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- What’s been happening in our MAKE│NZ Community
- Upcoming Events
- News From The World of Manufacturing
- Other News of Interest to Manufacturers
- Fun Facts
What’s been happening in our MAKE│NZ Community
This week we have an update from the coalface of Canterbury, courtesy of our latest team member, Andre de Roo–
One of the best parts of my role is getting out into manufacturing businesses across Canterbury and seeing firsthand what’s happening on the factory floor.
Every visit tells a different story.
Over the past few weeks I’ve seen manufacturers investing in cleaner, healthier workplaces through new extraction and dust management technology. I’ve visited businesses producing world-class products that are exported around the globe, alongside others expanding their facilities to support continued growth. I’ve also seen manufacturers adopting advanced production technologies and internationally recognised quality systems to remain competitive.
Alongside these visits come the conversations.
Sometimes they’re about celebrating success, sometimes they’re about working through a challenge, and often they’re simply about finding the right person who has already solved a similar problem. That’s becoming one of the most rewarding parts of my role—connecting manufacturers so they can learn from one another.
One recent example involved a manufacturer looking for access to specialist electronic X-ray inspection equipment to inspect a new product. Through our network, we were able to connect them with another Canterbury manufacturer that already had the capability. A simple introduction like that can save time, reduce costs, and help keep innovation moving.
We’re also currently looking to connect with any fabrication businesses using Odoo. One manufacturer is keen to hear from others who have implemented the system—the successes, the challenges, and the lessons learned. If your business has experience with Odoo, we’d love to hear from you.
What has stood out to me most isn’t the machinery or the buildings—it’s the people.
Time and again I’ve met people who are willing to share their experiences, offer advice, and help other manufacturers avoid the mistakes they’ve already made. That willingness to collaborate is one of Canterbury manufacturing’s greatest strengths.
Manufacturing is a competitive industry, but it’s also a community. When businesses share knowledge and help each other solve problems, everyone benefits.
If you’d like me to visit your workplace, have a challenge you’re trying to solve, or know someone who might be able to help another manufacturer, just flick me an email at andre@makenz.org. I’d be more than happy to see what we can do together.
Upcoming Events
ExportNZ have asked we share their upcoming event – China from on the Ground
Join for a discussion with Hunter McGregor, a New Zealand businessman who has lived and worked in China for almost two decades, including in Dalian, Changzhou and now Shanghai. Through his business importing New Zealand meat into China, and his work across a range of industries, Hunter has developed a deep understanding of China’s evolving commercial landscape, consumer trends and business environment. Many will also know him as the China correspondent on Newstalk ZB’s The Country.
The event will be on the 7th of August and hosted by Duncan Cotterill. You can look forward to a light breakfast, Hunters presentation, and a Q&A session providing attendees with the opportunity to ask questions across trade, investment, geopolitics, market access and doing business in China.
If you’re interested in more information or tickets you can find that HERE
And remember, MAKE│NZ members have access to a discount on tickets, so make sure to check in with the team!
News From The World of Manufacturing
Workplace Health and Safety regulations have been tightened up somewhat since then:
•The Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 passed its third reading on 1 July 2026 and comes into force on 1 April 2027. The core difference between the original Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA 2015) and the 2026 Amendment is a fundamental shift in focus: while the 2015 Act treated all workplace hazards with broad, equal weight, the 2026 Amendment refocused the framework to explicitly prioritise critical risks—hazards capable of causing death, serious injury, or major occupational disease.
The second major change is a limitation to managing critical risks only for companies employing fewer than 20 people. n.b. the new act is an amendment. It changes, removes, or adds sections to the original act (HSWA 2015), but it also carries over many sections and provisions unchanged.
