your way of life.
– Holly Green
based Chinese manufacturer which designs homeware products. Waikato institute of technology has recently acquired New Zealand’s first ultra high definition, mass production, liquid resin 3D printer-known as the 3D systems project 6000mp. Through its use they are working with companies to make big changes to how they do industrial design. The first customer to gain access was Stainless Design, developing a component for a Nano brewing machine for a beer company, saving thousands of dollars and six weeks manufacturing time. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
BUSINESS NEWS NZ business confidence soars N
Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. – Eleanor Roosevelt
ew Zealand has soared to sixth in the world for business optimism, its highest ranking since 2010 with the mature economies of the United Kingdom and the United States starting to drive global business growth, according to new research from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR). The gap between New Zealand and Australian business confidence remains wide with only a net 23% (26th in the survey) of Australian businesses feeling upbeat compared with 64% of New Zealand businesses. Of the 45 countries surveyed New Zealand ranks sixth in confidence at 64%, behind Philippines 96%, United Arab Emirates 84%, Denmark 76%, United Kingdom 76% and Peru 74%. Simon Carey, partner at Grant Thornton New Zealand, said that New Zealand is now reaping the benefits of some sensible government management of the economy as a result of the Global Financial Crisis. “The economy has remained pretty steady over the last couple of years but we are now building a solid foundation for fruitful economic gains in the years ahead, with some economists picking a 4% growth for the New Zealand economy next
year,” he said. The ‘U-turn’ in sentiment by the United Kingdom and the United States suggests a shift in the global dynamic, with business growth opportunities set to increase in mature economies while emerging nations adjust to the prospect of slower growth than in recent years. However, Carey warns that further partisanship in the United States over the budget and debt ceiling could yet derail the global economy over the next few months. The IBR reveals United Kingdom business optimism has shot up from net 34% in Q2 this year to 76% in Q3. That is the highest figure ever recorded for the United Kingdom in 22 years of IBR research, and makes its business community the third most optimistic in the 45-economy survey. Business optimism in the
New Zealand is now reaping the benefits of some sensible government management of the economy
Simon Cadey
United States remains high too, at 52% in Q3 although marginally down from 55% in Q2. By comparison, businesses in emerging economies are markedly less confident. Brazilian optimism fell from 43% to 31% in the last quarter, a record low, while across Latin America as a whole optimism
Times still challenging for SMEs S trong housing markets in Auckland and Canterbury, along with the Christchurch rebuild, are masking the tough times that some businesses are facing around the rest of New Zealand. Eugene Sparrow, partner at chartered accountants and business advisers Grant Thornton New Zealand, said the economic environment remains “challenging” for many SMEs. His comments follow a report released by Statistics New Zealand that shows the number of businesses operating in New Zealand has fallen by about 8,300 since 2009, but the pace of firms falling by the wayside has slowed in the past year. The figures show that New Zealand had 472,600 businesses
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in February 2013, down 0.2 per cent from 2012. The number of businesses has declined for the fourth year, although total staff numbers increased in the past year. “We hear a lot about positives – and they’re certainly evident – but there are also real challenges. Our clients tell us that people are still very cautious about discretionary spending, especially in the likes of restaurants and bars,” he said. “Yes, things are better than they were in the recession, but it’s not booming yet.” Sparrow said hurdles for SMEs included strong competition, pressure on pricing and tighter lending criteria. “Bigger businesses have more equity which can act as a buffer in uncertain times. We’re finding that
Eugene Sparrow
they’re starting to pick off some of the smaller businesses that just can’t compete. “The small guys only have so many reserves. They can only nibble away at their capital for a while, waiting for the anticipated substantial recovery – but it’s not here yet.”
fell from 48% to 38% - its lowest since 2009. Elsewhere, Indian optimism (57%) fell to its lowest since 2003; Russia slid from 28% to 19%; Turkey (6%) dropped to its lowest since the financial crisis; and South Africa hit an all-time low of 18%. Despite a record low of 4% in Q2 China seems to be one step ahead of the other major emerging nations with business optimism improving to 31% in Q3. Carey said that the results highlight a subtle but significant shift in global economic growth patterns, with some rebalancing towards developed markets like the United Kingdom and the United States. “Together these two economies account for a quarter of global output so any recovery should have positive repercussions around the world. “China’s growth in optimism is also good news for New Zealand and Australia. While the United Kingdom and the United States remain very important for Kiwi businesses China is the ‘whale in the goldfish bowl’ and any lift in positivity for that country will have positive flow-on effects for New Zealand,” he said. The report warned businesses should not write off emerging economies in their search for growth, but the results highlight the reversal of fortunes in developed countries. The BRICs and other frontier markets need to tackle issues such as rising inflation and substandard infrastructure if they are to maintain the rapid growth we’ve seen in recent years and avoid the so-called ‘middle income trap’.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Cast all your cares on God - that anchor holds. – Lord Tennyson
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MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Pro-grade 2D CAD
echnical professionals have long been used to compromising when it comes to 2D CAD software. While they may want the best in cost, compatibility and capability, they’ve always had to settle for just two out of three. nanoCAD 5 and nanoCAD Plus 5 change the game, offering the best total cost of ownership (TCO) in the industry, full DWG (*.dwg) compatibility, and capabilities that professional users expect, including a familiar and comfortable interface, powerful drafting and design tools, and full customizability. nanoCAD 5 is totally free to use and share, for business, professional, or personal purposes. Unlike other free CAD programs, it is neither crippled nor constrained. nanoCAD Plus 5 is everything nanoCAD is, plus more. Available through a low-cost annual subscription it includes advanced features, early access to updates and fixes, and priority online support. For professional and corporate users, it provides an even better TCO than nanoCAD. Only a few years ago, nanoCAD was known mostly to industry insiders: A fast, no-frills DWGcompatible CAD system, developed by a team of experienced Russian
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CAD developers. (Not surprising, since major CAD companies have long relied on highly-educated Russian programmers to develop critical technologies.) The team behind nanoCAD initially built it as a platform to support their popular vertical market CAD applications, so it had to be fast and reliable. It has matured to become a full-featured professional-grade CAD program, relied upon by a quarter-million commercial users. nanoCAD was first launched internationally, for markets using ISO (metric) units and drafting standards, in 2012. Now, with support for both metric and imperial units and drafting standards, nanoCAD 5 and nanoCAD Plus 5 are ready for the United States. “nanoCAD has short history, but has grown rapidly,” says Dmitry Popov, Development director, Nanosoft. “Our team learned a lot from our customers from the very first day we launched nanoCAD internationally. The new nanoCAD 5.0 is the answer to the graduate test: We finished our classes, school’s out for now, and nanoCAD is ready for work. We know there different users with different needs, so we’re launching two different nanoCADs. From now on there will be nanoCAD;
free CAD to use and share, for home and business, forever. And there will be nanoCAD Plus; a CAD tool for professionals and corporate users, who expect more and are willing to pay a nominal subscription fee for advanced features, updates, fixes and priority support.” nanoCAD 5 key features – • Industry standard interface. nanoCAD’s user interface and command structure will be familiar and comfortable for users of many other compatible CAD applications, including AutoCAD and AutoCAD-LT. • Fully capable. Far from being a stripped-down crippleware program, nanoCAD includes a rich set of tools for creating and editing 2D/3D objects. It is production proven, in demanding applications. • Completely customizable. nanoCAD’s scripting engine lets users write macros using Visual Basic Script, Java Script or any other scripting language supported by Microsoft Windows as well as built-in LISP. For more serious development, nanoCAD supports multiple APIs, including NRX for C++ and .NET (similar to ARX), and the MultiCAD API™ for C++ and .NET, a revolutionary development tool to create binary compatible applications that will run not just in nanoCAD, but also in other compatible CAD systems,
including AutoCAD. Users may join the nanoCAD Developer Club, at no cost. • Totally free. Free as in beer. No catches, no gotchas. nanoCAD Plus 5 key features – • Advanced tools for pro users. Building on nanoCAD’s extensive tool set, nanoCAD Plus adds productivity tools, such as advanced layer management, batch plotting, and PDF printing, plus high-end capabilities, such as hybrid raster/vector editing with raster snap, and network license management—with more advanced tools coming in the future. • Priority support and updates. nanoCAD Plus subscriptions include priority support, via email, our customer forums, and our helpdesk. nanoCAD Plus subscriptions also include updates, with early access to bug-fixes, and all major and minor product updates. • Unbeatable TCO. With nanoCAD Plus, there are no highpriced software license fees or extortionate annual maintenance and support contracts—just a simple all-inclusive subscription, priced at $180/year ($220/year for a floating network license.) For professional and corporate users, the priority support and updates included with a nanoCAD Plus subscription give it an even better TCO than nanoCAD.
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
B
angkok in Thailand is a contrast of Buddhist temples and go-go bars. And on August 21-22, away from the traffic jams, efficiency and productivity were the order of the day as, at the Dusit Princess Hotel, just outside the hustle and bustle of central Bangkok, Delcam hosted its Asian Technical Summit 2013. For the world’s largest supplier of CAM software, the two day Summit was a platform to inform and educate its growing customer base in Asia on its products and solutions, with a strong theme on intelligent manufacturing and automation. Improvements to its various products and solutions were announced throughout the event. This is the 13th consecutive year Delcam is rated the world’s leading CAM specialist by CIMdata’s NC Software Market Analysis Report. Indeed, the company has grown from strength to strength since its founding in 1977, with record sales of £25 million for a six-month period during the first half of 2013, an increase of nine percent over the same period of last year. As for Delcam Thailand, it has seen sales increase this year by more than one third over 2012. The subsidiary now has more than 450 customers, mainly in the toolmaking industry but also in the automotive, footwear and dental sectors. It has had particular success with PowerINSPECT with customers including the local manufacturing operations of Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi Motors, Suzuki and Electrolux.
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Delcam in Thailand Delcam, the UK CADCAM company with an increasingly global presence, selected Thailand as the location for its 13th Asian Technical Summit. Augustine Quek reports from Bangkok.
During the Summit, Delcam announced that it had added its 45,000th customer – PT Astra Honda Motor of Indonesia. A plaque marking this landmark sale was presented by Mark Kent, British Ambassador to Thailand, to Bambang Nugroho, general manager of Delcam Indonesia. Along with headline sponsor HP, the 2013 event was supported by ABB Robots, Castrol, Mazak, Renishaw and Sandvik. Business: views & trends ”At the moment, Asia and North America each contributes about a quarter of Delcam’s revenue, with Europe contributing 40 percent, while Russia and the rest of the world account the other 10 percent. Asia is already a very important part of our business; a rapidly developing region with fast growing economies,” said Peter Dickin, marketing manager, Delcam. “Manufacturing in Europe is highly concentrated in Germany, which is still going very strong. Even in the US where growth is not very strong, there is still a lot of manufacturing and it is still the world’s largest market for CADCAM,” he added.
