Nov 21, 2017  - Fairtrade Australia & New Zealand has brokered an unprecedented partnership investment of AUD$1.14 million to support smallholder coconut growers in Samoa.  The investment partnership, supported by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Business Partnerships Platform, will expand the opportunities for Samoan coconut cream producers Krissy Co Ltd. and the Savai’i Coconut Farmers Association (SCFA).

The Business Partnerships Platform boosts private sector investments with companies like Krissy Co.

This partnership will enable a two-year project to increase the capacity of the supply chain producing the Fairtrade certified coconut cream Savai’i Popo, scaling up Krissy Co and Fairtrade’s impact in Samoa.

“This partnership will increase the income of smallholder coconut farming households in Samoa, create new jobs, and support the development of new Fairtrade products into Australia and New Zealand markets,” says Molly Harriss Olson, CEO of Fairtrade Australia & New Zealand.

Krissy Co Ltd. and Fairtrade Australia & New Zealand, supported by the New Zealand Government, have worked together since 2012 to initiate the development of SCFA, a smallholder farmer business which achieved Fairtrade certification in 2013.

This DFAT support will enable the Krissy Co Fairtrade partnership to scale up the impact achieved so far.

“Together, we have pioneered Samoa’s only certified Fairtrade and organic coconut cream, and have identified opportunities for a new product line with Krissy Co. that will amplify the benefits we’ve already achieved,” says Perise Mulifusi, Board Secretary of SCFA.

The partnership will support the SCFA to develop a new product line of 200-litre sized barrels of 100 per cent Fairtrade and organic coconut cream, ultra-heat treated for export, to meet current demand from the food service sector in Australia, New Zealand and other markets.

“This project alone will create over 26 new jobs for Samoans and increase the income of 200 smallholder coconut farming households on the island of Savai’i in Samoa,” explains Mr Elvis Prasad, Product Development Manager at Krissy Co.

Fairtrade Australia & New Zealand will oversee the implementation of project activities, including the improvement of processing facilities, business management support for coconut farmers, a tree replanting pilot programme and contributions to Fairtrade Premium investments addressing community development.

“Helping Samoan farmers to grow their businesses is a vital part of our work in the Pacific. This funding will enable producers to invest in their communities and enhance Samoa’s economic future,” Ms Harriss Olson concludes.

| A Fairtrade ANZ release  ||  November 21, 2017   |||

 

 

Nov 21, 2017  - Soul Machines says the humanised AVA will enable customers to get answers to questions direct them to content and enable them to complete transactions.  Soul Machines, a spinout from the University of Auckland Bioengineering Institute, is developing digital human interface to Autodesk’s customer assistance chatbot, the Autodesk Virtual Agent, AVA.

Soul Machines says the humanised AVA will enable customers to get answers to questions direct them to content and enable them to complete transactions.

“Soul Machines is advancing AVA’s capabilities, with a digital human face and persona that it literally brings AVA to life using [our] world leading Human Computing Engine (HCE),” the company said.

However to take full advantage of humanoid AVA, Autodesk customers wil need to turn on the video on the phone or computer so AVA can see them,

HCE is described as a virtual nervous system that combines neural networks and biologically inspired models of the human brain that will give AVA “the ability to see and hear as well as sensory systems that enable to recognise and respond emotionally in an incredibly human like way.”

Soul Machines’ CBO Greg Cross said: “Talking to one of our digital humans means you will get the same sort of social responses and non-verbal communication cues as if you were sitting face to face across a table from a real person. It means our customers can deliver highly personalised brand accretive experiences in a way they have not been able to afford to do up till now.”

CEO of Soul Machines Dr Mark Sagar said “[Ava] has a virtual nervous system and all kinds of sensory capabilities so she can respond to the user’s behaviour in real time to facilitate the communication.”

The move, announced Autodesk University, Autodesk’s annual conference in Las Vegas, follows Soul Machines’ announcement in March 2017 that it had developed for the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme, an online virtual assistant for Australia’s disabled community who “can understand thousands of questions put to her in plain English and respond with clear and simple replies.”

