Manufacturing Matters- Tuesday Top-Up 91

Jump to-

• 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

Firesides. Production Managers Meetings. Site visits.

You’re familiar with our regular events, they’ve been well received and we’ve loved hosting them. But if we want to keep growing, and finding new and better ways to support Canterbury manufacturers, we need to find new and better ways to get together to share knowledge. And soon we’ll be doing just that. With the addition of our new team member, Andre, we’re also introducing a new event type.

Calibrate.

These will be a mix of the site visits you know and love, paired with ongoing working groups. Our host manufacturer will walk us through what they’ve done well, where they’ve struggled, or any topic they pride themselves on. From there, those particularly interested in the topic will have the chance to meet later in a group, hear from industry experts, and work together to develop ideas, advice, and further knowledge that can be shared to the broader MAKE│NZ community.

Keep an eye on your email and this newsletter, because our first Calibrate isn’t far away.

To be top of the invite list reach out to the MAKE│NZ team.

Upcoming Events

AI. It’s everywhere.

It can be easy to get overwhelmed by the potential it has for problem solving, both in your personal life and in your business. It can lead to you avoiding the whole thing all together or trying to use it as a tool to solve problems that don’t actually exist – or could be solved differently. In the past we’ve worked with service providers who are happy to speak on topics of interest to manufacturers, acting as information sharers rather than sales people, and we’re excited to say that we’ve got an event on the horizon that will be worth your while.

Incredible, a software agency focused on helping teams move fast with internal tools and AI-enabled workflows, will be presenting a 1 hour session for MAKE│NZ members. It’ll be a no pitch introduction to AI – demystifying AI and showing real, practical applications for manufacturing businesses with practical examples. You’ll leave with a clear picture of where AI can save you time, and the confidence to take the first step.

Argus Manutech will be hosting the session on Wednesday the 19th. Unsure if you’re on the invite list? Reach out, and we’ll be sharing the RSVP link shortly with new and existing members.

---

Argon & Co are pleased to invite the MAKE│NZ community to their upcoming Christchurch networking event on Thursday 27th of August from 5pm at the Te Pae Convention Centre.

Worldclass Transformation: Navigating Disruption, Establish New Directions.

Join for an engaging evening of keynotes, speeches, panel discussions, and networking where they’ll explore approaches to handling disruptions within supply chains. Spaces are limited so please register online here

News From The World of Manufacturing

•In last week’s newsletter, we reported on the two most important changes – at least for manufacturers in the updated workplace health and safety legislation. Here are the other three major amendments to the original Act (HSWA 2015):

3. Approved Codes of Practice (ACOPs)

ACOPs play a central role in explaining how duty holders can meet their obligations under the Act. Under the HSWA 2015 “The Minister may … approve a code of practice developed by the regulator for the purposes of this Act” (Section 222 (1)(a); the regulator being WorkSafe, who have to demonstrate that ACOPS have been “developed by a process that involved consultation between

(a) unions; and

(b) employer organisations; and

(c) other persons or representatives of other persons affected, or reasonably likely to be affected, by the code, amendment, or revocation” (Section 222 (2))

The amended Act widens the role of the abovementioned from having to have been consulted to playing an active role in drafting: “A draft code of practice, a draft amendment to an approved code of practice, or a proposal to revoke an approved code of practice may be developed by any person, including

(a) the regulator; or

(b) a union or other worker representative, an employer organisation, or a representative of a particular industry or sector.” (Section 222A (1))

These drafts will then be presented to WorkSafe who will review these and recommend them to the Minister (Section 222A (3)). In practice, this will open up significant opportunities for manufacturers and their organisations to initiate and develop ACOP recommendations that will work for them.

4. The Role of Approved Codes of Practice (ACOPs) in civil or criminal proceedings

The HSWA 2015 states that “However, an approved code of practice is admissible in any civil or criminal proceedings as evidence of whether or not a duty or obligation under this Act has been complied with. The court may

(a) have regard to the code as evidence of what is known about a hazard or risk, risk assessment, or risk control to which the code relates; and

(b) rely on the code in determining what is reasonably practicable in the circumstances to which the code relates.” Section 226 (2) and (3)

In the amended Act, compliance with an ACOP /ACOPs confers a much higher level of protection against civil or criminal proceedings (New Section 226 (2)): “However,

(a) a person with a duty under this Act relating to a specified risk in the person’s situation or set of circumstances, who acts in accordance with an approved code of practice that relates to the same risk and the same situation or set of circumstances, is taken to have complied with this Act and regulations in relation to that risk; and

(b) an approved code of practice is admissible in any civil or criminal proceeding as evidence of whether a duty under this Act or regulations has been complied with.

(3) In Section, replace “The court” with “In addition, the court”.”

By introducing this Safe Harbour Provision, the new law significantly raises the benefits of complying with ACOPs – AND being able to demonstrate that.