Sandy Moffatt, marketing, Asia Pacific:”If you look at Delcam’s history, we are a European company that started with European markets. Although we have worked in Asia a long time, the real push came only 12 years ago, to go global. Before that, we worked in individual cities, not as a region. “Now we are more focused into the Asian region, rather than looking at them as discrete cities. We have a higher level of cooperation within the region, such as transferring resources from one city to another within Asia. It makes it easier in terms of marketing strategy.” According to Vineet Seth, Delcam’s managing director for India and Middle East, although there are numerous significant differences, Asian countries are all trying to excel and improve from current levels. “If you look at a mature economy like Singapore, together with the other countries like Malaysia and Thailand, they were all Tiger economies of the 1990s. “For India, a tremendously diverse country, it has a lot more room to grow with a lot of potential. As for the Middle East, it is almost a brand new economy. With
Age wrinkles the body; quitting wrinkles the soul. – Douglas MacArthur
dependence on oil, there was not much emphasis on manufacturing 20 years ago. But now, all these countries they were very big in the oil drilling industry. Today, many Middle East countries, such as UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, realise that manufacturing is the way forward. “Initially, CAM was more for woodwork, furniture and artwork, but now it is more for white goods, electrical and customized automotive parts. For example, we have an ambulance manufacturer in the Middle East who likes to customized their parts and build ambulances for the region. “For me, the spectrum of countries is a diverse array of economies, and each is different in development and needs, but all accept the fact that if you’re well-versed in technology and hard-working, you will be wellaccepted,” says Seth. “And when you look at a developed economy like Singapore, they’re trying to upscale, doing things in a different way. They’re thinking of how to change the games, how to bring the timelines down, and excel on an existing process. “For India, there are a few challenges. There are areas in India that are very good at the way they deploy technology, and there are areas that don’t. Their challenge is to improve those less developed areas and bring those areas up to the same level as the rest of the country,” he notes. Commenting on the situation in Southeast Asia, Sandy Moffatt said: “There are distinctly different countries, yet as a whole, it is a very strong region. Thailand has seen immense growth and is enjoying an industrial boom that is the highest in this region at the moment. As a consequence, there has been an immense boost to sales of our products.” “Indonesia, the fifth largest country in the world (by population), has seen steady growth in the last four to five years. So Indonesia is also very strong, with a lot of potential that could become a much more important industrial market later. Large market size, well-educated, hardworking and enterprising, that’s a formula for success that we see in Indonesia. “Vietnam is an interesting market where a lot of the red tape is gone, where we might see huge growth in another three to four years. Cambodia and Laos, beside Vietnam, are also catching up, although they are smaller markets. The Philippines is not growing at the same degree as the countries I just mentioned, but still growing nonetheless. “Singapore has a lot of large MNCs headquartered there, with which we have some business with.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Never put off today what you can put off tomorrow. – Spanish proverb
There are also quite a few smaller manufacturing plants which we also do business with. “So on the whole, the Southeast Asia region has been a good place to grow our products, with about 1020 percent growth year-on-year on average in the region.“ ”For all markets in Asia, we have our targets that we need to meet,” adds K H Chai, Delcam business development manager for South East Asian Division. “But within the region there are different markets with different targets. For example, tool making, the mould and die manufacturing for automotive is still very strong in Thailand, probably due to a move of these manufacturing activities from Japan. “Thus, there are different business activities for different countries in the pipeline. Every market in this region contributes to our overall bottom line.” Joe Zhou, who heads up Delcam China, gave another perspective. ”With the slowdown in the economy in China, it is expected that some SMEs will exit the market, but for the higher end products made by the larger companies, there should be a negligible effect. These bigger
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MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Vineet Seth, managing director for India and Middle East, sees opportunities for Delcam as countries in the Middle East begin to focus on manufacturing to build their economies.
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY companies typically invest in technologies regardless of economic conditions. It also improves their competitiveness, which is crucial to their business. “For example, some technologies actually reduce work time and increase productivity, like the ShoeCloud software demonstrated here at this event, which enables more efficient management of design and manufacturing data for the footwear industry. “Delcam’s products now in use in robotic manufacturing are mainly in the value-added processes, such as mould making, including very large moulds. Coating application by robots also uses Delcam products in the aerospace and maritime industry,” informs Zhou. Sandy Moffat also reflected on the situation in Japan. “The country received two shocks in the last five years, once in 2008 banking crisis from America, and then the 2011 tsunami. “But last year things improved dramatically, with the government sustaining growth in the economy through its monetary policies. And despite its struggles, it is still the third largest economy in the world. That’s why all CADCAM companies are present in the Japanese market.”
New releases
An important part of every Delcam Asian Technical Summit is the announcement and explanation of new product releases, and the delegates this year certainly got to hear about quite a number of those. A major enhancement for the 2014 release of Delcam’s flagship PowerMILL CAM system is the Vortex strategy for high-speed area clearance. Vortex, for which Delcam has a patent pending, has been developed to gain the maximum benefit from solid carbide tooling, in particular those designs that can give deeper cuts by using the full flute length as the cutting surface. A series of trials run by Delcam on different machine tools within its Advanced Manufacturing Facility
Life’s blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm. – Norman Vincent Peale
As machine tools become more complex, computer-aided manufacturing becomes more important, which bodes well for Delcam and the CAM market, said marketing manager Peter Dickin.
has shown a time saving of at least 40 percent. Other developments in the area of computer-aided manufacturing include the 2014 version of Delcam’s FeatureCAM feature-based CAM software being released with a number of new options for turning, four-axis rotary machining and turnmill operations, along with more strategies for two-axis finishing and easier programming of probing sequences. Meanwhile, ShoeCloud, software for 3D footwear and design, was introduced at the event. ShoeCloud data can be stored in any format and can be accessed through standard web browsers. Also targeted at the footwear industry – an enhanced version of OrthoMODEL design software for EVA custom orthotic insoles now include options for the design of
corrective orthotics, accommodative orthotics and comfort insoles. “Delcam offers a complete set of software for footwear design and manufacture, covering all the stages in the development and manufacturing process in the footwear industry. The addition of a range of solutions for orthopaedic footwear allows the company to service both the mass-production side of the business and suppliers of custom-made footwear,” explained Joe Zhou. The 2013 release of Delcam’s PowerINSPECT software offers dual-device inspection options that allow measurement with two portable devices at the same time. Enhancements to Delcam Electrode include support for burn-vector electrodes, automated machining of electrode frames, batch processing of multiple machining projects and faster generation of electrode drawings.
CAM trends in Asia According to Vineet Seth, the role of CAM is increasingly important in any company’s portfolio of strategies. “They will invest in good CAM, with good support and experienced people on the ground. That is what will make CAM successful, as people continuously upgrade themselves. “We want to be able to offer comprehensive support, as the value of CAM is only as good as the support behind it. CAM will play a more important role going forward, with an increasing footprint. Seth also believes that there will be more demands for manufacturing consultancy. “Customers today realize that it is important not to have just any CAM or manufacturing software. They are now thinking of ways to improve their processes. “Consulting is going to be important in helping customers in
The 2014 version of Delcam’s FeatureCAM software includes a number of new options for turning, four-axis rotary machining and turn-mill operations. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Problems are only opportunities in work clothes. – Henry John Kaiser
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY they bought many years ago, or something that is quite recent. “What we try to do is to support our customers with their CAM, both old and new. Many of our customers are long term prospects, which we take the time to cultivate and build up over the years. You can see we have the entire suite of product range, from CAM to reverse engineering.
Looking to the future
Delcam’s new Vortex toolpath strategy, incorporated in the latest version of PowerMILL, reduced the machining time for this titanium demonstration component by 63 percent.
areas such as process improvement, optimisation, and investment in strategic software. It may not be a big profit generator now, but as people realise the value, this will change. “At the moment, Delcam is consulting aerospace companies to improve their processes. In the next five years, we may expand our consulting business, albeit on a very selective basis,” reveal Seth. Marketing manager Peter Dickin offers another dimension. “One major trend that can be expected is the increasing capability and complexity of machines. Machines with multiple spindles, turrets, more sophisticated 5- axis machines. “For example, you saw Mazak’s Integrex, which can machine the entire part from the raw material. As the product becomes more complex, so would the machines, which, for us, is a really welcome trend. “Because as the machines become more complex, they become more difficult to program manually, so more CAM is needed. The prevalence of machine complexity will be a positive trend for the CAM market.” Vineet Seth offered one specific example. “CAM has been playing a more ‘offline’ role, with not much interaction between the software program and the processing machine. Inevitably, CAM will have to become more interactive, whereby parameters that changed on the machine can feed directly back to the software, and the software itself will change and adapt, and parts get made with the corrected program. “This is also a marriage between inspection and CAM, which we already have at Delcam.” “In the near future, Southeast Asia may become more important
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for CAM,” says K H Chai. “It depends on the shift in the business. All manufacturers have some CAM, whether it’s something that
“In the near future, the markets will not change dramatically,” believes Peter Dickin, “but certainly in the next five to 10 years, our business in Asia will increase. The China market is one obvious example, where revenue growth from consumption growth can be expected. “They all want cars, refrigerators, tablets and all the stuff. The internal market is huge. It’s the same in India. Then you have the new, emerging countries like Vietnam, where you start having more and more manufacturing.” Continuing with the activities of Delcam in the near future, Joe Zhou added, “Although the economy (in
China) is slowing, we are already seeing maturation in the footwear industry. So we are positioning ourselves to get ready for that. “Delcam has always been a CADCAM company, but we had been stronger on the CAM side. So we are now trying to strengthen our CAD, for example with PowerSHAPE, which now combines modelling and reverse engineering functionality. “We are trying to penetrate into specific markets with our CAD, such as for the dental industry that you saw just now. In addition to software, we are also branching into professional services such as consulting for other companies. Right now we are focused on the aerospace industry. “In our forecasts, we also hope that the automotive sector will continue to pick up, especially on the machinery and production of parts. For example, PowerSHAPE software can help in design to fix errors in surfacing, wireframe and triangles, and prepare the part for machining,” explained Zhou.
– Control Engineering Asia
Inside Thai Manufacturing
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Thai Summit Mold Manufacturing uses Delcam’s PowerMILL in the manufacture of moulds for vehicle parts.
he two-day Delcam Asian Technical Summit programme included a visit to the Thai Summit Group, an automotive parts manufacturing group which comprises over 40 subsidiary companies covering manufacturing activities for all important industries of Thailand. In the short span of two hours, visits were made to three of the Group’s companies: Thai
Summit Mold Manufacturing (TSMM); Thai Summit R&D Next Technology; and T S Intertech. Using Delcam’s PowerMILL, TSMM manufactures moulds for vehicle parts, while the latter two companies manufacture metal dies. The Thai Summit Group is Delcam’s largest customer in Thailand. A visit to the Japanese machine tool maker Mazak then
revealed how Delcam software, namely PartMaker, FeatureCAM, PowerMILL, and PowerINSPECT, is used in the cost-effective production of parts. The Integrex IV series, a recent line of machines, was showcased. Notably, it can cut a part from raw material to finish within a single machine and without any interruptions such as changeovers or transfers. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
DEVELOPMENTS
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it. – William Durant
World’s first commercial nanostructured bulk metal
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hen we think of structural materials, we usually imagine something big, strong and bulky, like steel beams in bridges and buildings, and while we are becoming familiar with composites reinforced with carbon nanotubes and nanofibers, it is yet hard to believe that the structure of bulk homogenous metals can be controlled at the nanoscale with commercial-scale production In a paper published in the Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, Bhadeshia introduces the world’s first bulk nanostructured metal in commercial production. The nanostructure-controlled highstrength bainitic steel, where the thickness of bainitic ferrite platelets
is controlled between 20 and 50 nm is shown in the figures below. The review paper explains why nanostructure plays an important role in strengthening materials, and the conditions required to design and develop such “nanostructured” materials. In particular, the biggest challenge is to keep the production cost as low as that of bottled water. So, what magic is needed to produce low-cost nanostructured bulk steel? The answer is simple – keep the bulk at 200 °C for 10 days, which will lead to the formation of plate-like bainitic structure. One deficiency of the material is that it is yet difficult to weld, but the author lays out possible solutions to overcome this.
Large-scale manufacture of nanostructured steel shafts. Copyright : Photograph courtesy of Rolls Royce.
Simulation tool visualises complex automation processes
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he new tool allows users to visualise not only complete production processes with injection moulding machine and automation, but also individual processes, such as part de-moulding, realistically on a computer. The simulation helps customers in their decision as to which solution to use when using different processes. It also offers numerous advantages when commissioning a production line, as it can be used in the preliminary stages to check the existing processes between machine and automation and simulate expansion options. The simulation is available as an animated, interactive simulation in the form of a PDF file. Krauss Maffei has also released advancements on their MC6 control system that are aimed to make operating automated production cells easier. The WizardX is a graphical programming wizard that allow for the quick and error free programming of linear robots used in the injection moulding area.