Both Nadia and AVA have been developed from Soul Machines’ Baby-X, billed as “an intelligent, emotionally responsive virtual toddler” created by Sagar and his team in the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and which drew worldwide attention when it was released in 2013, leading to the launch of Soul Machines, in November 2016.

This

says that Air New Zealand is also looking at using Soul Machines’ virtual humans for customer service, and it shows just how human they are.

| A ComputerWorld release ||  November 18,  2017   |||

 

 

 

 

Nov 21 2017  -  Liberio Riosa is not one to get ahead of himself and he has grown his export business, LZ New Zealand, step-by-step over the past ten years. But he is hugely energised by a new patent the company is about to lodge which, he says, will redefine the maglev industry.

Continue to read the full article published in NZBusiness Magazine here  ||  November 21, 2017   |||

 

 

Nov 21 2017  -  Synlait Milk (NZX: SML; ASX: SM1) has opened its new Auckland site, which is home to its second state -of-the-art blending and consumer packaging facility.  Located in Mangere, the site was officially opened today by Auckland Mayor Phil Goff at a ceremony alongside all staff. “We’re expecting customer demand for consumer packaged products to increase significantly in the near term,” said John Penno, Synlait’s Managing Director and CEO.

“We’ve invested $55 million into our Auckland site to meet this demand and expect commercial production to start here in the coming week.” With an annual packaging capacity of 32,000 metric tonnes (MT), the new site doubles Synlait’s overall canning capacity to 64,000 MT.  “A tremendous amount of work has gone into this milestone. We acquired this partially-completed facility in May and have executed a significant programme of work to commission it in just over six months,” said Mr Penno.

“We have employed a great team of 30 people to operate this facility and we expect that number to increase to 100 in the coming year as we add additional shifts ,” adds Mr Penno. Mayor Goff said, “It’s a pleasure welcoming innovative, high value businesses such as Synlait to Auckland. The new site in the high growth commercial district around our airport will create 100 jobs in our city and increase the amount of safe, premium dairy products, for which New Zealand is well known, heading to major markets around the world.” The strategic decision to invest in Auckland has helped to mitigate some of the single site risk faced by Synlait with their original Dunsandel site in Canterbury, as well as increasing future growth in business with infant formula customers. “Under the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) infant formula rules coming into effect on 1 January 2018, this second site gives us the opportunity to increase the potential number of our customer brands we can export to China,” said Mr Penno. Acquiring the partially-completed site has also allowed additional consumer packaging capacity to become available much earlier to Synlait than a new development would have.

“We are currently operating at capacity in our canning facility at Dunsandel. Having Auckland in place means we can meet our customers’ needs and continue to grow with them ,” said Mr Penno. 

Registration of the new facility with both MPI (Ministry for Primary Industries) and CNCA (Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People's Republic of China) is progressing well. “We have conditional approval from MPI and we expect to finalise this, along with other registration requirements, very soon . We expect to commence commercial production this week, ” said Mr Penno.

| A Synlait release  ||  November 20, 2017   |||

 

 

Nov 20, 2017  -  AirAsia is the best low-cost airline in the world and CEO Tony Fernandes wants to shift the airline’s business towards e-commerce launching a payments platform called BigPay. Fernandes also believes the first class cabin is going away within five years.  Sixteen years ago, Tony Fernandes, with a small group of intrepid entrepreneurs, took over a failing Malaysian Government-owned airline for $US0.25 and the promise to assume its $US11 million in debt.

Since then, AirAsia has helped bring affordable flying to the masses in South East Asia.  In the process, the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based company has become one of the most disruptive forces in commercial aviation history while making the always affable Fernandes a rockstar in the business world.

What started as a two-plane operation has now expanded to a fleet of more than 150 Airbus A320 jets with another 200 aircraft on order.  And for the past nine years, AirAsia has been named the best low-cost airline in the world by Skytrax and its reviewers.

Recently, Fernandes spent a morning with the Business Insider at our headquarters in New York. Our conversation touched upon several topics including the company’s future endeavours in e-commerce, AirAsia’s move towards fintech, where the airline industry is going, and advice from his mentor Sir Richard Branson.