5. Delineating Director and Officer Obligations

Case law under the HSWA 2015 Act created confusion over where board governance ends and operational management begins. The 2026 Act does not change the definition of “officer” (which includes directors, partners, and others with significant influence over the management of the business), but it replaces open-ended due diligence requirements with an exhaustive list of governance duties (such as understanding high-level risk profiles and verifying resource allocation). It also clarifies that individuals wearing “two hats” (e.g., a working director) are judged strictly on their governance responsibilities when acting as an officer: “If a person is both an officer of the PCBU and a worker who performs a separate or additional role in the business or undertaking, the person’s duty under this section applies only to their role as an officer.” (New Section 44 (4))

This will be a welcome clarification for many manufacturing SMEs where the managing director is directly involved in production.

---

Other news of interest to manufacturers

•With the election looming, political leaders are developing new ideas to tackle existing challenges. New Zealand First has pointed to the country’s “birthrate crises … our massively declining birthrate.” It is also proposing a solution: “The ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ … a universal, non-means tested grant of $5000 annually for the first three years, and for each of the first, second, and third child.”

In his response, one of New Zealand’s eminent sociologists, emeritus professor Paul Spoonley, in an interview on Monday claimed that such financial (and other) incentives only show short-term benefits at best, pointing to the example of Sweden. His conclusion was that “immigration was one of the few policy levers you have to increase the population or keep it growing.”

In reality the evidence on the benefits of targeted incentives (financial and otherwise) on total fertility rates is not that clear-cut, with some studies reporting lasting beneficial effects; see here, here, here and here.

In the meantime, manufacturers in Europe and the USA and, most likely, China, too, are thinking of another solution to the anticipated future shortage of factory workers – robots. Is that a realistic expectation? The internet is replete with videos showing robots performing all sorts of amazing tricks, but as a recent article in the German FAZ asked: “They can dance, but can they also do a hard day’s work?”

There are different perspectives of what the answer to the question should be. One quite enthusiastic outlook comes from Daniela Rus, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in a recent McKinsey&Co interview.

Another perspective, somewhat more cautious, was expressed in a recent paper by experts at one of the Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany; they had a go at compiling a capability map for humanoid robots:

The authors then mapped the actual capabilities of one of the most advanced humanoid robots commercially available, Unitree’s G1, into that framework, and how that model could theoretically be used for different tasks with the appropriate training:

However, as the authors point out, such training needs to be done by the user:

“Showcasing impressive walking and acrobatic skills, the humanoid robot G1 presents a view into the current state of the art when it comes to mobility. Many companies thus aim to identify possible use cases for this robot, but still not many real-world applications, aside from dancing shows or boxing competitions, can be seen. This stems mostly from the fact that the out-of-the-box system is basically an electronic device with multiple degrees of freedom and only the walking and stabilizing controllers are provided. Some basic arm movement skills can be triggered, but more advanced features are not provided freely by the company. Similarly to when buying an industrial robot arm, actually programming a meaningful application is left to the system developers and integrator.”

At a different level, one problem with replacing workers with robots is that the latter aren’t employees, meaning that – at least as things stand at the moment – they won’t contribute to funding retirement benefits for the cohort of workers that went before them.

---

Fun Facts (some of them not so funny)

•Europe is in the grip of recurrent heatwaves and a worsening drought. This has an impact on people’s private lives, and on the economy, including manufacturing.

The plant has now been temporarily shut down due to a shortage of cooling water from the Danube River. As a result, electricity generation in the plant, which generates about half of the country’s electricity, was running at just over 10% of its 2,000 MW capacity. There are concerns the plant could remain idle for weeks.

In response, the Hungarian government has instructed the country’s industries to reduce power consumption, asking major industrial facilities with heavy power consumption, such as car manufacturers and battery plants, to cut electricity use. Hungary is a European hub for auto parts and battery production, with numerous global corporations operating factories. In the meantime, Hungary is relying heavily on electricity supplies from its neighbours through the European ENTSO-E grid.

However, one of its neighbours, Romania, is unlikely to be able to help. It’s Candu nuclear power plant is expected to shut down for the same reason, resulting in both automakers Ford and Dacia deciding to halt production for at least two weeks in response to a request from the Romanian government to reduce electricity consumption.

•Among others, low water levels in the Rhine and other major rivers used for transport reduce the capacity of this form of (mostly commodity) transport in Germany. For the Rhine, vessels can still load about ‌250 (metric) ⁠tons sailing through Kaub, (the critical choke point), according to one industry expert: “There is not a precise point where shipping stops, but there comes a time when loads are too small to be worthwhile or vessel owners are worried about damaging their ships.”

While their share of total freight volumes has dropped steadily over the past 20 years, inland waterways still play an important role in Germany’s transport system and are of high importance for some commodities and some manufacturers.

The images, graphs and diagrams below probably don’t require comment: