EG Issue 3/2018

Issue 3/2018 And the Award goes to...

Queenstown engineer scoops Oscar® for aerial camera

Street smart How clever environmental design can fight crime

Modern technology, Māori values Engineering innovations boosting the Māori economy

Great Scott Redeveloping New Zealand’s Antarctic base

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Contents

In this issue

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12

52 06 And the Award goes to... Brad Hurndell MEngNZ, for the aerial camera he helped develop.

12 Great Scott The engineering challenges involved with a proposed upgrade of New Zealand’s Antarctic research station, Scott Base.

28 Next stop: Wellington Capital expenditure.

52 Saying yes key to success Meet our Young Engineer of the Year 2018, Jenny Chu CMEngNZ CPEng.

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Features Engineering New Zealand L3, 50 Customhouse Quay Wellington 6011 PO Box 12 241, Wellington 6144 New Zealand P 04 473 9444 hello@engineeringnz.org www.engineeringnz.org GENERAL MANAGER – MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS Bridgit Sissons bridgit.sissons@ engineeringnz.org 04 474 8943 EDITOR Jennifer Black editor@engineeringnz.org DESIGNER Angeli Winthrop ADVERTISING SALES advertising@engineeringnz.org 04 473 9444 SUBSCRIPTIONS hello@engineeringnz.org CIRCULATION ABC audited net circulation for the six months ended 30 September 2017.

New Zealand 11,410 Print ISSN 2537-9097 Online ISSN 2537-9100 EG ONLINE PDF versions of EG are available for members on our website under My Membership.

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Please recycle your plastic wrap – it’s New Zealand made and 100% biodegradable.

DISCLAIMER Advertising statements and editorial opinions expressed in EG do not reflect the views of Engineering New Zealand, its members, staff, or affiliated organisations unless expressly stated.

12 Great Scott The engineering challenges involved with a proposed upgrade of New Zealand’s Antarctic research station, Scott Base.

18 Street smart Why environmental design is increasingly being used to improve safety on New Zealand streets.

24 Modern technology, Māori values How two tech firms with engineers at the helm are contributing to the $50 billion Māori economy.

28 Next stop: Wellington Capital expenditure.

Best practice 36 Refrigeration: a hot topic The demand for cooling is increasing around the world, but refrigerant choices are decreasing. So what are our best and safest options?

39 Get smarter with your data All engineering projects require data, but how can you be sure you’re using quality data?

41 Dealing with difficult people at work Great tips to help you say difficult things in professional situations and strengthen, not threaten, professional relationships.

42 CMEngNZ and CPEng What’s the difference between Chartered Member and Chartered Professional Engineer?

44 Building consents and building relationships How engineering professionals and councils can work together towards a smoother consents process.

46 On track for future growth Whether rail has been in a state of growth or decline, one group has kept working to better the industry.

Shorts 48 The secret life of engineers A new Distinguished Fellow with a colourful interest.

51 Day in the life Site inspections by helicopter and mountain bike are the norm for this Queenstown-based engineer.

52 Saying yes key to success Meet our Young Engineer of the Year 2018, Jenny Chu CMEngNZ CPEng.

55 C-Suite EG talks to the CE of the iconic Wellington Cable Car. 56 Bedside table New Fellow Rosalind Archer’s “must reads” for work and beyond.

57 Review 59 Obituaries 60 Engineering genius

Cover image: Scott Base, Antarctica. Photo: Antarctica New Zealand

Engineering Envy #57

International Space Station

Estimated cost of building the ISS

US$150 billion The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest single structure humans have put into space. It’s a multi-nation project, mostly completed between 1998 and 2011.

By January 2018, it had held 230 people from 18 countries. Generally, crews are between three and six people, but the most ever was 13. They’re transported by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft and helped by mission control centres in the US and Russia. While on the ISS, astronaut activities include performing experiments and station maintenance, exercise (to mitigate muscle and bone mass loss in microgravity), spacewalks and conducting education events.

Length from end to end

108m

Estimated weight

Average number of sunrises and sunsets the ISS sees in 24 hours

16

Number of computers controlling the systems on the ISS

52

Most cumulative days in space by a NASA astronaut (Peggy Whitson)

450 tonnes 665 Speed at which the ISS revolves around Earth

28,000km/h

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This October, you’ll declare you’ve done 40 hours of professional development in the preceding year. You’ll also commit to upholding our Code of Ethical Conduct over the next year.