AirAsia is betting big on e-commerceFor the airline’s next great adventure, Fernandes wants to move AirAsia’s revenue model beyond simply selling tickets and into the world of e-commerce. With an ample supply of customer data, AirAsia wants to anchor its new e-commerce operation around the sale of duty-free goods.

“So when you book your ticket (online), we’ll offer you the chance to buy duty-free and you can pick it up on the plane or at the airport,” Fernandes told us. “It gives our customers much more time to browse and potentially we can create a marketplace for shops to put content on our website.”

According to Fernandes, the average passenger has an hour to an hour and a half to shop at the airport. With the online shops, AirAsia passengers can shop 365 days a year with personalised recommendations.

Further, Fernandes wants to use the airline’s fleet to transport goods purchased to destinations throughout Asia, thereby creating a logistics business.

“If you take Amazon, they started with a website and great distribution, now they are buying planes,” Fernandes said. “We’ve got the planes and we’re working backward.”

Of course, AirAsia’s e-commerce revolution won’t get off the ground without retrofitting its fleet with high-speed Wifi, a process that’s currently underway. It’s an element of the passenger experience Fernandes admits had been lacking onboard his flights.

The airline is focused on getting rid of cashThese days, cabin crew on board AirAsia flights wear several hats, among them salesperson. But due to the nature of AirAsia’s network that spans the entirety of Southeast Asia, cash poses a major problem. Which is why Fernandes is excited to jump into the financial technology (fintech) business.

“We’re so excited about the fintech revolution,” Fernandes said. “We hate cash. It’s a pain for our cabin crew. FX is a super pain. It leads to fraud. It tempts my crew to do things they shouldn’t do.”

As a result, AirAsia launched a new payment platform called BigPay that will allow the airline’s customers to buy products through their smartphones. According to Fernandes, the platform is built with group travel in mind. Which means it will allow people to share bills and transfer money to one another.

Initially, BigPay will also be available with a pre-paid card, but Fernandes and his team are working to make it more app-focused using QR codes and near-field-communications.

There will be a currency exchange feature as well.

“We think our customers are being ripped off by banks,” Fernandes said. “If you were travelling to Bali, [Indonesia] from Da Nang, Vietnam and wanted to exchange your Vietnamese Dong to Rupiah, we would facilitate that for you at a much lower rate.”

BigPay currently works with 10 currencies, but Fernandes expects to up that figure to 14.

Ultimately, the AirAsia boss believes BigPay will be able to expand beyond the airline ecosystem and into mainstream retail.

Where AirAsia and the airline industry are headedEven though AirAsia is thriving, the airline won’t be expanding beyond its bread and butter low-cost economy model. When asked if AirAsia is looking to offer a low-cost, long-haul business-class-only product like La Compagnie, Fernandes quickly shot down the idea.

“No, not while I’m at AirAsia,” he told us. “I think focus is key and we’re good at what we do and [long-haul business-class-only] is a different model.”

With that said, Fernandes understands the reasoning behind a dedicated business-class airline and is baffled by why airlines would offer so many different cabins on board a single aircraft.

“Airlines were crazy to have first class, business class, premium economy, and economy on one friggin plane,” Fernandes said. “That’s four business models on one plane.”

“You don’t have Four Seasons hotels with budget rooms and super suites, they basically have one standard, but with bigger rooms,” he added.

Instead, the AirAsia boss believes market segmentation in the future will see airlines specialize in one or two particular products.

“I’ve always said airlines will eventually become low-cost carriers and business class,” he proclaimed.

According to Fernandes, we will see the end of the first class cabin within the next five years. In addition, the economy cabin on full-service airlines could disappear altogether with dedicated low-cost carriers taking over that segment of the market. This means traditional, full-service airlines could be left operating flights with only business and premium-economy cabins.

The best advice Sir Richard Branson told him during the early days of AirAsia During the mid-1980s, Fernandes spent several years as the financial controller for Virgin Communications. Through the years, he’s become known for his close friendship with Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson.