Here is PART 1 of a breakdown of the key differences. PART 2 will follow in next week’s Newsletter:
1. Shift to “Critical Risks” (Section 3)
- HSWA 2015: The main purpose of the act is “protecting workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety, and welfare by eliminating or minimising risks arising from work …”
- 2026 Amendment: A much tighter definition of what those controlling conditions at work (PCBU= Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking) have to manage. They must “provide a balanced framework for securing the health and safety of workers and workplaces that prioritises the critical risks that arise from work (including by prioritising the management of those risks by PCBUs).” In Section 22A Critical risks are defined as:
(a) a risk that is associated with a hazard described in Schedule 1A; or
(b) a risk that is associated with a hazard of any kind and that, if the risk occurs, is likely to result in any 1 or more of the following:
- (i) a death
- (ii) a notifiable injury or illness:
- (iii) a notifiable incident:
- (iv) an occupational disease listed in Schedule 2 of the Accident Compensation Act 2001.
n.b. “In subsection (b), risk, in relation to a hazard, includes harm to mental health that is associated with the hazard.”
Section 23 of the HSWA 2015 lists a large number of types of notifiable injuries or illnesses and notifiable incidents. For injury or illness, the new act now lists detailed examples of what each type includes. For example:
- HSWA 2015 – “Serious lacerations”
- 2026 Amendment – “Serious lacerations (for example, deep cuts causing muscle, tendon, nerve, or blood vessel damage or permanent impairment or lacerations requiring stitching or other treatment to prevent blood loss or loss of bodily function).”
2. Proportional Relief for Small Businesses (PCBUs)
- The HSWA 2015 applied uniform health and safety duties as defined under Section 36 to 43 across all organisations regardless of business size.
- 2026 Amendment: The amended Section 17 introduces a specific category for a “small PCBU” (fewer than 20 workers for at least 9 months of the financial year). Small PCBUs are required to comply with the duties of the PCBU as set out in Sections 36 to 43 of the HSWA 2015 only in relation to critical risks (see above).
For example: Section 40(2)(a) of the HWSA 2015 says that “The manufacturer must, so far as is reasonably practicable, ensure that the plant, substance, or structure is manufactured to be without risks to the health and safety of persons;” In this example the duties of a manufacturer of a small business (Small PCBU) are restricted to ensure that the plant, substance, or structure is manufactured to be without critical risks …- Regulation 9 (duty to provide information, supervision, training, and instruction),
- Regulation 15(2) (general duty of PCBU to provide personal protective equipment), and
- Regulation 19 (duty of PCBU to ensure personal protective equipment worn or used by other persons)
- The only exception for this limitation of duties relates to Section 36(3)(e): “the provision of adequate facilities for the welfare at work of workers in carrying out work for the business or undertaking, including ensuring access to those facilities.”
We’ll introduce the rest of the major changes in the 2026 Amendment in next week’s Newsletter.
Other news of interest to manufacturers
•Ever since 2014, the US had a Manufacturing USA Program, aimed at creating “public–private partnerships designed to increase U.S. manufacturing competitiveness and promote a national manufacturing research and development (R&D) infrastructure.”
Supported by the US National Academy of Sciences and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Manufacturing USA set up a Committee tasked with developing “A Vision for the Manufacturing USA Program in 2030 and 2035.” The initiative is based on the following needs assessment: “In the past 15 years … competitor nations have developed systematic industrial policies, linking the economic power of the state with industry to pursue integrated technological advances and to gain production leadership for a host of critical technologies. By comparison, the lack of a U.S. Industrial Strategy or policy has led to under- resourcing of U.S. manufacturing programs …”.
After nine months of intensive work, which included reviewing industry strategies, as they were, in many of the US’s competitors, the Committee recently published its report. Apart from detailed analyses, it contains a total of 26 recommendations, many of which have little practical relevance for New Zealand. After all, the US (still) has a very large manufacturing sector and a government that can print money as it sees fit.
Some recommendations, however, can / could be implemented in New Zealand and would make just as much sense here. For example:
- Recommendation 2-2: “By 2030, the U.S. Congress should take legislative action to define a globally competitive research and development tax credit for manufacturing processes and technologies and should actively explore expanding other tax reforms supporting manufacturing.”
Governments in several countries have recognised the importance of supporting R&D / innovation not only for products, but also for processes and technologies. New Zealand isn’t one of them.
- Recommendation 2-3: “To address systemic capital gaps facing hardware-intensive technologies, the U.S. Congress, working with relevant agencies, should, within the next 2 years, authorize funding and set policy to create new federal manufacturing and financing mechanisms that include patient-capital funds, a sovereign wealth fund with a strategic focus on manufacturing, intellectual property– backed lending programs, coordinated public–private guidance funds, and other mechanisms.”