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Find out more at www.engineeringnz.org

What they said

Editorial

05

We will make a difference

“Engineers will address the complex societal challenges of the 21st century by building a new generation of machines, materials, and systems. We should fundamentally rethink how we educate engineers for this future.”

Ed Crawley, Ford Professor of Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT.

“The 3D-printed titanium engine has been met with so much interest that our voices were failing from having to talk to people about it so much.”

Design engineer and mentor Bruce Robertson after University of Canterbury students won the Technical Innovation award at the Shell Eco-marathon Asia 2018.

“I was greatly encouraged to read in EG issue 2/2018 (page 35) about AECOM trialling school term-only contracts… it is this kind of initiative that will encourage women like myself to return to the engineering profession and make a valuable contribution for our remaining working life.”

Bayleigh Baird

“Our research shows that people show automatic biases towards darker coloured robots…”

University of Canterbury human-robot interaction expert Associate Professor Christoph Bartneck.

Nau mai koutou katoa.

I believe engineering’s the best career in New Zealand. This is what I said when I accepted the role as President. It’s a view backed up by many as the country addresses growth, infrastructure provision and changing needs. But as engineering professionals, we’ve got to be about building communities, not things.

Engineering New Zealand’s vision to “bring engineering to life” has a higher purpose – to engineer a better life for New Zealanders.

That’s why I love this profession and am proud to be a part of it. And with the collective impact and wisdom of more than 21,500 members, we will make a difference.

As President, I’m focused on our four pillars – connection, credibility, influence and recognition – as I build on the great momentum of others who have led before me. In particular, I’m working on influence, technical credibility and diversity.

Our contribution to policy, and political and investment decision making, is vital.

Influence includes our thought leadership pieces and increasing the profession’s profile in the media by speaking out on issues that matter. Get this right and influence will follow, as will credibility

Our technical groups and branch networks are critical to strengthening our technical credibility. I see Engineering New Zealand as the platform for collaboration across disciplines and groups and people.

Get this right and, as members, we’ll sustain and grow technical leadership, innovation and quality advice.

With diversity and inclusion, our strongest push right now is on gender as we stand up for a better gender balance in engineering. I also challenge us to see this as a leadership challenge for women and men alike. Currently, our profession is just 14 percent female and that’s not good enough. In April we successfully launched the Diversity Agenda, showing our profession’s commitment to a 20 percent increase in female members by 2021.

For Engineering New Zealand to be effective and sustainable, we need to ensure it reflects those who practice engineering in this country, and that it reflects our changing skills environment and changing technology.

With that set of challenges in mind, let’s do one thing today to make a difference, and we’ll all make a difference.

and reputation.

Dean Kimpton FEngNZ President, Engineering New Zealand

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.Photo: Camilla Rutherford

EG 3/2018

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WRITER JENNIFER BLACK

And the Award goes to…

Queenstown-based CEO of Shotover Camera Systems, Brad Hurndell MEngNZ, won an Academy Award� for the aerial camera he helped develop. He explains how engineering innovations have taken his team to the top.

When Brad Hurndell was a boy, he wanted to be a vet. But he knew from an early age that study didn’t hold great appeal for him.

“Once I got to school I didn’t think I had that five years of university in me,” he admits. When he left school he joined the Royal New Zealand Airforce as an aircraft engineer. But after three years, when the Strike Force he worked for was disbanded and he took voluntary redundancy, Brad was forced to rethink his views on study.

“I’d always enjoyed engineering and fixing things but I never actually envisaged I’d go to university. But it was a path that I had to come to because I couldn’t get to where I wanted to be without doing it.”

And it’s his engineering degree and subsequent experience that have helped him deliver what could be described as, literally, an Oscar®-winning performance.

Brad, the CEO of Kiwi company Shotover Camera Systems, and three other design engineers won a 2018 Academy Award® for the concept, design, engineering and

award, in the Scientific and Engineering Award category, at a ceremony in Los Angeles in February.

“It’s great recognition for a Kiwi company that designs and makes its products in Queenstown,” Brad says.

The judging involved interviews and product demonstration, then judges researched the product, which included talking to owners, users and film producers.