But Fernandes makes it clear that he has no ambitions to become Asia’s Branson.

“Everyone thinks I want to be Richard, but I can confirm to Business Insider that I don’t,” he said. “I have no preconception of going on a balloon at 36,000 feet nor do I have any intention of going to the moon.”

While at Virgin Group during the early days of Virgin Atlantic Airways, Fernandes told Branson that his decision to go into the airline industry was crazy and advised him to sell Virgin Records. It’s something Branson remembered during the early days of AirAsia.

“One of the first people to call me up when I started AirAsia was Richard who said, ‘I thought it was really stupid to start an airline’,” Fernandes said jokingly.

As far as advice goes, it was pretty simple, yet profound.

“He just said have fun and make it a fun place which we’ve tried to do,” the AirAsia Group CEO added. “But we would have done that anyway.”

“Virgin was very informative in my whole cultural experience in that it was a fun place, it was a place where there were no suits, it was informal and ideas and innovation are encouraged,” Fernandes said.”That rubbed off on me.”

According to Fernandes, this open and innovative culture has defined the company’s success. For example, AirAsia encourages its employees to design their own uniform choices and to show off their personality as individuals.

“If they’re comfortable coming to work, they will be happier and more themselves,” he said.

| A BusinessInsider release  ||  November 19,  2017   |||  

 

 

LINCOLN, Neb., Nov. 16, 2017 - Sandhills Publishing announces the launch of CraneTrader, a website and print publication connecting buyers and sellers specifically in the market for cranes and other rigging and lift equipment and parts. CraneTrader leverages Sandhills' presence and longevity in the construction and heavy machinery industry to establish a niche resource for buyers and sellers more specifically interested in cranes, lifts, and other high-value material handling assets.

CraneTrader.com features listings for various types of cranes including tower, crawler, truck mounted, articulated, boom truck and rough terrain cranes, as well as boom, bucket, and scissor lifts. Listings are organized categorically and include specs, photos, videos, machine location, seller information, and contact tools that make it easy for buyers to inquire about listed assets. CraneTrader.com also ties listings cross-posted for lease/rent to RentalYard.com, the leading resource for rental and lease equipment.

The CraneTrader print publication will launch in special editions ahead of the Spring 2018 crane and lift industry trade show circuit, providing focused exposure at the industry's largest events. Regular monthly editions of the CraneTrader magazine will enter circulation in early 2018, reaching active buyers (including contractors and dealers) through direct mail distribution.

The CraneTrader brand is an extension of Machinery Trader, which has been serving buyers and sellers of construction equipment and heavy machinery since the 1970s. "Our products and services benefit both buyers and sellers by providing easy access to an efficient, global marketplace for specific assets, and CraneTrader is no exception," explains Sandhills' Director of New Products Evan Welch. "CraneTrader strategically segments the construction equipment market for targeted, high-value exposure. At the same time, it provides buyers an easy and convenient way to source the specific equipment they need."

CraneTrader joins the ranks of a global product portfolio that includes a number of brands specifically serving construction, plant, and heavy equipment markets. In addition to Machinery Trader and RentalYard, these brands include: Machinery Trader Auction Results, AuctionTime.com, FleetEvaluator, Fast Track, Fast Track Iron, MarketBook, tp-Business.fr, Plant Locator, Resale Weekly, Maquinaria OP, and Cantierissimo Carrellistica. In total, the Sandhills group distributes over five million publications every month to audiences all over the globe, and its websites receive more than 16 million monthly visits. In addition to providing customers direct access to buyers in retail, auction, and wholesale markets, Sandhills also delivers practical tools that simplify sales transactions and internal business operations through the Sandhills Cloud.

For the latest updates on CraneTrader, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google Plus.

