BOC has launched eight new welding models that offer the latest in welding technology to Australian and New Zealand fabricators and businesses as part of a revamp of its welding range.

Richard Fowles, Senior Product Manager of Welding Products, said the new welding range is affordable and easy to use, with advanced electronics and digital control that focus on delivering improved safety and quality.

“Safety is a top priority for BOC and our customers. With new legislative changes in electrical safety, our machines now carry the Regulatory Compliance Mark (RCM) required by all welding manufacturers in Australia and New Zealand. Whether it’s small fabrication jobs or automated robotic applications, BOC understands the need to have machines that provide the right power capacity and processes to deliver a quality job. Many of the new models will upgrade or replace products in our current range, designed to deliver the best welding experience,” Fowles explained.

Portability and convenience

Four new lightweight and portable models offer excellent reliability and performance. The new BOC Smootharc MMA131vrd and MMA171vrd models are perfect for fabricators on the go, with new TIG capabilities and voltage reduction devices that reduce open circuit voltage to safer levels. The new BOC Smootharc Multi-Process 180 and BOC Smootharc MIG181 models come with optional spool guns (purchased separately) for added convenience.

Remote models with extra power

Two remote power workhorses, Smootharc Advance II MIG250R single-phase and Smootharc Advance II MIG400R three-phase offer MMA capability. Internal toolboxes contain a Binzel MIG torch, regulator, wire feeder, inter-connecting cable, wire feed rollers, gas hose with quick release, electrode holder and work return lead.

Advanced German technology from EWM

As the exclusive distributor of German welding brand EWM, BOC now offers two digital, high-end machines -the Tetrix 230 ACDC Comfort 2.0 TIG inverter (with MMA capabilities) and the multi-functional Phoenix 405 Progress Pulse (MIG/MAG with MMA, TIG and arc air gouging functionalities).

Technical Manager for Specialised Manufacturing at BOC, Peter Kuebler, said the introduction of EWM patented processes allow users to gain the best possible results when welding.

He added, “Our new EWM welding machines offer solutions for the simple task right through to complex automated robotic applications. We offer users gas, equipment and the technical expertise required to get those tricky jobs done.”

The new welding models include: BOC Smootharc MMA 131vrd, BOC Smootharc MMA 171vrd, BOC Smootharc Multi-process 180, BOC Smootharc MIG 181, Smootharc Advance II MIG250R, Smootharc Advance II MIG400R, Tetrix 230 ACDC vrd (EWM), Phoenix 405 Progress Pulse (EWM).

| A BOC release  ||  September 13, 2017   |||

High-strength 50mm diameter reinforcing steel bars in production at Pacific Steel, Ōtāhuhu.

Steel reinforcing bars made in Auckland for the City Rail Link project are the first of their kind to be manufactured in New Zealand.

The steel bars will help hold up the historic Chief Post Office when the rail tunnels are constructed beneath it and keep water out of excavation carried out below sea level.Difficult to source from overseas

Products like this are usually sourced from overseas, but this proved difficult for the CRL because offshore manufacturers could provide it only in quantities much greater than required.

CRL contractors Downer Soletanche Bachy liaised with New Zealand based suppliers over the possibility of manufacturing the bars locally, and Ōtāhuhu-based Pacific Steel took up the challenge.

Pacific Steel is New Zealand’s only reinforcing steel manufacturer. After successful trials, it has been engaged to make the bars, using local materials provided by New Zealand Steel in Glenbrook.Project more efficient thanks to NZ industry

Project Director Chris Meale said that, thanks to Pacific Steel coming to the party, the project has become much more efficient.

"It's great that our contractor has been able to work with a local business for mutual benefit and that in doing so we have created a first for the local steel industry," he said.

| An ourAuckland release  || September 12,  2017   |||

Building inspection pass rates are improving, but the substitution of inferior building products is still blighting the construction industry writes Alexia Russell for Newsroom

Cheap, inferior alternatives being used in housing projects as substitutes for code-compliant products are the number one bugbear of Auckland Council's inspectors. The inspectors say they are picking up most of the problems, but the work required to remedy such situations is holding up the city's much needed home-building programme. Tradesmen, on the other hand, believe a lot is being missed and they're sick of seeing products that have potentially disastrous repercussions further down the line, entering the country.