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The VisuX is an interface that provides operators with all of the necessary information about
the industrial robots, such as program selection, counter, times or current axis position. This allows
However, LTE networks create new troubleshooting challenges due to proliferation of IP-based voice and video and data applications in addition to signaling on multiple interfaces. Managing the modern mobile network also has to take into account user experience expectations on a myriad of applications. Network Time Machine addresses these challenges by offering: • enhanced performance - Network Time Machine is scalable to effectively handle the operator’s load requirements-up to 20 Gbps
sustained line rate capture-todisk, the highest performance in the industry • visibility - Network Time Machine offers packet-level based visibility when problems arise and a back-in-time view of how networks and servers are impacting the end-user experience • portability - it allows rapid plug-and-play deployment with minimum setup and can be transported quickly and costeffectively to a specified location
The Network Time Machine
luke Networks’ Network Time Machine is an agile applicationaware troubleshooting solution that provides rapid packetlevel visibility in high-traffic environments. Network Time Machine with LTE is a carrier-grade solution that is designed to bridge the visibility gap for LTE network mobile operators. Mobile operators facing massive explosion in application and data traffic are deploying LTE networks to satisfy consumer demand for better bandwidth and user experience. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
operators to diagnose the current manufacturing process at any time and make necessary adjustments.
as needed
• usability - it has the ability
to quickly identify and solve network and subscriber performance issues, providing comprehensive capture and analysis as required by offsite engineers.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
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www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
DEVELOPMENTS
Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses. – George W. Carver
We have all the design tools, now we need the good ideas
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echnology has evolved to the point where we have all the tools to take an idea for a product to the prototype stage in a very short time. This is thanks to 3D design and 3D printing methods. We can now make a prototype that closely resembles the final product in form and function. Depending on our budget, we can even make it in metal. The 3D design and 3D printing can make a component in one piece that is not possible by machining or casting. The sky is the limit in the complexity of what you can design with the 3D tools, but is this helping us now? Because we have all these tools and clever people who know how to operate them, the tool operator is often also given the task to come up with the design. A builder knows how to use a hammer, but not necessarily how to design a house, but if you work long enough building houses you get to know how to design a house that is easy to build. It is called experience in the real world. Operating a 3D CAD and 3D printing tool may not be very useful without such real world experience. The end result may look good, but is it practical, reliable, easy to use, and economical to make? A coloured 3D picture may look good, but will it work? Complexity of design often increases the production cost and reduces the reliability of the product. Thus we need to go back to the drawing board and make it simple or ‘the best design possible’. My trade teacher had the mantra that “Making a complicated product is simple; making a simple product is complicated!” Thinking about design, function, looks and ability and making the product for a reasonable cost is time consuming. Add simplicity to the mix and you lengthen the design time again. Why? Because good ideas take time to formulate in the brain. The other question of course is, what do we mean by a simple
design? The definition can be http:// www.fastcodesign.com/1665375/ the-6-pillars-of-steve-jobss-designphilosophy The definition that I use is: Made so it is easy to use, reliable, durable and economic over its lifetime and with the minimum carbon footprint. The interpretation of a simple design can also be ’the best design possible’ for the user. Why is it that simple designs are often ignored or put aside as stupid? Because if something works really well, we do not notice it. When something hinders us in our actions we take notice, and often accept that this is just the way it is. Have you ever tried to open a door with a round door knob? You probably think nothing of it, but it is a lot harder than using a lever door handle. If we do not notice it is also not rewarded. Some things are so good in design that we do not see them. Products that are simple in design usually last a lot longer, so our consumer driven economy is not interested in them. Ignoring a simple design is also done because the product can be harder to make in small quantities, requiring special jigs, tools, specialised skill or machines. For instance welding parts together is easier done then pressing them out of plate. Time pressure is also a hindrance to finding the best possible solution. Creative thinking is best done when there is no time pressure, and when you are relaxed. Creating a simple (best possible) design is hard work, and takes time and discipline. It also requires a
“Making a complicated product is simple; making a simple product is complicated!”
KEVIN KEVANY
09 520 5206 kevwrite@xtra.co.nz www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
PETER ISSAC
06 340 8134 peter.isaac@xtra.co.nz
designer who likes solving problems. Solving a problem is often a small portion of the equation; recognising there is a problem is the hard part. Some people see problems where others don’t even want to believe there is a problem. The door opens, so what is wrong with the round knob! Probably nothing until you have arthritis in your hands. Defining the problem is the second step If it is not clearly defined what the problem is, we may end up finding a solution that is not the best design possible. For example, I was asked to design a system to connect square fully enclosed steel containers to each other, but not use bolts and nuts. The actual requirement was: A lay person should be able to connect and disconnect these containers without the need for special tools or having to find the bolts and nuts. Finding out what the client / user needs If you are lucky you have a client
DAVID BURKE-KENNEDY 09 473 8635 dbk@compublicity.co.nz
– Aaldert Verplanke,
Mechanical Design Engineer. aaldert@slingshot.co.nz who has his requirements clearly formulated and defined. Often they have an idea and start designing the concept themselves. Going along with the client’s idea can be a good way to find out what the core issues are. Critically rethinking the idea and starting from scratch can lead to a totally different approach. In the sample of the container connection, the idea of not allowing bolts and nuts proved to be a hindrance to a workable solution. A solution was found after reformulating the client’s requirement. Easy to assemble and no loose parts needed, and using common available tools to assemble and dis-assemble the structure. The solution was found. No loose parts were involved, as the connecting system is secured inside the container as intended by the client.
SANDRA LUKEY 021 2262 858
sandra@shinegroup.co.nz
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill
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DEVELOPMENTS
East Tamaki company opens most modern manufacturing facility
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any businesses provide warranties on their products, but there canít be many that are required to provide a 100year warranty on their work. Thatís one of the challenges facing Wilson Tunnelling when it comes to the Waterview Connection project. The East Tamaki-based company has been involved in the project since the very beginning and will be producing the more than 24,000 concrete segments that are needed to line the motorway tunnels. All of them will be produced at a brand new, 6000m2 precast concrete manufacturing facility in East Tamaki, using a lot of locally produced aggregate and cement. Since 2009/10, the project has increased the companyís workforce from 90 to around 200, 70 of whom have been employed specifically to run the new factory and have been drawn almost exclusively from the local area. “We’ve been in East Tamaki for about 10 years now,” says Wilson Group business manager Dan Wilson. “So being able to employ local people is quite a big driver for the business.” Waterview’s twin tunnels are the key feature of the new six-lane, 5km motorway being built to connect the southwestern and northwestern motorways, completing Auckland’s
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The Waterview Connection project involves very big numbers, especially when it comes to the amount of concrete components it requires, and producing those components is Wilson Tunnellingís job. To do this, theyíll be utilising their brand new East Tamaki factory.
48km-long Western Ring Route. It has been deemed one of the governmentís seven ‘Roads of National Significance’. The lining of these tunnels comprises 2414, 14m-diameter rings of concrete which each include 10 individual segments. Production of these rings began in August and itís expected that 180 of them will be completed by the time ‘Alice’ – the project’s tunnel boring machine – is
launched later this year. A new ring will be installed after every 2m is excavated. It is a huge undertaking and Wilson says the international exposure that Wilson Tunnelling is getting is a major plus. “For a private company of medium size to be involved with large multi national companies and international groups – it’s fantastic for us.”
The precast factory is the largest of its kind in Australasia and includes some of the most up to date concrete batching and moulding equipment in the world. ‘Alice’ is the ninth biggest tunnel boring machine in the world. The factory will also manufacture 2400 culvert units to go beneath the motorway that will run through the tunnels and 279, 1500mm deep bridge beams for new ramps at the Great North Road motorway interchange on State Highway 16. The Waterview Connection project is expected to be completed in 2017. By the numbers – • 2.4km twin Waterview tunnels • 2414 concrete lining rings • 14m ring diameter • 24,040 tunnel lining segments • 93,000m3 of concrete needed • 70 new jobs created. • 2406 culvert units to be manufactured.
company is renowned through its global network of Subsidiaries, Joint Ventures and Sales Partners. Delcam’s status in the CAM industry was confirmed in the latest NC Software Market Analysis Report from leading US analysts CIMdata. The Report showed that, in 2012, Delcam again had the highest vendor revenues and received the highest end-user payments of all the CAM-centric companies. This meant that the company had completed thirteen years as the world’s leading specialist supplier of CAM software and services. The CIMdata report also confirmed that Delcam continues to employ the largest development team in the CAM industry, with over 200 people working on the company’s manufacturing software. Both Delcam and Autodesk invest around a quarter of their turnover in product development, a reflection of the importance the companies place on ensuring that their programs represent the industry-leading solutions for their customers. Commenting on the planned acquisition, Carl Bass, President and Chief Executive Officer of Autodesk,
said: “We are taking an important step on our path towards delivering a better manufacturing experience. Together Autodesk and Delcam will help further the development and implementation of technology for digital manufacturing.” Clive Martell, Chief Executive Officer of Delcam, added: “I am very
excited by the opportunities from combining Delcam with Autodesk to create a compelling platform from which to service both companies’ manufacturing clients. The added strength and status that we will gain from being part of the Autodesk Group will benefit our customers, our staff and our sales channel.”
Autodesk announces intention to acquire Delcam
utodesk has announced its intention to acquire Delcam, one of the world’s leading suppliers of advanced software for manufacturing industry. The companies offer complementary ranges of software, with Autodesk’s programs for design, engineering and entertainment able to be combined with Delcam strengths in manufacturing. Headquartered in Birmingham, UK, Delcam has more than 30 offices worldwide – including Australia and New Zealand - and approximately 700 employees. The company’s range of design, manufacturing and inspection software provides automated CADCAM solutions for a variety of industries, ranging from automotive and aerospace to footwear and sports equipment. On completion of the acquisition, Delcam will become a subsidiary of Autodesk. It will maintain its focus on accelerating the growth of its market share in the manufacturing sector, with the added strength that will come from being part of a larger organisation. Delcam customers will continue to be supported by the skilled and experienced engineers for which the
Delcam headquarters in Birmingham. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
WORKSHOP TOOLS
We run a tight ship her...however lately some of us have been getting tight a little too often.
Complete medium voltage range
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complete range of Medium Voltage products and solutions to complement NHP’s current low voltage industrial switchgear and automation offering. From quality Medium Voltage switchgear to long-lasting transformers and market leading automated substation solutions, the NHP Medium Voltage offering can be customised to suit specific design performance criteria and is not only reliable and built to last, but ideal for the Australasian industry climate. Making up the Medium Voltage market offering are three worldclass suppliers: Alstom Alstom Grid’s Substation solutions technology in conjunction with NHP’s local presence and integration capability will offer best of class service and solutions to
customers across the Pacific region. Working together to combine extensive industry experience and expertise, customers will have a seamless network of support, logistics and innovative solutions for protection products, substation control systems and new technology. SGC (SwitchGear Company) Founded in 1979, SGC are world class providers of state-ofthe-art and reliable components and systems for medium voltage electrical distribution. Specialising in medium voltage switchgear, SGC invest heavily in research and development to provide their customers with an optimal product that excels in their ease of use, safety and superior quality. The range of SGC products will include air insulated switchgear, gas insulated switchgear, ring main units and withdrawable switchgear.
ALPS introduces new version of leak tester
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isconsin USA: ALPS a global leader of in-line container leak inspection equipment, have released a new version of their successful Speed Glider high speed linear leak tester, called the Speed-Glider 2.5. The 2 station continuous motion leak tester is capable of rates of up to 150 bottles per minute has a container pitch of 178mm and is nominally capable of container heights of up to 127mm for square containers and 158mm for round containers. The Speed Glider 2.5 is offered at an approximately 30% lower cost than previous similar performance models and provides a 25% reduction in footprint compared to the 3 and 4 www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
station models. The machine offers a higher speed, higher efficiency and easier to setup/changeover alternative to “bottle stop” linear leak testers that stop containers ‘on the fly’ using cylinders. The Timing Screw provides positive container handling and control, in order to ensure high efficiencies and quick/efficient changeovers at the higher rate demands. The system can be easily mounted to existing continuous conveyor systems, eliminating the need for additional conveyors and bottle transfers. Cameras for vision inspection can be placed after the leak tester, with the leak tester’s timing screw acting as an automatic spacing device.
TRAFO ELETTRO A tried and proven manufacturer of quality cast resin and oil based transformers ideal for medium voltage applications, Trafo Elettro were founded in 1969 and can provide custom made transformers to customer specifications through
– Tara
their quality product range. When it comes to Medium Voltage, NHP and its supply partners will be able to provide the protection application knowledge, training, product support and solutions to maximise your business output.