About Sandhills PublishingSandhills Publishing is an information processing company headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our broad range of products and services gather, process, and distribute information in the form of trade publications and corresponding websites that connect buyers and sellers across the trucking, agriculture, construction, heavy equipment, aviation, and technology industries. Our integrated, industry-specific approach to hosted technologies and services offers solutions that help businesses large and small operate efficiently and grow securely, cost-effectively, and successfully. Sandhills Publishing—we are the cloud.

| a Sandhills Publishing release  ||  November 17,  2017   |||

 

 

16 Nov 2017  -  The launch of Virgin Australia’s daily Melbourne-Hong Kong services on 12 November was designed to meet growing demand for cargo capacity on the route, according to Virgin Atlantic Cargo, which provides long-haul international cargo sales and management for Virgin Australia.

Volumes have been increasing steadily in both directions since Virgin Australia commenced five Airbus A330-200 flights a week in July. The extra capacity provided by the new daily service will support the peak perishables season ex Australia as well as thriving e-commerce and courier business from Hong Kong.

Virgin Atlantic Cargo has generated over 1,200 tonnes of freight and courier traffic since the route began. Regular shipments have included garments, shoes, electronics goods, vitamins, milk powder and meat. The appointment in August of Jarrod Paterson as account manager in Melbourne has also helped the airline develop other lines of business, such as shipments of fresh lobster, Abalone and chilled salmon from Tasmania to Hong Kong.

Continued inward business investment in Melbourne is also expected to help sustain long-term cargo demand. Amazon is one of the latest global brands to announce fresh investment in the state of Victoria with its plans for a 24,000 square metre e-commerce distribution centre in Melbourne.

Pip Palmer, Virgin Atlantic’s Regional Sales Manager, Australia and New Zealand, said: “Cargo volumes to and from Melbourne have exceeded our expectations so far. There are a series of positive business indicators that show not only a consistent level of demand from our current customers but also opportunities for new traffic like we have started to generate from Tasmania.”

Virgin Atlantic, which has provided long-haul international sales for Virgin Australia since 2009, also sells capacity on Virgin Australia’s operations from Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to Los Angeles. Shipments to and from Australia can also connect with its global network over both Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

Freight volumes have been increasing steadily in both directions since Virgin Australia commenced five Airbus A330-200 flights a week in July.

| A T&L New srelease  ||  November 16, 2017   |||

 

 

16 Nov 2017  - The International Energy Agency’s new forecast that demand for natural gas will increase 45% by 2040 is a major opportunity for New Zealand, says the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ).  “Global demand for natural gas is only going to grow because it has half the greenhouse emissions of coal. This means that producing and exporting it from New Zealand has the potential to be a win-win outcome for global emissions and for our economy,” says PEPANZ CEO Cameron Madgwick.

“The report clearly highlights the role natural gas can play in reducing emissions by replacing coal in industrial processes and power generation. This reinforces the need for new exploration and development of our natural resources, benefiting New Zealand and the world.

“Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is going to be a major growth industry and this is great news for New Zealand given our potential deposits.

“Much of the demand is likely to come from China, India and other Asian countries. Other nations are eager to meet this demand and by the mid-2020s the United States is projected to become the world’s largest LNG exporter.

“This is an export industry New Zealand can and should be a part of. It could mean more jobs, exports and earnings for the Government through royalties and taxes.

“Taranaki is the only region currently producing but we know other areas have great promise. The recent report by New Zealand Oil and Gas looked at the Barque prospect off the coast of Oamaru and predicted it could generate $32 billion in taxes and royalties for the Government over the life of the field.”

The International Energy Agency also forecasts that global oil demand will continue to grow to 2040. While fuel efficiency and electric vehicles will reduce use by passenger cars, other sectors such as trucks, planes and shipping will continue to drive demand.

The 2017 World Energy Outlook can be found at: http://www.iea.org/weo2017/

| A PEPANZ release  ||  November 16, 2017   |||

 

 

16 Nov 2017  -  Most engineers didn’t go to school aiming to become economists, but that’s often what it feels like once you take on a managerial role. High-performance equipment is expensive, and downtime is costlier than ever.  Lubrication is a fact of life, as is maintenance, whether it’s an airliner on the ramp or a conveyor on an assembly line, and the overall cost of preventative maintenance is always in play. High temperature applications make the problem even worse. At 400° F and higher, conventional hydrocarbon lubricant formulations aren’t enough.

For the difficult environments found in aerospace and aviation applications, for example, high-performance perfluoropolyether (PFPE) lubricants can perform under extreme temperatures, pressures and exposure to harsh chemicals. Often, advanced PFPE lubes are the only solution, but what about cases where hydrocarbon formulations can survive? In this case, there are still strong cost and performance advantages to going with higher performance products.

Consider the true cost of lubrication in manufacturing. Maintaining Lubrication in Extreme EnvironmentsMachines can fail for any number of reasons, but improper lubrication is often a leading culprit. This is commonly due to environmental factors such as temperature, pressure or exposure to harsh chemicals, or due to a lack of scheduled maintenance and relubrication.  Extreme environments pose a significant challenge for keeping machines properly lubricated. Steam turbine controls, for example, will see wear on cam shafts, valve lift bar anti-friction bushings and gears if they’re using conventional lubricants, leading to

| Continue toread the full article here  ||  November 16,  2017   |||

 

 

15 Nov 2017  - Ara computing senior lecturer Amit Sarkar interviewed the top decision makers at 30 organisations that survived the Christchurch earthquakes, and found that Information Systems (IS) resilience was a major factor in their continued operation and successful recovery. This held true for large organisations and small organisations, both public and private sector.

Amit’s work impressed participants and jury at the European, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS), where it was awarded best research paper this year. The paper Governing Information Systems Resilience: A Case Study is co-authored by Stephen Wingreen from UC and John Ascroft from Jade Software. Another paper in this series, CEO Decision Making under Crisis: An Agency Theory Perspective, is co-authored by Stephen Wingreen and Paul Cragg from the University of Canterbury, and was published in the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems (June 2017).

“Information Systems (IS) resilience is fundamental to an organisation’s survival,” Amit says. “In every organisation, if there is downtime in an organisation’s IS then there is a very slim chance that they will survive. Snail mail and paper-based accounting is almost obsolete. So the IS is quite central to the business. If the IS is down, if they can’t receive or send data and they can’t do any transactions, then what are consequences?”

Resilience is widely recognised in related disciplines such as Computer Science, Crisis Management and Safety Engineering, but there had been very little attention paid by Information Systems scholars to IS resilience. Business leaders who Amit interviewed told him that IS resilience was very important, but simply had not been documented.

Canterbury’s computing experts and business leaders have a lot of wisdom to share about business preparedness for disaster and Amit collated this using Q spot methodology to identify not only the most important factors in IS resilience, but also how decision makers prioritise these factors for resourcing.

Successful organisations, he found, had an IS resilience plan and, most crucially, they had practised it, challenged it and embedded it into the organisation.

“Good process means you are taking it seriously and practising it, trying to find the loopholes and debating, learning from the drills what went wrong and how to improve, so that when the real thing comes you are super ready. That cannot happen from reading the plan on the day. The plan goes out the window when the disaster strikes, so this is significant.”

Often basic preparation included migrating data to the cloud – something the city council fortuitously completed just four hours before the first, September 2010, earthquake struck. When there is no physical access to servers, then the cloud becomes essential for retrieving stored data.

Diversity and complementarity within the company was important to testing resilience plans for many eventualities and for practising problem solving. When a range of thinking styles was employed, IS resilience plans were more thoroughly tested. IS resilience is as much about people as it is about technology, Amit says.

“All the companies that survived put people in the centre. There is a huge emotional toll that happens and every single organisation in the study, including Ara, took care of the people, by making sure salaries are paid, checking on employees and so on. It’s a symbiotic relationship. If you look after your employees, they will look after your technology and processes.”

Not only did organisations need to be resilient themselves, but they had to choose partners carefully to ensure they were also resilient. Having robust systems would be pointless if the supply chain collapsed because other organisations were not prepared. This also applied to overseas partners.

An in-depth case study on Jade Software in Christchurch has now evolved into a proposal to develop an app to periodically check organisations’ resilience status. This could create a valuable tool that can be used in different countries and cultures, Amit says.

| An ARA release  ||  November 15, 2017   |||