A highly successful recruiting drive in Canada by the council will help the situation. There are now has 12 new, fully-trained building inspectors on the job after a trip on which Auckland Council Building Control General-Manager Ian McCormick sheepishly admits selling the country as a package by showing them lots of pretty pictures.

The current building boom means the council's facing a situation where it invests heavily in staff training, only to see those people lost to desperately-needed project managing jobs in the industry.

McCormick says without a doubt the biggest problem for him at the moment is site supervision - having competent people guide and support increasingly complex builds, and engage and manage a host of subcontractors and specialists. "We are finding in the industry that too often project managers are having to run many jobs concurrently, racing from job to job," he says. "Project managers are going into jobs more complex than in the past, and in some cases are struggling."

Continue to read the full article here on Newsroom ||  11 September 2017   |||

RocketLab  are looking for summer interns to join their New Zealand team from November 2017 - February 2018!

Exciting opportunities are available in the following teams:

Analysis  -   Guidance & Navigation  -   Production & Manufacturing  -   Avionics  -   Software  -   Propulsion and the Launch Range.

If you are a third or fourth year engineering student who is innovative, intelligent and completely enthusiastic about aerospace, then this is your chance to spend the summer learning from the best and contributing towards making space accessible to all.

View Positions Here . . .  Please note the positions shown are published on the RocketLab webside and may not necessarily be intership related

| An MSCNewsWire release  ||  September 8,  2017   |||

GERMANY: |  An alliance of German manufacturing technology firms is setting out to establish a global platform for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), with the launch of ADAptive Manufacturing Open Solutions (ADAMOS).

The group want to establish ADAMOS as a global standard for industry and to attract other machine builders to the initiative. The companies involved are machine tool builder DMG Mori, degreasing/cleaning specialist Dürr, metrology specialist Carl Zeiss, software expert Software AG and IT specialist ASM PT.

The open IIoT platform ADAMOS is non-proprietary and brings together the most up-to-date IT technology and industry knowledge. “It enables engineering companies to offer tried-and-tested solutions for digitally networked production to their customers with little effort. Machine tool builders, as well as their suppliers and customers will benefit from this as ADAMOS is a platform service that offers data autonomy and access to leading software solutions,” the official release says.

Says Christian Thönes, chief executive officer of DMG Mori AG: “Regarding digitisation the machine and plant building industry has to set its own standards and drive development. This can only work with strong partners. That is why we are offering an open network with ADAMOS together with leading machine building, production and software/IT know-how – from machine builders for machine builders, their suppliers and customers.”

Dürr AG’s CEO, Ralf W. Dieter adds: “As a machine builder, we know our customers’ requirements and know what is important. In the ADAMOS App Factory, we bring industry knowledge for intuitively operated applications together with the design of digital marketplaces. The ADAMOS App Factory is a cooperation between machine builders and software companies that is closely linked with the partners.”

Speaking for Software AG, Karl-Heinz Streibich, EO states: “Software AG’s technology leadership and digital expertise is based on a total investment of more than one billion euros. Our industry neutrality and global presence combined with the know-how of leading machine and plant builders worldwide form the foundation of ADAMOS.”

Thomas Spitzenpfeil, member of the executive board (CFO/CIO) of Carl Zeiss AG, offers: “With ADAMOS, strong partners are working together equally on pushing digital connectivity. Together we are developing technologies for the factory of the future. Companies that use the IIoT applications from ADAMOS, will be making use of innovative services and thus increase the efficiency, transparency, reliability and availability of their systems significantly.”

Günter Lauber, CEO of the SMT Solutions Segment of ASM PT, concudes: “The growing interconnectivity of production means that not only our customers, but also we ourselves have to change our thinking. We create the conditions for this at ASM PT with innovative solutions for various line and factory workflows for electronic manufacturing – whilst complying with the highest IT security standards. Through ADAMOS we are combining this knowledge with leading machine building, production and software know-how.”

ADAMOS GmbH and ADAMOS App Factory will launch world-wide on 1 October 2017.

Features of ADAMOS include:ADAMOS focuses on close cooperation and the exchange of know-how and reduces effort and cost by making centrally developed solutions and services available to all participants. As a driver of innovation, ADAMOS will constantly be developing new IIoT applications. There is no dependency on external software providers with ADAMOS. Machine building customers obtain machines and IIoT / software solutions from the same source and have sovereignty over their data. This secures the leading position of machine building companies in the digital era. ADAMOS offers a digital portfolio with applications specific to machine building as well as domain- and industry-specific applications. ADAMOS can be deployed internationally, can be quickly implemented and is available as a cloud or “on premise” solution via stationary servers. ADAMOS uses standard solutions and interfaces and is therefore operationally reliable. As a “white label” solution ADAMOS allows participating machine builders to have their own individual IIoT presence. This means that the partners use the central ADAMOS platform but the front-end the customer sees can be designed with the partners’ own ‘look & feel’.