Blow moulding range expanded
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raham Engineering have broadened their range of accumulator die head blow moulding machinery with new additions in both smaller and larger formats which will allow them to service a larger portion of the industrial extrusion blow moulding market. Graham accumulator head machines are used to process a wide variety of plastic parts and are particularly popular in the automotive and leisure industries for the production of floor panels, seat components, spoilers, coolant tanks, kayaks and playground equipment... In Industrial packaging the machines are used for manufacturing closed head drums, jerry cans and bins Their new small 50 ton clamp machine is available in single or dual
head accumulator configuration with shot sizes of 1.13kg or 2.26 kg with side or bottom takeout options. Included is the ‘award winning’ XBM navigator PC Controller with 100 point parison programming and touchscreen operator interface. The top- end machine is now available with either 34kg or 45kg shot sizing. The larger diameter heads (254 to 762 mm Dia) also utilise the GES spiral diverter technology which ensure fast colour change capability. The clamping unit features motorized roll out allowing for ease of mould change-over, necessary for the large moulds that can be accommodated in the (up to) 2.4M x 1.5M platen sizes The re-engineered range of large machines offer a competitive price entry point with GEC’s renowned rugged engineered designs.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed. – Peter Drucker
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WORKSHOP TOOLS
OmniScan SX launched with nationwide roadshow
he newest member of the renowned OmniScan family of phased array (PA) flaw detectors, the OmniScan SX, has been introduced to the Australian market by Olympus, a pioneer in industrial PA instrumentation. To coincide with the launch, Olympus presented a series of seminars and workshops at centres around Australia that allowed both existing customers and new users to learn about the model’s features. The presentations were supported by displays of phased array technology and hands-on demonstrations. Olympus PA instruments produce high speed, detailed cross-sectional pictures of internal structures with a high degree of accuracy.PA technology uses multiple ultrasonic elements and electronic time delays to create beams that can be steered, scanned, swept, and focused electronically for fast multiple angle inspections. They also provide full data storage for further analysis.
According to Graham Maxwell, National Technical and Key Account Manager with Olympus, the seminars were designed to highlight the hardware and software features of the OmniScan SX. Software demonstrations of the OmniPC and Setup Builder packages featured in the program. OmniPC is the latest analysis suite and The SetupBuilder software is used to quickly and easily create inspection setups based on the configuration of the component or part to be inspected. This can be programmed offline on a computer and then downloaded to the OmniScan SX unit. “Phased array has a wide range of applications so we changed the focus of the seminars to fit our audiences,” said Maxwell. “In the Latrobe Valley we concentrated on the power generation industry whereas in Perth the target was the mineral exploration sector.” In South Australia, Queensland and Perth, one of the main areas of interest was inspection of welds for
HDPE gas pipelines. “HDPE weld testing is challenging as it imposes specific limitations on the time-offlight diffraction ultrasonic testing,” Maxwell said. In New South Wales, one seminar dealt with the inspection of composite materials. Engineers perform these tests to look for delaminations, voids and inclusions. “We had a great variety of engineers at the seminars representing companies in a range of industries,” said Maxwell. “They asked high calibre questions indicating that they had thought about things and wanted to make the most effective use of the technology.” At most venues, Olympus ran multiple seminars in order to maximise opportunities. Several of the seminars were co-hosted by the Australian Institute of NonDestructive Testing. Attendees included boiler and turbine inspectors, non-destructive testing (NDT) inspectors, pipeline engineers, plant maintenance
engineers and manufacturers of highspecification composite materials. OmniScan features The OmniScan SX features an easy-to-read 21cm touch screen for displaying the user-friendly and streamlined software interface. The touch screen can be set to full-screen mode that maximizes visibility, essentially converting many menu functions into simple touch-screen operations. The intuitive interface provides smooth menu selection, zooming, gate adjustments, cursor movements, and text and value input. Phased array technology provides precise measurement with the most reliable results. “The OmniScan SX represents a true breakthrough in making phased array technology more accessible to new users of this technology,” said Maxwell. “The SX is a lower cost, single channel flaw detector that combines simplified operation with the sophisticated software of the higher-specification MX2 model.”
www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
BOOKS
Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it. – James Allen
Killing Fairfax Lean Manufacturing That Works Makers: The New Industrial N Revolution
“
By Bill Carreira
By Pamela Williams
ot since The Latham Diaries came out in 2005 has a book delivered so many scoops, insights and revelations into how power is wielded in Australia ... a treasure trove of gems” - Crikey “ Pamela Williams has written a manual for corporate directors and senior managers, who should all be compelled to read it.” - Mark Westfield, The Australian. An incisive, hard-hitting and utterly compelling exposé of media, powerful mates and multimilliondollar deals, Killing Fairfax tells the inside story of the decline of hallowed media company Fairfax, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review. Covering a decade and a half of lost opportunity and mismanagement, this story culminates in Fairfax’s catastrophic loss of the classified advertising market to the internet, as the famous ‘rivers of gold’ run dry. The savage twist in the tale is that the new companies dominating the online advertising market were not just hungry internet start-ups - but one by one, each of the new leaders in the field came under the direct influence of two traditional media tycoons, James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch, both intent on expanding their own online businesses. With exclusive and unprecedented access to both Murdoch and Packer, as well as an extraordinary lineup of Australian business leaders and influential powerbrokers, this is a powerful insiders’ story of the deals, the power plays and the machinations behind the influential media organisation’s decline. A riveting, never-before-told tale of Shakespearean dimensions, Killing Fairfax is an unputdownable account of corporate ambition and arrogance; fathers and sons; old media and new media; and brutal business dealings. Killing Fairfax is destined for the top of the bestseller list given Australians’ fascination with the media and powerful media families. Pamela Williams’ impeccable research, revelatory writing style and ability to get key players to speak openly and on the record makes this a book with a broad readership. It adds to our knowledge of an important chapter in our Australasian newspaper history. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
Tools For Reducing Waste And Maximising Profits
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ean manufacturing expert Bill Carreira wants to help manufacturers make lean manufacturing a reality. He has written Lean Manufacturing That Works to show companies how to create a lean culture by integrating lean thinking into the development and support of a business plan. To help businesses eliminate wasteful activity and free up time and resources to be devoted to valueadded activities, Carreira presents lean-thinking principles that top management can embrace and share with everyone in the company. Carreira breaks down Lean Manufacturing That Works into two sections: One discusses and illustrates the logic of what can be accomplished by adopting a lean operating philosophy; the other describes many of the tools of lean and how they can be put to good use. He bases his advice on the idea that to make money, you must be a premier satisfier of customer demands. How manufacturers manage and balance people, materials and machines is what leads to competitive effectiveness, and Carreira describes a better way to direct overall resources. Since survival depends on being more competitive, his advice helps company leaders compete better by showing them how to pay more attention to what they are doing.
Give Customers What They Want
At the heart of the lean manufacturing message is the customer who is willing to buy the product being sold. Measuring all activity from the customer’s point of view, Carreira writes, helps companies give the customer what he or she wants. Describing the steps along the way toward getting the product into the hands of customers — including considerations of cost and profit, metrics, cash flow, inventory and carrying cost — Carreira dissects the manufacturing process and sheds light into the shadows of inefficiencies and backward thinking. When discussing the importance of metrics in the continuous improvement process, Carreira writes, “What we measure dictates what we do. If we don’t measure it, it’s not important.” The trend being measured is often more important than the actual number,
but the metrics control performance and business decisions. He explains that metrics must also be complementary and give everyone in the company the same message. Also, measurements should be taken of all activity across the entire value stream, rather than only of direct labor.
Waste Elimination
Carreira explains, “One of the cornerstones of the lean philosophy is waste elimination.” To eliminate waste, it must first be identified. After describing how waste can be found in the time workers spend carrying a product across the production floor, or turning raw materials into product parts before they are needed, Carreira presents seven categories of waste that are addressed by lean theory. They are: Overproduction Unnecessary inventory Transport Process Activity resulting from rejected product Waiting Unnecessary motion These activities add cost and do not cause a product to be transformed into a more complete product from the customer’s point of view. They also reduce the profitability of an operation. After defining the differences in value-added (an activity that makes a product a more complete product), non-value-added (an activity that does not advance the product to a more complete or finished state), and required non-value-added (non-value- added activities that are required by the customer), Carreira explains how their costs can be reduced. The rest of Lean Manufacturing That Works shows manufacturers how to map out a lean manufacturing model by doing a baseline as a five-day event, performing a leanengineering analysis, balancing the activity and creating a line or cell model. He also describes the best ways to make a 5S (sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain) system work: Get top management on board and firmly in the driver’s seat. Carreira turns the topic of lean manufacturing into an exciting way to improve a company’s profitability by focusing on small improvements every day. The format he uses to present his lean tips and techniques — a combination of pointed dialogues, solid examples, graphs and flow charts — makes them understandable and ready to use.
By Chris Anderson
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Random House
f the past 10 years have been about discovering new social and innovation models on the Web, then the next 10 years will be about applying them to the real world. If a country wants to stay economically vibrant it needs to manufacture things. In recent years, however, the developed world has become obsessed with making money out of the precarious service sector, leaving the real business of manufacturing to the developing world. The New Industrial Revolution is about how to reverse that. Transformative change happens when industries democratise, when they’re ripped from the sole domain of big business and government and taken over by entrepreneurs. The Internet democratised publishing, broadcasting, and communications, and the consequence was a massive increase in the range of both participation and participants in everything digital – the long tail of bits. Now the same is happening to manufacturing – the long tail of things.Chris Anderson, best-selling author of The Long Tail explains how this is happening: how such technologies as 3D printing and electronics assembly are becoming available to everybody, and how people are building successful businesses as a result. Anybody with an idea and a little expertise can now set assembly lines in China in motion with nothing more than some keystrokes on their laptop. And that’s just the beginning. The Web was once simply the proof of concepts. Now the revolution hits the real world.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
BUSINESS NEWS
When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do. – Charles M. Schwab
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Major new event for Canterbury
major new industry event for Canterbury will take place over three days, 31 July to 2 August 2014, thousands of construction, building and design professionals from all over the country are expected to flock to Christchurch for buildnz designex Canterbury. Modelled on the hugely successful and two decade old Auckland buildnz designex, the new trade show has been timed to take advantage of the huge pipeline of Christchurch work emerging for the build, construction and design industries says buildnz’s managing director Brent Spillane. “It’s important that those involved in the rebuild have access to the latest industry technology and information. buildnz designex Canterbury will give trade visitors the opportunity for direct dialogue with key industry suppliers, ensuring that not only are they up-to-date with the industry developments, but can also negotiate great deals and take advantage of the many show-only specials. “This launch is strongly supported by the industry. 78% of exhibitors at the 2013 Auckland event said that they would seriously consider attending a 2014 buildnz designex in Canterbury. Many were so enthused that they made a firm commitment to attend, and 20% of the space is already sold.” One of those early birds is HPM legrand. “The Christchurch market is hugely important. With the widespread devastation that was caused as a result of the earthquakes,
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Christchurch has a unique opportunity to ensure that the best building practices are employed during the rebuild in order to create future proof buildings which utilise products that will stand the test of time,” says Tom Eyles. Among the innovations that visitors to the HPM legrand stand will see are a track based power system which allows the user to add and remove power outlets as they see fit, to an emergency lighting solution, Axiom, which is monitored from a central computer and cuts out costly and time consuming manual unit testing. buildnz designex Canterbury sales manager Rob Lavender says the Canterbury event is no second cousin to the Auckland one. “This is important to us, the region and the entire South Island. It’s also vital to the industry and its suppliers. We’re taking what we’ve learned from more than 20 years of experience and using it to create something fantastic.
“We’re also working hard to build a key focus around apprenticeships and trade recruitment – wider employment opportunities for industry professionals in Christchurch.” CERA estimates that 50% of the cost of earthquake damage is residential, a quarter commercial, 15% government and community assets and the remaining 10% infrastructure. All of these provide an opportunity to create quality, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly structures, buildings and interiors. “It’s important to remember that buildnz designex Canterbury is a trade-only event and therefore unique for Canterbury. While there are a number of consumer focused home shows in the region, this is the largest trade event the industry will possibly ever see in Christchurch. An event that is very much focused on new products, professional development and knowledge transfer, networking and trade sales.
Among the professions covered are building and construction, design, architecture, property development, sustainability, energy, facilities management, surveyors, maintenance, engineering, plumbing, lighting and landscape design. The Registered Master Builders Federation’s Tracey Bree says, “buildnz is a key event on the New Zealand construction calendar that Registered Master Builders Federation leverages to cement its position as one of the country’s industry leaders. The move into Christchurch is a superb opportunity to network with the construction fraternity in a central location over a good few days. We have always had a positive experience with the show and enjoy a fantastic working relationship with the highly professional team at XPO. We are definitely supporting the Christchurch initiative in 2014 as this will be a significant platform to reinforce our support of the city.”
Xero releases farming blueprint
ero has released its Farming Integration Guide, a blueprint that helps rural solution providers connect to Xero and deliver integrated farm management and accounting solutions. Xero CEO Rod Drury says this is a great example of technology bringing an industry together. “This guide is the key step towards full integration between farmers, rural accountants, rural suppliers, banks and software providers. The innovation we’re experiencing in the tech sector is being applied directly now to the rural economy, the backbone of the NZ economy.” “We have a vision for how the farming sector could work and have been able to work with industry leaders to develop a framework that will make life better for all participants. This foundation will see increased investment in technology
to improve farm performance.” Developers who use the Farming Integration Guide get everything they need to integrate with Xero. It has a full process flow so developers know exactly what they need to do, and when. Two farming solution providers, MyFarm, and Cashmanager RURAL are already involved. MyFarm Director Andrew Watters says “We are excited to have built great software so Xero can do great things for farmers and their advisors. The product is in beta testing and we are looking forward to unveiling it at Xerocon in February.” Cashmanager RURAL director Brian Eccles says “Our online strategy is all about making the sharing of data a natural part of our applications to ensure farmers and accountants don’t have to enter data twice. The development path Xero
has outlined shows great promise for simplifying the process.” Glenn Morley, Partner at Xero Accounting Partner BDO. says “BDO is pleased to have assisted with the
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Xero Farming integration guide. Real-time accurate information, with a platform enabling stronger collaboration with our farming clients is key.”
Do you have a story you want to share? Developments? New markets discovered? How are you finding business in this challenging economy?
Email Doug Green at words@xtra.co.nz and share your story with readers. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
WAIKATO FOCUS
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. – George Bernard Shaw
Titanium Park land sale signals confidence in Waikato region
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he latest land transaction at Titanium Park is a strong sign of continued confidence in the local market. Longstanding Waikato business Shaw’s Wire Ropes has signed an agreement to purchase a 1.3 hectare site within the newly opened Central Precinct, stage two of the industrial development Titanium Park. Shaw’s, a wire rope, rigging, lifting equipment specialist, has been supplying New Zealand’s marine, forestry and transport sectors for more than 100 years. “Shaw’s operates nationwide so a highly effective freight network is vital to the success of our business,” says Shaw’s Managing Director Jonny Schick. “The connectivity that Titanium Park offers will help us grow into the future.” Strategically located just 15
minutes from Hamilton, at the heart of one of New Zealand’s largest export regions, Titanium Park provides a gateway to national markets. A key advantage of the high-profile development is its accessibility and connectivity: it is flanked by State Highways 1, 3 and 21, and is adjacent to Hamilton International Airport. The Central Precinct is at the heart of Titanium Park and features fully serviced sites with exposure to the state highway and airport terminal traffic. With more than 5,000 vehicles per day and 300,000 travellers per year using the airport, the Central Precinct is the perfect location for a range of industrial and commercial operators. It is uniquely positioned to offer fantastic profile and a quality business address. There are presently more than 830
people employed at Titanium Park and Hamilton Airport; that number is tipped to exceed 1,000 in the next 12 months. “Shaw’s has 30 staff and is growing with a range of operations across New Zealand,” says Mr Schick. “Titanium Park presents an opportunity to support that growth, by bringing a significant proportion of our people and our operations together at one site. We will be able to get products to our customers even quicker, and having the road and airport connections will improve logistics for our national operations.” McConnell Property Senior Development Manager Aidan Donnelly says: “Shaw’s, with its solid reputation and long history in the region, will be a stunning addition to Titanium Park. This
transaction underlines Titanium Park’s credentials as a high-quality and well-located business park. “Interest in the Central Precinct, with its unique range of integrated, flexible and secure property options, remains strong. Designed with the end user in mind, the development is proving popular with a range of businesses, and offering stateof-the-art infrastructure, a pivotal location, flexible boundaries, and lower operating costs. Not only is Titanium Park delivering an awardwinning business environment, it is supporting the region’s drive to become a strong economic hub,” says Mr Donnelly. Construction of Shaw’s new 4,000sqm warehouse and office facility is scheduled to start mid2014 with completion expected in early 2015.
Heat detection smartphone app hits the market Hydraulic rescue tool set to save lives
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aikato Institute of Technology’s (Wintec) research team at AgResearch’s Tokanui Research Farm is helping dairy farmers decrease the cost of missing cows on heat with the launch of their new android app. Wintec’s Agritec Heat Detection app went live this month, giving dairy farm workers a smart and quick reminder of what to look for when cows are on heat and ready for artificial insemination. Free to download from Google Play, the app has plenty of images and videos to show the signs to look for in heat detection. Wintec’s Agritec educator Dr Debbie Care is expecting the tool to be popular with farm managers keen to teach staff the signs of cows on heat. “This is a really great on-farm tool because the window of opportunity for insemination is so narrow - just 24 hours. If it’s missed then the farmer has to wait three weeks for another opportunity,” Debbie said. Missed heats are also expensive, costing more than $200 per cow, she said. “This great little app is new to the market and it’s definitely good timing. Uptake has been steady with www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
more than 70 downloads already but once word gets out it will pick up,” Debbie said. The app has been farm tested and developed in consultation with key industry professionals, and once downloaded, can be used without an internet connection “It takes the user through the visual and behavioural cues so they can detect heat with accuracy.” Dr Care says other apps, including one to help with ensuring milk quality, are in the pipeline. The app technology is just one example of real-world solutions born out of Wintec’s wider research and development programme. “Wintec researchers are close to the market, easy to work with and grounded in the real world. Myself and Wintec’s other researchers work to solve some of industry’s biggest challenges by gaining new knowledge, pushing boundaries and delivering high impact results,” said Dr Care. Dr Care is one of Wintec’s five full-time researchers who are working closely with a wide number of commercial organisations throughout New Zealand. Download Wintec’s Agritec Heat Detection app at Google Play for free: http://goo.gl/DSrGQV
aving lives on New Zealand roads is the goal for University of Waikato mechanical engineering student Andrew Gerbich. His hydraulic rescue tool is designed as an alternative to the commonly known ‘Jaws of Life’. Rather than cutting through the vehicle, Andrew’s Car Spreader is designed to straighten bent steel back to its original shape. “Car versus object impacts tend to bend the vehicle around a roadside installation such as a power pole, leaving the driver and any passengers trapped inside. The current method of getting passengers out is to use hydraulically powered cutters and spreaders (the Jaws of Life) to disassemble the car’s structure,” says Andrew. “While this method works, it can be dangerous to both the passengers and the rescue team. Another problem is that modern cars are made from stronger steels and can contain high current electrical cabling and airbag propellant tanks which can make it unsafe for first responders to cut a car apart.” Andrew, a former Waiuku College student, began with a machine concept from Pukekohe company Belcher Industries. Along with workshop space, the company also provided supervision from Engineering Manager Kael Roberts, who was a co-supervisor of the project alongside Waikato University’s engineering lecturer Dr Rob Torrens. With a concept in mind, Andrew quickly moved into the design phase, during which stress calculations were completed in parallel with a SolidWorks model to find required dimensions and material strengths. When it came to putting the tool together, Andrew fabricated and
Fourth-year Waikato University mechanical engineering student Andrew Gerbich has created a rescue tool to be used as an alternative to the ‘Jaws of Life’.
welded the device in the Belcher Industries workshop, with guidance from the company’s tradesmen and managers. “The heart of the machine is a hydraulic ram capable of a 10 tonne retracting force. The frame was profile cut from G350 Mild Steel and is arranged around the ram with adjustability to suit a range of small vehicles.” Following pre-testing with beams of steel, they then tested the spreader on a Ford Telstar sedan that had recently been in a side-impact collision. “The machine was fixed to the side of the vehicle as it would be used in service and powered by Belcher’s mobile hydraulic power pack, which contracted the ram. The force pushed the left and right pillars backward, whilst pulling the centre of the car outward as expected.” Andrew says that testing showed that the pressure required to bend the car was significantly lower than the limits of the machine, which indicates that future prototypes could be produced using smaller components and lighter materials to increase usability.
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY
Spectacular achievement is always preceded by spectacular preparation. – Robert H. Schuller
Improving the performance of titanium implants by bioactive composite coatings
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esearchers in Japan and China have tested a novel urease fabrication process for coating titanium implants with bioactive CaP/gelatin composites. Published in Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, the research suggests that titanium implants coated with CaP and gelatin have great potential in clinical joint replacement or dental implants. Titanium (Ti) and its alloys are the most popular materials used in orthopedic implants because of their good mechanical and chemical properties, biocompatibility, corrosion resistance and low allergenicity. One drawback, however, is that they cannot bond directly to living bone, but need to be coated with bioactive materials to improve their integration. Calcium phosphate (CaP) and collagen are the main constituents of natural bone, and therefore gelatin – a denatured form of collagen – has excellent biodegradability and biocompatibility properties. Many organic-inorganic composites combine the advantages of each component, hence a composite of CaP and gelatin may be an effective coating for Ti implants. In a study published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials, researchers in Japan and China tested a novel urease fabrication process for coating titanium implants with bioactive CaP/gelatin composites. In the study, Wei-Qi Yan and colleagues implanted tiny 2 mm by 10 mm CaP/gel/Ti and CaP/Ti rods into the thigh bone of rabbits, while pure Ti rods served as controls. Four and eight weeks following the operation, the authors observed much more new bone on the surface of the composite CaP/gel/Ti rods than in the other two groups. What’s more, the CaP/gel/Ti rods bonded to the surrounding bone directly, with no intervening soft tissue layer. The authors concluded that the CaP/gel/Ti implants fabricated
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Masson’s trichrome surface staining of bone-implant interface after implantation for 4 weeks (A, C, E) and 8 weeks (B, D, F) (n = 3). A, B: pure Ti; C, D: CaP/ Ti; E, F: CaP/gel/Ti.
using their urease process not only enhanced the proliferation of stem cells and differentiation of bone cells,
but also the bone bonding ability of the implants. This research suggests that titanium implants coated with
CaP and gelatin have great potential in clinical joint replacement or dental implants.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. – Malcolm S. Forbes
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FOOD MANUFACTURING
Manuka Health seals China deal
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eading food science company Manuka Health has taken a major step forward to expand sales in China with the signing of a strategic agreement in Shanghai with Chinese company Sunjoy Marketing and Trading. Manuka Health’s Chief Executive Officer Kerry Paul says the China deal is very exciting for the company as it moves into its next major growth and development phase. “The agreement with Sunjoy gives us access to a full range of sales channels with national distribution, not just in traditional consumer channels but the health sector as well,” he said. “As well as looking after distribution, Sunjoy will handle the logistics of things like importing and marketing.” Manuka Health’s total China sales of around $5 million this financial year are expected to double to $10 million in 2015 under the new agreement. Current market share is projected to increase from 10 to 30 percent. Sunjoy Marketing and Trading Co Ltd, based in Shanghai, is focused on sales of high-end, imported food and nutritional products covering retail channels, and the hospitality, restaurant and catering sectors through its national distribution network.
Through Sunjoy’s partnership with Cardinal Health China, a foreign-owned distributor in China, Manuka Health will also gain access to pharmacies and hospitals for some of its functional food and medical care range, such as wound care dressings. Mr Paul says Sunjoy and Cardinal Health China together have “enormous distribution capabilities” with centres in eight major Chinese cities servicing some 340 cities across all sales channels. “There is huge business potential for us in China for a range of Manuka Health products, but we will be introducing them step by step, initially concentrating on east and south China.” While there are about 20 small suppliers of New Zealand honey in China, Manuka Health is presently one of the three major suppliers of manuka honey. As well as its MGO™ Manuka Honey brand, its exports to
“There is huge business potential for us in China for a range of Manuka Health products.”
China include dietary supplements, gourmet foods and beverages. Later the company plans to introduce the recently launched CycloPower™ MGO™Manuka Honey range to China, and other skin and oral care products. CycloPower™ delivers the active anti-bacterial ingredient in manuka honey, methylglyoxal, in capsule and chewable tablet form. Manuka Health was established in 2006 after the discovery of methylglyoxal, the compound largely responsible for manuka honey’s unique, antibacterial activity, by Professor Thomas Henle of the Technical University of Dresden. A leader in the commercialisation of science-based biotechnologies for human healthcare applications, Manuka Health led the way in establishing accurate methods to measure methylglyoxal levels in manuka honey. The company markets its manuka honey under the MGO™ label. For example, MGO™ 100 Manuka Honey contains a certified 100mg per kg of methylglyoxal, the minimum level for health benefits. The methylglyoxal level is now the accepted industry standard for measuring the antibacterial activity of manuka honey. Utilising the unique healing
Manuka Health’s Chief Executive Officer Kerry.
properties of manuka honey and other bioactives from New Zealand flora and fauna, such as the greenlipped mussel, the company produces some 80 functional foods, dietary supplements and woundcare products, exporting to 45 countries. Since its establishment, Manuka Health has achieved compound annual growth of more than 50 percent a year over the last six years with annual sales of $30 million this financial year.
Oops! World’s thinnest glass made by Accident
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esearchers accidentally discovered the world’s thinnest sheet of glass, just two atoms thick. Their chance finding — now immortalised in the 2014 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records — gives scientists a glimpse into the puzzling properties of glass, which behaves like both a solid and a liquid. The unexpected discovery came after scientists notices “muck” on their graphene, a two-dimensional sheet of carbon atoms shaped in a chicken-wire crystal formation that they had been studying. It turns out the smudge they thought they saw was actually a “pane” of glass so thin that its individual silicon and oxygen atoms are visible only via an electron microscope. The glass layer likely was created when an air leak caused copper foils, which are involved in the graphene-making process, to react with a furnace made up quartz, a mineral that is comprised of silicon and oxygen, the researchers say. “It’s the first time that anyone has been able to see the arrangement of atoms in a glass,” director of
the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science David A. Muller told. ”This is the work that, when I look back at my career, I will be most proud of.” Though it was an accidental discovery, the researchers say such deliberately created 2D glass could find its way into nanotechnology and could even one day be used in transistors. The researchers’ observations were first described in January 2012 in the journal Nano Letters. They say their microscopic photos of the ultra-thin pane may help to solve
It turns out the smudge they thought they saw was actually a “pane” of glass so thin that its atoms are visible only via an electron microscope.
some long-standing uncertainties about glass, which is not exactly a liquid or a solid. Most solids when they cool arrange their atoms in a rigid lattice. Though glass is hard and has a solid appearance, atoms that make up glass are arranged in a disordered network, more like a liquid. The structure of the 2D glass that the Cornell researchers saw is
similar to theoretical models of the irregular structure of glass dating back to the 1930s. The research could also yield practical applications, such as by providing a defect-free, ultra-thin material for use in transistors that could improve the performance of processors in devices such as computers and smartphones, the university release said. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
EXPORT NEWS
Success is not a destination, it’s a journey. – Zig Ziglar
Materials made from wool go hi-tech in China
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ith concern growing in China about the health risks from air pollution, a Kiwi start-up is expecting keen interest in its wool-based filtration products when it exhibits at the China HighTech Fair. Auckland-based Texus Fibre specialises in next generation materials which harness wool’s outstanding natural functionality for use in a range of products. An early application for its technology is personal particulate respirators and filters for use in industry. “Around the world, and particularly in China, people are increasingly worried about the increase in the quantity and toxicity of dust,” says Texus Fibre founder and director Nick Davenport. “The problem has grown to the point that the World Health Organisation recently classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans. “There is real demand for alternatives to synthetics which is what Texus offers—our Helix filter, for example, does not contribute to airborne pollution at any stage of its life cycle. It is a natural product which outperforms synthetics and can be trusted to be safe and environmentally friendly.” Texus Fibre attended the China High-Tech Fair, in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province this month, as part of a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise delegation. The Minister of Economic Development, the Hon. Steven Joyce, was also there. The China High–Tech Fair, held for the 15th year, has grown to become the largest and most
influential science and technology event in China. It attracts around 3,000 exhibitors from 50 countries and more than half a million visitors pass through the doors during the five-day fair. Davenport says New Zealand’s reputation as a premium producer of wool gives Texus Fibre an advantage with customers. “We leveraged off New Zealand’s established reputation for selecting sheep that have superior genetics and produce wool with ideal functionality. “Customers who are frustrated with the limitations of synthetic materials are often amazed by what wool can do naturally, such as modulate temperature and humidity, manage moisture and absorb toxins. The fact that it is also biodegradable and renewable is an additional plus.” Texus Fibre’s technologies are underpinned by decades of scientific research from the major Australasian textile technology research centres combined with the company’s own, ongoing research and development. Davenport says that deep scientific capability also gives Texus Fibre an edge in international markets. “Offering products that are natural, biodegradable and made from renewable resources is increasingly important but it’s not enough on its own. Customers also want to see the evidence that they can perform well and we can do that with our filtration products. “Texus products harness the alpha helix DNA molecule which is embedded in wool and delivers
Texus Fibre founder and director Nick Davenport
DECEMBER 2013/JANUARY 2014 ISSUE FEATURES • The Year in Review Advertising • Manufacturing Technology Booking & Copy • Workshop Tools Deadline – 17th December 2013 • The Future of Manufacturing
For further information contact:
Managing Editor: Doug Green P: 06 870 9029 E: publisher@xtra.co.nz
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superior functionality. By using those naturally occurring properties, our filter manages moisture better, stays drier and keeps performing at optimum levels for longer.” It was Texus Fibre’s first foray into China and Davenport says the company talked to potential customers about how its technology can be adapted to meet their needs and find out more about doing business in China. “We were fortunate to attend the China High–Tech Fair alongside some of New Zealand’s most successful international companies
(including Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Gallagher Group, Wellington Drive and Power by Proxi) - a great opportunity for us to learn from them about doing business in China.” Texus Fibre will also be meeting with potential investors while in China, ahead of a capital raising round in 2014 which Davenport expects to attract global interest. Formed in 2011, Texus Fibre has a strong management team with many years’ experience and an established board of directors and a scientific advisory board.
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
DESIGN
The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights. – J. Paul Getty
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Does design equal Trial and Error?
n the never ending effort of finding new clients we often approach manufacturers and pitch our design skills as an improvement over their current product development efforts. This is not an easy task and can be very frustrating because of the seemingly impossible task of breaking the cycle of manufacturers accepting their own developments of ‘me- too-products’ as fully resolved products. Designers are by no means perfect; they can, however, offer a holistic approach to product development with their ability to grasp the requirements of the client while considering overruling constraints. Designbrand has recently attracted a manufacturing company as a new client. Although we are well seasoned as professionals in our field, every approach to new product development and design has to be idiosyncratic and specific to a client’s particular needs. Based on our obligation for confidentiality and not willing to give away a competitive advantage I would like to describe following design approach in more generic terms. One could almost define it as a clever mix of design and marketing, while it is arguable whether one precedes the other one, not unlike the egg and the chicken. This client’s sales department is hard at work ‘sniffing out the deals’. The constant sales effort reveals opportunities to pitch this manufacturer’s product at a competitive price and most often the deal is closed with the one competitor who offers the best deal, combined with equally competitive quality. On occasion, and increasingly so, all the competitors’ products do not quite hit the mark in all aspects and the sales team report back with a wishlist of what the buyer wants to see in an alternative product. This is where an established relationship
with a design company can be of great benefit to the manufacturer. The above mentioned wishlist can be evolved into a design brief which can then be interpreted by the designers. Sounds too easy? In essence this is exactly what has happened to our new client recently. Through their sales team they knew that the opportunity for a sure fire sale was evaporating on the notion that their own product only partially
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fitted the buyer’s needs. They knew an approximate answer to the buyers needs but did not have the resources of answering the brief with a prototype in time which would be unrefined in many aspects. Not all the product attributes could possibly be included in a first trial and the likelihood of having to re-work the prototype meant that the sale might have slipped away. Repeated interaction with the client had resulted in a high level of confidence that Designbrand could make a difference. The designers reacted immediately and, through intimate knowledge of the manufacturers technical capabilities, were able to translate the designbrief into a short series of concepts for presentation to the buyer. Although still quite sketchy, these concepts, when presented to the buyer by the sales team, were sufficient to ‘stall’ the decision making at buyer’s level and effectively gain sufficient time for a more refined concept.
It was the refined concept which allowed our manufacturing client to make the sale. The bottom line surprise of this anecdote is the fact that the cost of engaging the product designer was considerably lower than the cost of a ‘trial and error’ development which, most likely, would have withdrawn valuable labour resources from production. Instead a high quality representation of the future product was key in affecting a sale without compromising resources elsewhere. The designers were able to turn around the follow-up detail design work in less than a fortnight and the guarantee of the sale made the initial commitment to a design fee almost negligible. Besides making the sale through design and innovation by selling ‘off the plan’, the manufacturer has now gained a reputation for a pro-active attitude in a changing market. As for design – they sold on it!
-Jurgen Brand, Principal Designer, Designbrand Ltd
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
REPORT
A consultant is someone who saves his client almost enough to pay his fee. – Arnold H. Glasow
The Changing World o
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nce upon a time, mechanical engineers created designs that were sent downstairs to the shop floor to be made, following a number of prototyping and redesign iterations. Throughout the process, mechanical engineering, manufacturing engineering, component engineering and sourcing worked closely together to ensure that designs were manufacturable, cost-effective, compliant to regulations and ultimately turned into marketable products. Global innovation and new technologies have shifted this landscape dramatically. Designers are now just as likely to work with someone across the world as across the building, and more compressed product Lifecycles have made the ability to share current and accurate product data in real-time a necessary part of bringing new products to market.
How we got here - the changing landscape
Product complexity is greater than ever before. Incorporating electronic From page 1
and software components into traditional mechanical designs have lead to additional requirements, more complex integrations and numerous handoffs. Ensuring that mechanical engineering teams are coordinated with electrical and software design teams requires a more adaptive manufacturing process.
The pace of innovation has dramatically increased
The compressed product lifecycle demands higher efficiency from product development and production. Neither engineering nor manufacturing can afford to waste time searching for the product specifications and fixing mistakes that stem from miscommunication.
Outsourcing is prevalent
Under relentless pressure to cut costs, many companies have outsourced production entirely to global contract manufacturers (CMs). While outsourcing helps reduce costs, it also introduces significant challenges into the process. Without appropriate
information infrastructures communication can easily break down, resulting in substantial errors and delays. The pace of innovation makes these errors even more costly. In this demanding market environment, it is those companies that find innovative ways to optimise the path from design to production that will have the best chances for success. As the nature of product development shifts to keep up with the pace of global innovation, manufacturers must understand that using the wrong tools can cripple a company’s ability to innovate and deliver quality products on time. Even important manufacturing innovations such as MCAD, PDM, EDA and ERP tools can’t substitute for the sophisticated real-time bill of materials (BOM) and change management capabilities provided by cloud-based PLM.
