Manufacturing Ascent
Globalisation has opened the country's doors to a flood of cheap imports, which New Zealand manufacturers simply can't compete with. Not head on anyway. Instead, local manufacturers are having to change the way they go about their business. The last few years has seen the "business" side of business tightened up in the name of efficiency. Business practices have been well honed and buffed, but it seems the limits are being approached. Efficiencies gained from here on in are likely to be incremental ones.
"The challenge is to find a superior idea and get it made."
Brenton Lee – manufacturer
Now attention has turned to the technological practices that drive these manufacturing. While it may have been true a decade or so ago that low cost-producers offshore produced low cost products, times have changed. Our manufacturers are now facing off against competitors who produce high quality goods, very efficiently, and in very large quantities. It's no longer good enough to say "feel the quality". Quality is a given. The clever application of computing to manufacturing has upped the ante. Faced with this competition, some manufacturers are taking a close look at what they produce and how they produce it.
A good example is Auckland metal fittings manufacturer Miles Nelson Manufacturing. Established in 1928, the company has produced quality hardware for decades and is one of the few New Zealand-owned hardware manufacturers still in business. The company's products are sold in New Zealand, Australia, the Pacific and in Europe.