The ADAMOS App Factory concentrates the technological know-how and the industry knowledge of the partners for fast and joint development of apps. More comprehensive applications for planning, predictive maintenance, machine cockpit/dashboarding and maintaining assistance will be made available in the cloud from the beginning of 2018.

ADAMOS GmbH is registered in Darmstadt and the launch companies are all equal partners. In addition, other machine and plant builders can take advantage of ADAMOS’s range of services as partners. Each partner markets the ADAMOS range independently. ADAMOS GmbH operates as a platform service and thus makes leading IIoT tools and functions available to all the platform users. Marketing of individual IIoT solutions is carried out by the participating partners.

| An MA Business Machinery release  ||  SEptember 5,  2017   |||

Rangiora-based Vaico​ is the latest Canterbury firm to come up with new seismic technology.

Co-director Ashton How and his brothers set up the business 10 years ago dealing in above-ceiling installations.

After the earthquakes they turned their full focus to seismic bracing of storage racks holding pallets of goods.

Ashton How, of Rangiora-based Vaico, which makes bracing systems for racking systems in warehouses.

Safety in distribution warehouses and supermarkets become a major issue in 2011 when Canterbury experienced 14,000 earthquakes, approximately.

Like many of the best inventions, the solutions appeared self evident in hindsight - a bar that falls down when shaking starts to prevent pallets moving.

When shaking starts, the Vaico seismic restraint bar falls down to stop pallets in the rack from moving.

"We had many rejected prototypes but we got there in the end. The big thing was to make a device that didn't interfere with normal work and the ability to access goods."

The patented restraint device can be retrofitted on any existing facility without changing the racking configuration.

How said insurers were keen on the restraining systems which could potentially save money as well as improving safety for warehouse workers and forklift drivers - a typical pellet could weigh between 800 kilograms and 1 tonne.

A pellet could contain hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of liquor.

And the safety issue was more imperative in the case of storing pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, How said.

Challenges along the way included finding the right type of steel, which Vaico gets tested by a Christchurch engineer.

"We could licence the manufacturing out but we have to be able to guarantee the quality of the steel and that becomes difficult when you involve third parties.

"We use New Zealand manufactured steel which probably costs almost twice as much as steel imported from China.

"But when we looked at some from China the strengths were laughable and you wonder why they would even make it."

The company, which employs 30 people, has geared up to cater for the lift in business by commissioning a second factory at Rangiora, and setting up an office in Auckland.

Vaico has a distribution and installation agreement with a company called Dexion which has examples of the racking system on its web site.

The company also has a partnership with US market leader International Seismic Application Technologies.

"They are very interested in it and we'll use that relationship to take it to the North American market," How said.

| Source: PeopleRead  ||  September 4,  2017   |||

Productivity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for higher wages and standard of living.

Shamubeel Eaqub says ease of doing business and relatively low levels of reported corruption are clearly not enough to improve New Zealand's productivity.

New Zealand has a productivity problem. We are working harder to grow the economy, but we aren't getting much better at it. Poor productivity has plagued New Zealand for the past 40 years. We have a productivity problem. The problem is not new, there are no easy fixes, and doing more of the same will most certainly not fix it. We should not pretend that any of the political parties have a convincing plan to fix it.

A problem that has persisted for four decades will take long-term structural reform across a number of areas, including education, training, international connections, competition, research, development and commercialisation. And this will have to be led by an independent state sector that answers to the public, not just be ministers' puppets.

Productivity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for higher wages and standard of living. It is possible to have strong productivity growth, but the gains can accrue to a small concentration of capital owners, rather than widely through the economy.

New Zealand has less of a problem of sharing productivity gains, than having productivity gains in the first place. Low productivity explains a long growing wedge in wages between New Zealand and Australia.

Our GDP per person was similar to Australia's before the 1970s. Since then, Australia has grown faster and a wedge has opened up. The cause was lower productivity in New Zealand.

It is not because our economy is different, rather that we are not good at how we do things. We work really hard but we can't seem to make more profits and pay better wages.