Manufacturing tools over the past few decades
After the rigorous process of analysing and selecting marketable product concepts, mechanical engineers typically transform their creative ideas into designs with mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) software. The output of these designs often resides in 3-D models, drawings, image files, specifications and other files. They are also organised into BOMs. For products that have electronic components, electrical engineers create designs with electronic design automation (EDA) tools. The designs are represented by schematics, Gerber files, net list, layout, BOMs and other data. Coordinating these complicated designs, requirements and specifications from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and software is a complex, timeconsuming endeavour for everyone involved in the project. Product Data Management (PDM) tools are
Kiwi manufacturing success story takes on Australia
or spray cleaner, the household shopper can have a small but important positive effect on the environment.” And that impact will not be confined to just Kiwi consumers if the company keeps on its current trajectory. Currently it exports around 10 per cent of its total product to Australia, but the US and Asia, particularly China, is also in the company’s sights down the track. “We often hear that manufacturing is moribund in www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
New Zealand but our experience is absolutely the reverse,” says Rory. “In fact, if anything, we struggle to get the right number of quality staff to meet the huge demand, and we are confident and optimistic that we are - and will continue to be - one of the country’s manufacturing success stories well into the future.” Earthwise creator Tom Robinson formulated his first plant based product in 1964, and his company has grown exponentially since then. The company employs 35 at its
Auckland manufacturing plant, turning over $9m annually and exporting 10 per cent of its total product. The bulk of its output is sold into all supermarkets and other retailers across New Zealand. Earthwise products are designed to be naturally powerful and naturally kind. The full Earthwise range includes products for laundry, kitchen and bathroom, as well as general purpose cleaners and baby products.
often employed to vault and control engineering files and to facilitate design collaboration. This type of data repository allows members from different design teams to share files systematically, checking them in and out of the vault one at a time to avoid accidental overwrites, deletions and revision confusion. PDM tools are primarily used by mechanical engineering teams to coordinate efforts with each other during the design phase. To prototype and manufacture a design, engineering groups, operations teams, manufacturing teams, outsourced contract manufacturers and suppliers must be included as an instrumental part of a project team. The innovative designs in the form of drawings, specifications, schematics and layout will be transformed into great products only after much iteration of changes have been made, components have been sourced, rigorous tests have been performed, compliance requirements have been met and products have been made and packaged. Therefore, in addition to design files, product information such as BOMs, items, costing information, engineering change orders (ECOs), approved vendor list (AVL) and compliance status is required to transform designs into manufacturable products. While PDM tools are sufficient for managing engineering design files, they are not equipped to facilitate the process of taking the product information from creation, through numerous changes by global crossfunctional teams, and all the way to manufacturing. For a product to be manufactured at low cost, on time and with the quality the market demands, mechanical engineers must collaborate closely with suppliers and contract manufacturers throughout the product development and production phases. This requires that external partners and suppliers have easy access to a centralised product record. PDM tools work within the ‘four walls’ of a company and typically do not support direct access by external partners or suppliers. Many makeshift tools have been used to bridge the gap between the CAD design world and the production world. Companies have used spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel to manage product information for sourcing and manufacturing, though spreadsheets are ill equipped to contend with the
NZ Manufacturer November 2013
Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. – Epictetus
of Mechanical Design large, ever-changing volumes of information associated with today’s complex products. A typical BOM comprises hundreds to thousands of items. It is highly relational and includes numerous associated data and files. Throughout the lifecycle of a product, the product BOM and its associated data are frequently changed and updated by multiple teams. Before cloud-based PLM, manufacturers relied on spreadsheets to manage the changes to the BOM and its associated files, which was highly inefficient and prone to errors. This complicated product information was then shared via phone, fax or email, with no way to ensure that the data was current and accurate. This made remote collaboration challenging, and slowed time to market considerably. In addition to spreadsheets, companies also used a variety of other static applications not specific to the needs of manufacturers, such as Microsoft Word, PDF files and plain text files, to record and share product information. All fell short in effective change control and information sharing. Though many companies have evolved their processes from that point, there is still a misconception that Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems can be used to manage all product information after design - including changes and communication. Unfortunately, even though the final production BOMs, the Item Master and costing information are ultimately loaded into ERP systems, these systems do not have integral processes for engineering change orders (ECOs) or file management.
Therefore they cannot be used to control BOM or item changes or to manage associated files. Furthermore, as a tool primarily for internal groups, ERP systems cannot be used by external partners and suppliers to obtain product information. Furthermore, during the product development and manufacturing process, it is often useful to trace back the changes to specific revisions of the BOM and make design or part comparisons. It is nearly impossible to do so with a collection of BOM revisions in different spreadsheets.
Lack of Product Information Hinders Design and Manufacturing
There is a gap between an engineering data repository and a complete product information record that can be accessed by suppliers and partners. Unaddressed, this gap impedes the process of turning innovative designs into great, marketable products in a number of ways: Mechanical engineers spend a significant amount of ún-valueadded time looking for and compiling the right design data and product information for the downstream supply chain sourcing, manufacturing, compliance, suppliers and outsourced contract manufacturers. This reduces their ability to spend quality time applying their skills to product innovation. When they should be moving on to a new product design, they are still bombarded with questions and requests related to product information, most of which would not be necessary if a
centralised shared data management infrastructure existed. Much of the product information resides and is only accessible within the four walls of a company. Suppliers are not able to directly access the latest product information, making it difficult for them to contribute in the design process. Without suppliers’ participation, engineering may miss the opportunity to make component performance and cost trade-off decisions early in the design phase. Similarly, without direct access to product information, contract manufacturers lack the visibility required to provide valuable feedback on the manufacturability of a design early in the process. As a result, more costly design changes are made further into the development phase. Suppliers and contract manufacturers do not always have the latest product BOM or ECOs. This potentially results in wrong builds, leads to obsolete inventory and impacts the bottom line. Under increasing environmental and regulatory compliance pressure, companies must seek cost effective solutions to meet product and process compliance requirements. To do so, it is imperative for manufacturers to integrate compliance efforts into the design process as early as possible. Managing compliance after turning the design into product may cause re-design delays and cost overruns. A centralised product information management infrastructure is required to bridge the CAD design world to the manufacturing world. To be effective, this product information management infrastructure must be accessible anytime and anywhere by design, sourcing and manufacturing teams within a company as well as external partners and suppliers.
Bridging the Gap Between Design and Manufacturing
It is frustrating for mechanical engineers to create a great design, only to see chaotic downstream workflow and processes compromise the ultimate quality of the finished product and delay the introduction of the product to the market. In recent years, many leading companies have implemented PLM solutions to help remove obstacles to product information management and sharing, encourage collaboration, and improve the overall design to product process. With increasingly broad market adoption in the past few years, these types of solutions are effective tools that bridge the gap between the CAD design world and the manufacturing world.
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REPORT
Once PLM is implemented, internal and external project teams are able to collaborate effectively in the definition, management and distribution of product and compliance information throughout the product lifecycle. Teams can also define, organize and automate workflows and processes from design to production. Specifically: *Teams have selective access to the latest design files and product information at anytime and from anywhere. Mechanical engineers no longer need to spend time locating, compiling and communicating product information in order to field requests from downstream groups. This improves their productivity and allows them to focus on their core responsibilities: designing innovative products. *Automated change control processes ensure that all product and process data and documents are under revision control. All document originators, actions, approvals, signatures, decisions and supporting documentation can be tracked and recorded. This simplifies the ECO process for project teams, including mechanical engineers, and reduces ECO cycle time. Similarly, with direct access to product information, contract manufacturers are able to provide feedback on the manufacturability of a design and suggest potential cost saving alternatives. Ultimately, design engineers can more fully leverage contract manufacturers’ expertise, which has been accumulated from working with hundreds of product companies. Engineering and operations teams are able to manage the Item Master file across multiple BOMs to maximise parts reuse and lower overall product cost. Compliance management can be directly integrated with these solutions in order to efficiently track, document and report on compliance. In an outsourced environment, companies are able to assess compliance risks of all outsourced activities, implement necessary control and create documentation to establish an audit trail. Traditional client/server PLM software does not solve supplier communication difficulty and is expensive in terms of hardware, software and IT resource requirements. Arena designed BOMControl specifically to enable product companies to share data and collaborate with their suppliers in real time. With full product specifications, associated documentation and extensive change history available securely to your extended supply chain, BOMControl is the next generation of PLM, and is used by innovative manufacturers of all sizes and stages of development.
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
FOOD MANUFACTURING
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Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason that it will. – Author Unknown
The Great Green invention that’s set to go global
reenBottle, a small British company that’s invented the world’s first paper milk bottle, is celebrating a landmark business achievement by selling its 100,000th bottle, making it one of the fastest selling green packaging solutions in the UK and a potential world beating export. And now the unique invention, which is currently on successful trial providing milk in Asda stores in the South West, is being unveiled as the world’s first paper wine bottle. GreenBottle has developed a prototype paper bottle for wine and is currently in talks with supermarkets and wine producers to make it available to the British public as early as next year. Since its launch earlier this year in Asda stores, consumer reaction to GreenBottle’s paper milk bottle has been spectacular. In a six-month test market sales of milk sold in GreenBottles more than tripled compared to previous sales in conventional plastic bottles. Post-usage research indicates that over 80% of consumers who try From page 1
GreenBottle prefer it over plastic bottles, and instantly understand the environmental benefits it brings. Each day, over 15 million plastic bottles are used in the UK and the vast majority of these, whether sent for recycling or not, are ultimately destined for landfill, where, because they do not decompose, they will persist for up to 500 years. GreenBottles use less than a third of the plastic of conventional milk bottles, with a much lower carbon
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wo environmentally focussed Kiwi businesses, EcoChill and Ceres Enterprises, have come together to create the first ‘green-rated’ cold storage facility in New Zealand. Manufacturing novel refrigeration systems for supermarkets, coolstores and processing plants, EcoChill uses natural gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), propane and water as the coolants. With such a passion for keeping New Zealand cool and green,
it has now helped Ceres Enterprises with their new ‘green home’. “When first researching refrigeration solutions for our organic produce, we came across EcoChill and it felt such a natural fit,” says David King, Director at Ceres Enterprises. “Our brief to EcoChill was to create a cool room with a volume of over 2550m3, capable of operating down to 20C.” Matthew Darby, owner of EcoChill, says: “Traditionally,
a system of this size requires a significant quantity (30+ kg) of synthetic greenhouse gases, posing massive global warming potential, and significantly more electrical input (for defrosting).” “What EcoChill created is a system that not only meets the operating requirements but uses 80% less refrigerants with no electrical defrost requirements whatsoever. In addition, the refrigerant used is a natural substance.”
Is manufacturing important?
which have the lowest values are Cotton, Rice, Soy and Others (-2.3 ECI) and Oil (-2.1 ECI). We can also compare each countries ECI value, New Zealand is ranked 48th with an ECI of 0.27. When we compare New Zealand value with countries who value manufacturing highly, we score much lower: Japan (2.3 ECI), Germany (2.0 ECI) and Switzerland (1.9 ECI). This is important because complex enterprises have positive flow on effects which build network effects. This means having access to all the business activities and services needed to provide all the products and services needed to support different supply chains, manufacturing activities and production processes.
Generally those economies which are successful are complex and diverse in nature. The Economic Complexity Index (ECI) measures the complexity within a country, and also what individual industries contribute to that complexity. Activities which contribute the most to economic complexity are Machinery (2.54 ECI), Chemicals and Health (2.52 ECI) and Electronics (2.25 ECI), whereas the industries
We often heard the post-industrialist view that an economy can prosper by shifting the “dirty bits”, production, offshore.
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in Suffolk, is now close to unveiling new packaging technology it has developed to create even greener and cheaper GreenBottles. This machinery is truly innovative and totally proprietary to GreenBottle. It will enable the paper bottle technology to be produced in industrial quantities, and cost effectively versus existing packaging. It is attracting worldwide interest in the drinks, dairy and detergents industries.
Organic manufacturer keeps cool
manufacturing has the flow on effect of supporting 2 – 3 other jobs in the economy. It also has high flow on effects in terms of economic activity, for every $1 of value added in the manufacturing sector, $1.40 of value is added else where in the economy. It is also important to consider the type or quality of jobs which manufacturing provides. Manufacturing jobs are higher than average incomes, so the more jobs in manufacturing the higher our general living standards will be. Manufacturing jobs of necessity require higher skill levels, higher levels of innovation in all aspects of the system. Without these jobs in an economy, we should expect to experience the loss of people looking for innovative roles, further eroding our future capacity in many skilled and innovative areas. We lose the talent war.
Manufacturing drives complexity
footprint. The paper bottle itself is compostable, can be recycled several times and decomposes in just a matter of weeks. The revolutionary packaging is made of paper with a thin plastic lining and was the brainchild of Suffolk inventor Martin Myerscough following a chance conversation with a waste tip supervisor worried about the growing and seemingly insoluble problem of plastic bottle waste. The Woodbridge-based company,
Manufacturing fuels innovation
Manufacturing has a high expenditure on research and development; it is the sector which actively develops science, engineering, products and innovation, which have future benefits in improving knowledge which then contributes to new product and service development. Our economy desperately needs such innovation to sustain future growth and economic wellbeing. If our manufacturing capability is neglected and we must rely more and more on simple commodities; our future will be poorer. We often heard the postindustrialist view that an economy can prosper by shifting the “dirty bits”, production, offshore, while keeping “shiny bits’, research and development, marketing and the like onshore. While this can work for some industries to a point, to capture all the benefits and continually improve the processes and create new products, production needs proximity to the other parts of the manufacturing process, particularly in low volume niche products. This production (“dirty bits”) don’t matter mindset extends to the belief that an economy can increasing rely largely on services, but this ignores the huge co-dependence which the service sectors have with manufacturing.