Brad says he was extremely excited to hear of the win and proud of what the company had achieved.

“The win was great recognition that reinforced that we’re the top aerial camera system in the world. It was a really good way to benchmark ourselves and know that what we thought we were achieving, the community that we work in also recognises.”

The win was also a chance to rub shoulders with Hollywood elite – Sir Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek fame, presented the award.

“It was a fantastic experience. It was not too dissimilar from other awards but

implementation of the Shotover K1 Camera System they developed. He received the

the level, the people in the room, were at the pinnacle of film technology.”

Impressing the Academy

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Camera action The Shotover K1 camera is a six-axis, gyro stabilised, helicopter-mounted camera system manufactured in Queenstown. The camera’s carbon-fibre structure allows for a light, but strong and safe product. It’s used for shooting major movies and other productions such as television commercials.

“We get them all ready and then we test fly them and make sure everything’s perfect and then the customer comes to training, or we do training at their location.”

There are 18 Shotover K1 cameras in the world with just one based in New Zealand. They sell for around US$475,000 and customers rent out the cameras, or shoot the productions themselves.

When Brad and the other engineers started designing the Shotover K1 in 2009 there were already aerial cameras in use.

“They’ve progressed over the years from handheld cameras to different types of rigs and robotics.”

Their goal was to improve on what was already out there.

“Many of the shareholders in the company are in that industry so they wanted to be pushing the boundaries.”

Key challenging design aspects were around stability and safety, as well as getting the right software, sensors and structure all working together as one unit.

“But then there’s also obviously the safety aspect and being on a helicopter, being lightweight, being able to transport it around the world. All of those aspects come together and start to fight each other so you need to get the right harmony.”

2

Developing a prototype took about 18 months and, from there, the K1 system was launched. Brad says the development was the fun part.

“It’s the refinement and the testing, the improvements, that take the hard grind at the end. That last five percent is where it gets really difficult.”

He says the most challenging times in past years have been when the cameras have been used on movie sets in different time zones. In the event of a problem, the New Zealand-based team accesses the system remotely through an ethernet connection, at times working through the night.

So, what can it do that other cameras can’t?

“The freedom for the operator to be able to look anywhere and have full control, regardless of the aircraft’s movement is one of the key points. Also, the versatility of the number of cameras and lenses that can be incorporated, including two-, three- and six-camera arrays, so we’re fitting multiple cameras to the payload allowing super high-resolution VFX plates to be created.”

The camera can also shoot in 3D. “We’ve had quite a few different combinations in different movies that have allowed shots to be performed that couldn’t be done before.”

1. Brad Hurndell on stage with Sir Patrick Stewart at the A.M.P.A.S Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards. Photo: ©A.M.P.A.S. 2. The K1 in action. Photo: Shotover Camera Systems

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It’s great recognition for a Kiwi company that designs and makes its products in Queenstown.

Brad says each movie has its unique challenges.

“We had some 3D and dual lens combinations for The Hobbit, but then we also did six-camera arrays for Tarzan.

We had some quite complex 3D work for Walking With Dinosaurs and also IMAX for Dunkirk. Each movie has its own twist – the directors are always trying something new so you never expect the same setup every time.”

View from the top

the design and then have that recognised by the rest of the world.”

Photos: Shotover Camera Systems

The camera first winged its way to Hollywood via a trade show and from there the team started promoting the product in earnest. But modest and measured, Brad reveals he never expected this level of success.

“You just put your head down and keep working and you keep trying to please your customers.”

However, he does take time to appreciate the view from the top.

“There are definitely days when you’re in a helicopter and you’re looking out the window and you think ‘this is pretty amazing’ – especially down in Queenstown where the scenery’s awesome. But I’ve been lucky enough to fly in New York, Dubai, Los Angeles, Germany, Switzerland – a lot of places where a lot of people would be eager to go.”

In a chopper, his role is either end-of-line testing, operating the system at the R&D testing stage or giving demonstrations and training customers.

When you can tick “win an Academy Award®” off your bucket list, what’s your next business goal?

“For the K1 that’s probably as high as it gets. It would only be if we won another one for something else, a particular application – we have a few new products and new specific technology for a new movie coming up so that’s mixed in the opportunities.”

Meanwhile, Brad’s enjoying the win.