Whether we talk about productivity or inequality, one leads to the conclusion that we have low quality economic growth. Growth for the sake of growth doesn't make sense, the point of growth is to have a more prosperous and fairer society - and to ensure that we are staying within the limits of nature.

There has been a lot of research work on productivity – the lack of it – in New Zealand. The OECD, The Treasury and The Productivity Commission all have useful and helpful work on it.

Our ease of doing business and relatively low levels of reported corruption are clearly not enough. Neither is our seemingly well-educated population. This led to much navel gazing and talk of the productivity puzzle. That we are small, distant and uncompetitive in many areas has become increasingly apparent.

Our country is too small. Many of our businesses face little competition and incentive to invest in new innovations. Many of our businesses and the markets they sell to are too small to adopt new and expensive ideas, processes or equipment.

The businesses that scale tend to be global. This interaction really helps, but not always. Exporting is risky and many businesses that have foreign investment are no more productive than other businesses.

What we have done so far hasn't worked. If we want to make change, it must be a gradual and long-term investment in making our education system more responsive to what our economy needs. Our businesses must invest more in training, workforce planning and career development. Our capital market and tax system need an overhaul to direct money to entrepreneurship and investment. We have to keep embracing globalisation to give our little economy semblance of scale.

There is a plethora of policy areas that need to work in concert to make slow-moving and long-term change. The public service must lead this narrative to set out the policies that will solve four decades of disappointing productivity. These policies need to be based on evidence and not tied to ideology. Because the policies have to be long-term, they must survive changes in political leadership.

Right now, the public service is not capable of delivering this. It stays away from policies the minister does not like. It pulls its punches, to please its political masters. The public is underserved by this servitude of the public service to the politicians, rather than to the public.

The problems of productivity in New Zealand are four decades old. Its long enough to move past denial and acceptance to resolution.

| Source peopleread  ||  September 4,  2017   |||

Three and half years ago, Roman and Andrea Jewell, who was expecting the couples  first child at the time, started Fix & Fogg.  Previously both lawyers, they made the choice to leave behind the corporate life and dedicate their time and energy to creating something meaningful, sustainable, and delicious.

They decided to make the world’s best peanut butter.

They love that they make every jar of Fix & Fogg peanut butter from start to finish in their factory in Wellington. From designing  labels to  carefully blended peanut butter, they are completely hands-on throughout the entire process.

They think the award-winning peanut butters are so popular because people can taste the difference in a product that’s handmade by humans who care about quality.

Continue here to read more about the Fix & Fogg journey here

An estimated 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups are used in the UK each year, creating around 25,000 tonnes of waste.

The difficulties in recycling paper coffee cups are two-fold – in their composition and in any contaminants.

The scheme involves Bywaters, facilities management partners Sodexo and Tenon Group, and UCL.

It will include all paper coffee cups, paper soft drink cups, paper vending machine cups, and paper water fountain cups from UCL’s buildings in central London.

Bywaters is to provide the logistics and collection of paper coffee cups to be converted into quality packaging.

It will collect designated bins then bale up all paper coffee cups to a mill where they will be pulped and the polymer plastic liner separated so all the paper fibre can be recovered and recycled.

The majority of cups collected in the scheme from the cafes on site, although used coffee cups from bins are also being accepted.

Coffee cups are usually collected together with other dry mixed recycling bags collected loose in tail lift vehicle, rather than bins compacted into a dustcart.

John Glover, managing director of Bywaters, told Packaging News that typical paper mills are designed to remove contaminants associated with typical mixed paper, and they expect a lot of different grades from bright white to office paper to kitchen towels, magazine paper coated in chalk or clay, staples, window envelopes.

The mill being used in this scheme is designed to remove high grade paper from the plastic coating and separate the polymer plastic liner.

“Currently paper cups end up as a low grade of paper. If this trial works how we expect it to, we have the scope to change the collection method so that paper cups are picked out as a separate stream at our Materials Recovery Facility. This means the cups could be included in mixed recycling and still go on to produce high grade white paper.”

Bywaters’ Materials Recovery Facility in East London is capable of processing up to 650,000 tonnes of material a year, recovering over 95% of collected materials including plastics and paper. The company’s aim to help all clients achieve at least 80-90% of their recycling targets through continuous innovation.

 | A PackagingWorld release  ||  September 1,  2017   |||

Read the latest edition, September 12017, of the Machinery Market here