Manufacturing firms both demand and supply a large proportion of the services in any economy.
What does this mean for New Zealand?
The contribution of manufacturing to the community and the importance of manufacturing to the economy needs widespread recognition; it needs to become part of our culture. What we don’t value we don’t fight for. Is it inconceivable that schools in Germany would ever have allowed metalwork and woodwork slip from the school curriculum, but in New Zealand who cares? The ECI numbers above speak to this issue. What we have right now is a bias to offshore activity, to regress towards the commodity end of the value chain. All the talk about value-add is meaningless when our track record and policy settings demonstrate, in general, the opposite. Falling complexity, more reliance on simple commodity outputs is not the road to a prosperous future. The bias needs to shift in favour of increasing complexity and greater added value, for that to happen we need see the cultural shift that sees manufacturing as vital, not an optional extra. From there the necessary policy changes that will create an environment where manufacturing investment makes sense are largely obvious.
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ENERGY REPORT RSB certification for waste-gas to biofuel process S The will to win means nothing if you haven’t the will to prepare. – Juma Ikangaa
hougang LanzaTech New Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd. and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials Services Foundation, the implementing entity of the RSB, has announced that Beijing Shougang LanzaTech New Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd. has earned RSB’s sustainability certification for the joint venture’s facility that converts waste steel mill gases to sustainable biofuels. The RSB is a global sustainability standard and certification system for biofuels and biomaterials production. The facility, which utilizes LanzaTech technology, is the first RSB-certified biofuel plant in China, and the first of its kind anywhere to receive this key certification for industrial carbon capture and utilization. “The joint venture uses a process that creates a sustainable biofuel and does so by efficiently reusing greenhouse gases that would have otherwise been released into the atmosphere,” said Peter Ryus, RSB Services’ CEO. “This solution, which does not impact the food chain or land use, meets the RSB principles and practices and serves as an example of how continued innovation in the industry will lead to sustainable biofuels in the future. We are honored to be working with LanzaTech and their joint venture partners on greenhouse gas reduction and global sustainability improvements.” RSB certification shows the joint venture’s commitment to environmental improvements through a novel biological approach that converts waste carbon emissions from steelmaking into biofuels and chemicals. Using the RSB methodology and assumptions based on commercial production, it is estimated that ethanol from the process may reduce life cycle greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent compared to petroleum fuels. In addition, the joint venture partners anticipate that the process will improve local air quality by materially reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate emissions. The technology has the potential of making a significant global impact by reusing up to 150 million tonnes of CO2 from the global steel industry alone. The use of novel gas fermentation technology to convert industrial waste gases into biofuels is aligned perfectly with the RSB Principles and Criteria, which go beyond greenhouse gas emissions reductions to focus on economic and social sustainability.
Shougang is a large enterprise group.
By using a widely available waste resource located in areas typically unsuitable for agriculture, LanzaTech’s process reduces overall emissions without negatively impacting the food chain or causing land use changes. By enabling the production of fuels from available steelmaking waste, Beijing Shougang LanzaTech New Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd. will help China balance economic growth with sustainability, as well as increase its supply of domestic biofuels. RSB certification provides assurance that biofuels and biomaterials deliver on their promise of sustainability. Beijing Shougang LanzaTech New Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd. chose to work with RSB because of its rigorous sustainability standard, auditing approach, and its broad acceptance. The RSB standard provides a comprehensive approach that incorporates the standard with other operational, management and physical standards such as ISO risk management and environmental management to ensure every base is covered. “The RSB certification is an incredibly important step for the development of our commercial production facilities which we expect to bring online in 2014,” said Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. “In addition, we trust this certification will help accelerate the acceptance of biofuels made through carbon capture technologies and serve to showcase the possibilities
opened up by thinking of carbon emissions as an opportunity, not just a problem.” RSB is a preferred standard of major airlines globally, including LanzaTech’s partner Virgin Atlantic and the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group, an aviation industryled coalition that is supporting the development, certification, and commercial use of lower carbon renewable fuels, derived from sustainable sources. Virgin Atlantic President Sir Richard Branson previously described the LanzaTech process as “one of the most exciting developments of our lifetime and a major breakthrough in the war on carbon.” Reflecting on this latest development, he says “RSB’s certification of the Beijing facility is a crucial step to ensure this revolutionary new fuel will meet the highest possible environmental standards and will result in a radical reduction in our carbon footprint.” Virgin Atlantic Chief Executive Craig Kreeger notes: “Our partnership with LanzaTech is a key part of our Change is in the Air sustainability program. Beyond our significant fleet upgrades and our comprehensive fuel efficiency programme, this breakthrough opportunity to pioneer away from fossil fuels offers us the best possible chance of substantially reducing the carbon emissions associated with our flying programme. Key to that has always been ensuring that any new fuel meets the highest possible sustainability standards, and we
Jennifer Holmgren
view RSB as the gold standard scheme to help us to achieve this. We’re excited and committed to help hasten the day when we are using LanzaTech’s RSB-certified fuel to power our aircraft.” The audit summary report is available on the RSB website, www. rsbservices.org. The audit was conducted by SCS Global Services (SCS), www.scsglobalservices. com, a leading global provider of third-party environmental and sustainability certification, auditing, testing, and standards development for nearly 30 years. www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
PRODUCTIVITY
Life isn’t about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself. – George Bernard Shaw
Stratford youth captures national engineering scholarship
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aranaki secondary education can take a bow with Stratford’s Connor Hobbs winning the Maintenance Engineering Society of New Zealand’s 2014 Engineering Scholarship. Connor was presented with his scholarship, a $5000 grant towards education in maintenance engineering, at the 2013 SKF National Maintenance Engineering Conference in Rotorua by the visiting Chairman of the US Defence Manufacturing Workforce Committee, Joel Leonard. The Maintenance Engineering Society is a technical group of IPENZ, the Institute of Professional Engineers. One of their many activities is to support and develop engineers, including encouraging career development. Applications annual Engineering Scholarship were received nationally from students, budding engineers and trades people at varying stages of their education and careers. The standard was extremely high, with some impressive
academic achievements and glowing testimonials. Connor, a New Plymouth Boys High School senior student, outshone national applicants demonstrating a mix of academic, practical and attitude characteristics. According to MESNZ Scholarship Coordinator Bill Sole, “The standard of applicants was extremely high and encouraging across the board. We were highly impressed with all the applicants their records and their engineering intentions. In Connor we saw a mix of skills, endeavour and achievements that gives us great confidence he will make a fantastic engineer.” Aside from his studies, Connor sporting interests include volleyball and football. He broke the New Plymouth Boys High School 50 year old senior triple jump record on his way to becoming the Senior Athletics Champion in 2012. As Head Boarder and prefect at New Plymouth Boys High School, Connor is a natural leader and confident speaker. His participation
Connor Hobbs, Joel Leonard (USA), 2013 SKF National Maintenance Engineering Conference, Rotorua, Nov 2013.
in the 2012 Global Young Leaders Conference in New York has prepared him well for the role of inaugural Chairman of the newly formed MESNZ Youth Development Committee, a position he graciously accepted at the conference. MESNZ puts great weight on the need to connect with youth and provide inspiration and opportunities for technical careers.
As well as the newly announced Youth Development Committee, the society actively invites secondary schools to attend the annual maintenance engineering conference so students can experience first hand what varied opportunities exist.. After receiving his scholarship, Connor was able to spend the day at the national conference meeting engineers and industry suppliers.
Hidden strengths for Christchurch heritage buildings
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ika is leading the way with advancements in strengthening earthquake damaged dwellings and making heritage buildings more robust. The company is a global leader in structural strengthening solutions and their SikaWrap carbon fibre system has proved a fast, effective way to strengthen building and bridge columns around the world. Another of the company’s innovative strengthening products is Sika Carbodur which is being used on restoration and rebuilding projects in Christchurch. Carbodur is a thin carbon fibre reinforced plate that is bonded to
concrete beams and floors to enable them to carry much higher loads and to meet new design loadings. The company has produced a short video that shows two thin concrete beams, one reinforced with a single strip of Carbodur. While the unreinforced beam won’t support the weight of even one person, the Carbodur strengthened beam supports seven people easily. Watch video here. General Manager Peter Withell says one of the main advantages of Carbodur, apart from its exceptional strength, is that it is so thin. “Unlike traditional structural
Carbodur in action.
strengthening materials, Carbodur is very thin, only a few millimetres in fact, so it can be easily hidden under plaster or tiled finishes. This is very important in heritage buildings where the interior design would be ruined if the reinforcing was done using traditional large steel or concrete beam systems. Because
it can be installed so quickly, disruption is minimal too,” he says. The Carbodur technology being used in Christchurch has also been used on high profile structural strengthening projects around the world, from Auckland’s Grafton Bridge to the London Underground network in the UK.
Join the maintenance management success story: Asset Details, History, Planned Maintenance, Work Ordering, Work Scheduling, Calibration, Lubrication Schedules, Spares, Purchasing, Suppliers, Document Library, Contractor Inductions, Personnel Training. HEALTH & SAFETY AND Micro businesses to multinationals PLANT RELIABILITY Enquire today for a free demo or trial application MANAGEMENT MAINTENANCE TRANSFORMATIONS LTD EXPERTS P. (09) 299 3357 F. (09) 299 6657 M. (027) 414 4260
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NZ Manufacturer November 2013
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REAR VIEW
It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. – Tom Brokaw
Four million to four billion – a gap too far for NZ exporters
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inety per cent of New Zealand businesses see Asia as having the greatest impact on our economy in the next three years, be it positive or negative. Greg Thompson, Grant Thornton New Zealand Partner, said that while businesses see the possibilities, few consider they have the ability or capacity to directly access that potential. A step from a market of four million to one of four billion is a gap too wide for most. “While SME businesses form the backbone of our economy, on the world stage the large majority of New Zealand companies are just too small to be able to tackle Asia, be they exporters or importers. The scale of the proposition is compounded by a range of other factors including distance and language that are also seen as impediments. The difficulty for these businesses is that they each need to reinvent the wheel on how to enter and survive in the international market. “It’s fine for the Government to say that they want ‘export led growth’ but the reality is that this is just not going to happen without a fundamental change to the way we approach international trade. Not only are most of our businesses too small, they just don’t have the skills or the financial clout. “The Government is to be commended for its progress in reducing the barriers to trade, through entering into Free Trade Agreements and the like. However, for the Government to achieve its goal, it will have to
invest considerably in supporting aspiring companies to execute an international strategy. Our research shows that currently most are just not equipped to achieve this without support,” he said.The research showed that 30% of all respondents felt that limited knowledge of global markets was the one key factor limiting the ability to take advantage of the global markets, while 20% were worried about exchange rate volatility. The balance of concerns were many and varied. “The sheer size of Asia, the cultural and language barriers, different legal system and remoteness are all other factors that make dealing in this part of the world difficult. The risks to a business as a whole, of a failed foray in the international market, are real, with a number of publicly reported international failures being the tip of the iceberg of those which are unreported. The fact that China is about to overtake Australia as our biggest trade partner shows the importance of the region. However, the size of the opportunity is also countered by the dangers of over reliance, such as the
Export led growth’ is just not going to happen without a fundamental change to the way we approach international trade.
Greg Thompson
impact that the slowdown in China had on Australia’s mining industry particularly and the economy in general.” Thompson said that while New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade provide an invaluable resource to businesses seeking to venture internationally, those businesses were essentially on their own tackling the giant that is Asia. “The Government should be investing its money in bringing together businesses to collectively scale up, pool resources and knowledge, and provide greater capital to be more effective in their international enterprise. This is much the same way as some of New
Zealand’s best international traders have tackled the problem. “Asia is a great opportunity for New Zealand businesses, be they importers or exporters, but it is a challenging and experienced environment. Don’t forget that the likes of India, China and Japan have been trading with the rest of the world for more than a thousand years and we are the new kids on the block. “Just like any experience in life, when you start playing with the ‘big boys’ you can get hurt. This is where the Government can play a hand in helping these businesses prepare to enter the Asian markets and then assist them to get ‘back in the saddle’ if things go awry,” he said.
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