“I think it’s just another great example that New Zealand companies are able to see an opportunity and then put in world-leading engineering and innovation to

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18 Street smart

24 Modern technology, MÄ ori values

28 Next stop: Wellington

Features

12 Great Scott

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EG 3/2018

Great Scott WRITER MATT PHILP

The ageing buildings at New Zealand’s Antarctic research station, Scott Base, could be set for a $150 million redevelopment. But what are the engineering challenges when building structures that need to weather the extreme conditions at the end of the earth?

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>> Photo: Antarctica New Zealand

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When Scott Base officially opened on 20 January 1957, no one anticipated it would last so long. Intended as a temporary base for the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, it was nursed along until a major rebuild in the early 1980s, then nursed along some more in a decades-long sequence of piecemeal upgrades and like-for-like replacements.

And it shows. In a recent interview with Stuff, Antarctica New Zealand CEO Peter Beggs described Scott Base as being “on its last legs”.

Faced with a rapidly deteriorating asset, Antarctica New Zealand is putting together plans for a major modernisation of the base. If it can persuade the Government of the wisdom of a significant redevelopment, the rough order of magnitude could be in the vicinity of $150 million and the building timeframe as long as 13 years.

“There’s no one to call for help if things go wrong,” he points out.

“In that environment, simplicity is often your friend. You don’t want to introduce things in construction that might be more complex, and you want the buildings to be easy to maintain.”

For the same reason, everything has to be thoroughly tested before it is shipped south. In the case of the original 1957 buildings, all were pre-assembled and checked in New Zealand.

One redeeming feature of Antarctica’s climate is that there is no great worry about corrosion; in every other respect, however, tolerances are tight. The extreme cold prohibits pouring concrete in situ, but there’s also a risk of precast blocks cracking if moisture content is too high. Similarly, steel must be ductile even in the coldest

Whatever the final form, there will be some serious engineering challenges involved in building in the coldest place on earth, where temperatures at Scott Base have reached as low as -57°C, rising to several degrees above zero, and winds have got up to nearly 200km/h.

conditions.

Fit for the next 40 years Antarctica New Zealand’s Simon Shelton is managing the Scott Base redevelopment project.

“There’s a requirement here to make Scott Base fit for purpose for the next 40 years,” he says.

“So we’re not just looking at the structural components of the buildings, but thinking big picture. We’re looking at all the assets, not just the old ones that are run down, to best optimise the world-class science programme.”

That said, there is a litany of pressing infrastructural issues at the base, which can house up to 85 people at one time, including a compromised 40-year-old water production plant, various single point failures in a range of buildings, deteriorated insulation and cladding, moisture ingress and a rambling and inefficient layout. As well, the 1980s-era sleeping arrangements of four to six people to a small bunkroom are viewed as no longer up to modern standards.

“We are required to provide safe and fit-for-purpose facilities to ensure people are well rested and not fatigued before they go out in the field or carry out their tasks.”

At this early stage, four design packages have been awarded to various consultancies, with WSP Opus handling structural and civil design. Principal structural engineer, Jamie Lester CMEngNZ CPEng, who heads the firm’s response to the design brief, says Opus has staff who have been involved in building projects on “the ice” since the 1980s.

“We’ve got institutional knowledge of how things work in Antarctica, and the design constraints.”

One of those constraints is logistical. It goes without saying that when you build in Antarctica, you need to minimise risk.

In that environment, simplicity is often your friend.

– Jamie Lester

What else? The snow in Antarctica is incredibly dry, notes Jamie.

“It’s like dust, and when you get a high wind it whips up a lot of snow. So, the weathertightness and airtightness of the building envelope is very important. A lot of the existing construction down there is elevated a metre or so off the ground, partly to maintain the thermal integrity of the building and keep out this very fine spindrift snow.”

Get the foundations right Foundations are another issue, according to Golder Principal Engineering Geologist Tim McMorran CMEngNZ (Eng. Technologist) who has led a number of geotechnical investigations in Antarctica, including preliminary work for the proposed redevelopment of the base. His research had its own challenges, including the fact that water can’t effectively be used to flush out core sample cuttings in Antarctica because it melts the ice. Instead, the drilling technique relies on very cold compressed air.

Scott Base is built on volcanic rock topped by fairly thin volcanic soils, says Tim, which means any excavation work has the potential to be a large and expensive undertaking.

