News

The MET series is a new initiative to showcase some our fantastic local engineering and manufacturing companies, and also designed to provide an opportunity to network, share insights, information and an avenue to support our Manufacturing and Engineering companies.

On the 14th of November we held our first MET at EB Engineering, sponsored by Mainfreight. The night kicked off with a round-up of what is happening with SOREC and how Business South is committed to continue to support Engineering and Manufacturing in the south. Next, we heard from EB Engineering’s Managing Director Greg Wansink and Operations Manager Nick Wansink about the history of the company since their formation in 1945 as well as their current operations and future plans. We then headed around their fantastic new workshop where we could see, amongst other work, Perkinz products at different stages of the manufacturing process as well as their unique and state-of-the-art laser tube cutter (see video here), which was fired up so we could see the quality it produces for ourselves. 

After the tour Mainfreight’s Branch Manager Mark Willis spoke of the growth of Mainfreight and the end-to-end service they offer that reaches right across the world and shared insights and tips on both domestic and international Freight. Mark then joined Greg Jolly (Trends) and Nigel Bamford (Escea) for the expert panel discussion hosted by Sarah Ramsay (United Machinists).

The key takeaways from the session included:

• Important for companies to utilize the advantages of the region: We have more freight coming into the region than leaving. This means we can utilize backfilling the incoming freight as it returns home, great for the freight companies and cost effective for us. Look at the freight provider coming in and the location they are coming from and utilise it by backfilling with your outbound freight.
• Utilize the experts and do your research: Freight can be very complex, its important to do the research and ask questions. E.g Weigh the benefits of using multiple providers vs a provider who can freight the product from start to finish.
• Back your product and service. Although we are an isolated area, we can produce exceptional products quickly. We are more than competitive in several countries with the turnaround of our product often negating the freight time meaning we can deliver quicker than local providers overseas, in Australia in particular. Be bold and back yourself.
• service level expectations are higher in NZ than Australia so if you provide excellent service in NZ you will be able to capitalise on that in Australia, even have the potential to disrupt the market
• Optimise your container. The more you can fit into container the cheaper it is per product. Having an efficient and consistent line of production also makes it easier to plan and therefore maximise the amount of product you can send per container.
• We also discussed the opportunity to maximise LCL (Less than container Loads) if you are consistently sending LCLs to specific ports then let us or the experts know, there may be other companies doing the same and an opportunity to work together to maximize efficiency.