(Some of) the specific financing mechanisms listed in this recommendation may not be available / able to be established in New Zealand. However, “systemic capital gaps facing hardware-intensive technologies” exist here as well, and thus the need to develop our own financing mechanism to narrow or close these gaps. - Recommendation 6-1: “By 2030, Manufacturing USA institutes should adopt a broad range of programs to address workforce education needs in advanced manufacturing, based on best-practice programs developed by various institutes, including to develop advanced manufacturing curricula, develop online education, create advanced manufacturing credentials, support workforce education delivery, collaborate across institutes, and broaden the manufacturing talent base.
Nothing to add here. Replace “Manufacturing USA …“ with “The New Zealand government, in pursuit of its industry strategy …”. - Recommendation 6-2: Within approximately 2 years, agencies sponsoring the Manufacturing USA institutes working with the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office should develop a unified advanced manufacturing curriculum available online that combines and unifies curricula and materials developed by institutes along with successful education and workforce development programs. Supporting this, they should develop an outcomes measurement and a credentialing system coordinated with industry and aligned with Manufacturing USA workforce metrics and programs.
Again, not much to add. Having a manufacturing curriculum, let alone a curriculum for advanced manufacturing, fit for purpose for both educating and training industry entrants and the existing workforce would be a good start …
Fun Facts (some of them not so funny)
•Since 2002, New Zealand governments have had a legal obligation under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 and subsequent legislation to take steps to ensure that – by 2050 – the country’s emissions of greenhouse gases will be net-zero, with the exception of biogenic methane, for which the 2050 target has been set at below between 14% and 24% of 2017 levels.
The New Zealand Climate Change Commission is an independent Crown entity established under the Climate Change Response Act 2002. Its purpose, as set out in the Climate Change Response Act 2022 (the Act), is to:
- provide independent, evidence-based advice to successive governments on mitigating climate change (including through reducing emissions of greenhouse gases) and adapting to the effects of climate change.
- monitor and review progress towards emissions reduction and adaptation.
Each year the Commission publishes a Monitoring Report: Emissions Reduction as required under the Act. This year’s report includes the following diagram:
•We were told to go easy on the ‘sciency stuff’, but the temptation is just too great:
•(Experimental) physicists can be an interesting bunch. Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist mainly working on spark and ballistic shock-waves and supersonic fluid mechanics; hence we still express the speed of fast-moving objects in the air as the Mach Number. But, as was the case for many of his peers, his interests spanned a range of natural phenomena. For example, as he discussed in a book first published in 1897 and still available today, what would happen if we fed water into the nozzles of a sprinkler (reverse sprinkler)? Mach proposed that there would be no rotation with a reverse sprinkler: the reaction force on the nozzle as it sucks in water pulls the nozzle counter-clockwise, while the water flowing into the inside of the nozzle pushes it clockwise.
The problem lay dormant until it attracted the attention of Richard Feynman, one of last century’s most famous physicists, as he described in his 1993 book Surely you’re joking, Mr Feynman. Feynman tried to tackle the problem both experimentally and theoretically, and failed. He then moved on to working on the interaction between charged particles and electromagnetic fields, contributing to creating a new theory on quantum electrodynamics. In 1965 he was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics for “their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles.”
For the reverse-sprinkler problem, it wasn’t until two groups of US physicists provided the answer in two papers in 2024 and 2026: There is rotation, the arms can move under certain conditions.
However, this isn’t just a matter of smart physicists wasting time on solving a non-problem. As the authors of the most recent paper say: “Hydro- and aero-mechanical devices convert fluid flows into useful motions, force, and power. The operating principles can involve subtle and poorly understood physics, as epitomized by open questions about systems that aspirate flows through curving tubular arms.” – as in this example.
We may wonder sometimes what relevance the work of modern physics has for everyday life. That question is easily answered in the case of fluid mechanics. From reducing traffic congestion to reducing fuel consumption in buses to optimising the design of filters, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a tool that has become essential in many practical applications.
•And, finally, just to reinforce the important role of visual instructions in modern vocational training:
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