But the more significant geotechnical factor to account for is the temperature range.

“Soil in Antarctica can freeze and have a lot of strength in the winter, but when it thaws it loses that strength.

A foundation can move and damage the structure.”

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Feature

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2

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1. Geotechnical drilling at Scott Base. Photo: Golder 2. Simon Shelton (far left) at Scott Base. Photo: Antarctica New Zealand 3. Snow conditions outside Scott Base. Photo: Golder

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Antarctica adventure Chris Ansin Based in: Auckland Role: Production Engineer, Argenta Manufacturing Limited Education: Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) (Chemical and Process), University of Canterbury, 2015

It’s the ice continent’s remoteness that has always intrigued Chris Ansin.

“I love adventure, and Antarctica is the most untouched landscape left on the planet,” says the Auckland-based chemical and process engineer who recently spent seven weeks at Scott Base as the 2017 Sir Peter Blake Antarctic Youth Ambassador.

There, Chris helped the Antarctic Heritage Trust weatherproof the base’s very first building, the newly restored 1957 Hillary’s Hut. His job was to build an aluminium standing seam roof, which rises from the base to cover the original roof (it was retained in line with modern conservation practice).

“Antarctica is an incredibly hard place to engineer solutions because you have so many weather extremes,” he says.

Chris Ansin in Shackleton’s Nimrod Hut, Cape Royd.

Photo: Antarctic Heritage Trust

“In this case, the mindset to make the building weatherproof was an old one: simple solutions work well for complex problems.”

The visit to Scott Base was another quirky entry in a unique CV. Chris was studying violin at the University of Canterbury and learning violin making when he switched to the engineering faculty, motivated by a passion to make a practical difference to the environment.

He’s now a production engineer at animal health research and manufacturing outfit Argenta, where among other things he gets to devise ways to reduce waste and minimise environmental impact.

No surprise, then, that while he was at Scott Base he took a particular interest in the climate change science being conducted.

“Antarctica is where [the effects of] climate change are going to be observed first,” he says. “So I really wanted to see the work going on there.”

And what are his thoughts on the proposed redevelopment?

“The technical challenges will be immense, but I’m sure the solutions are out there.”

Feature

>> As part of the Golder investigation at Scott Base, instruments were used to record temperatures at different depths in a bid to define how deep the thaw penetrates.

“What you find is that the part of the soil profile that gets to above zero degrees in the summertime is only about 400mm deep. Effectively, all you’re really required to do is put your foundations at a depth greater than that, and then ensure the building doesn’t heat up the ground.”

Hence the tradition of raising the floor level a metre off the ground.

Nevertheless, the design team will take a hard look at introducing new building shapes, says Simon, who describes the current buildings as barn-like and not particularly aerodynamic, creating a problem of snow loading on the undersides.

For Jamie Lester, the key to designing the redevelopment is to strike a balance between “new and innovative ways of doing things and not making it more complicated and costly to maintain”.

On the innovation side, he is keen to explore the potential for using materials such as carbon fibre, glass-reinforced plastic and engineered timber. A timber structure has

“The idea is that cold air can blow through the space underneath and keep the ground cold – it’s a key design aspect.”

already been successfully tested in Antarctic conditions at Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth scientific research station.

“The main thing you have to manage with timber, related to the very low humidity, is that timber has a natural moisture content and can obviously shrink.”

Engineered timber, he notes, is considerably lighter than steel, and has a warm aesthetic – no small consideration when you are building structures for people spending winter in Antarctica.

“And the other thing about timber,” he adds, “is that it’s more sustainable, and sustainability is part of the ethos of why Scott Base is there.”

Design and materials It’s unlikely the next set of structures at Scott Base will depart far from that template. Simon Shelton notes the most recent building project, a reconfiguration of the 2006 Hillary Field Centre completed last year, largely stuck with the “tried and tested” design philosophy, although it also incorporated up-to-the-moment thermally efficient claddings and fire retardants.

Completion of the mess hut, 1956–58.

Photo: Murray Ellis/ Antarctic Heritage Trust

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Street smart WRITER MATT WINTHROP

It mightn’t be the most obvious of crime-fighting tools, but environmental design is increasingly being used to improve safety on New Zealand streets.

The often-subtle design elements incorporated into what’s known as Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) are now a key part of the thinking in the design of our urban areas.

Andrew McDonald CMEngNZ CPEng IntPE(NZ), a Principal Traffic Engineer at GHD, has developed extensive knowledge of CPTED. He’s professionally accredited through the National Institute of Crime Prevention in the United States and presents on the subject to New Zealand engineering professionals.

“Historically, little consideration was given to CPTED in urban areas but now it’s attracting more of an emphasis.”

Four principles broadly define CPTED: surveillance, access management, territorial reinforcement and quality environment. They overlap and are mainly applied to public spaces, as well as certain private areas the public use, such as educational facilities.

Creating a sense of surveillance underpins much of the approach, Andrew says. This can be achieved through measures such as ensuring a space is overlooked by neighbouring businesses, or designing a thoroughfare that generates enough people to keep an eye out for others.

Feature

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Tōranga, Christchurch’s new central library, was designed using CPTED principles.

Image: Christchurch City Council

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1. New housing development in Hobsonville, Auckland, designed to provide "eyes on the street".

Photo: Duncan Rothwell 2. Clear sight lines and lighting at New Lynn train station in Auckland. Photo: Duncan Rothwell 3. Christchurch’s redeveloped Bus Interchange.

Photo: Ōtākaro Ltd

PRINCIPLES OF CPTED

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4

ONE.

TWO.

Surveillance – people are present and can see what’s going on Generate passive surveillance, often by maximising what you can from the existing environment. It might be achieved by ensuring a space is overlooked by neighbouring houses or businesses.

Access management – methods used to attract people and vehicles to some places and channel them away from others Improve accessibility – the more people out on the street, the more eyes there are to watch for unsafe behaviour. Use physical design elements to control access to particular areas, such as installing pavement bollards to prevent ram raids.

Feature

It’s often the minimal and least costly design elements that have a powerful impact on urban safety. For example, lighting. Good lighting, Andrew says, illuminates a whole area, not just the surface level of someone’s line of sight, improving their ability to see a lurking figure in the distance.

“Poorly designed lighting can create harsh shadows – because your eyes are adjusting to bright light you won’t even see someone in the shadow.”

Then there’s the “power of paint”.

“With murals, as a good example, what they often incorporate into the picture is people, because that creates the perception of surveillance. Eyes, particularly, make you feel you’re being watched whereas a blank wall creates that opportunity for criminal behaviour.”

While CPTED has been around for some time in New Zealand, only in recent years has it come together as an organised discipline, evident in its increasing application in urban design. In 2005, the Ministry of Justice released national CPTED guidelines, forming the basis of much of the design councils use in street upgrades and urban revitalisation projects.

CPTED calls on the expertise of many – engineering and design professionals, councils, community groups and residents – in collaboration with the police.

Inspector Paula Holt of the New Zealand Police National Prevention Centre says CPTED can have a significant impact on preventing crime.

“Environments are assessed by the police as part of the ‘crime triangle’ of prevention – the victim, the offender and the opportunity. In order for a crime to occur, there needs to be each of those elements present. By changing the environment or location, and making it safer, we can prevent victimisation and help people be safe and feel safe.”

She’s encouraged to see others in the community engaging in the CPTED approach to crime reduction over the past few years.

“Many community patrollers and members of the public have completed CPTED training and apply these principles

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Environments are assessed by the police as part of the ‘crime triangle’ of prevention – the victim, the offender and the opportunity.

– Inspector Paula Holt, New Zealand Police

when out on patrol. Police work closely with councils to complete safety audits to ensure our communities are safe, and make changes when necessary.

“The more individuals, businesses, and urban planners are aware of the environment they create – and its impact on feelings of safety and in limiting opportunities for crime – the more effect it’s likely to have on overall crime rates.”

Rebuilding a safer Christchurch Following the Canterbury earthquakes, the Christchurch City Council used CPTED principles in various rebuild projects. CPTED was widely applied to the city’s main transport hub, the Bus Interchange, which before its completion in 2015 was something of a crime hotspot.

Features in the redeveloped facility include visually permeable barriers, wide open spaces and toilet amenities that open onto a shared, observable foyer.

Safety is reported to have increased significantly in its first year of operation, with greatly reduced police callouts.

THREE.

FOUR.

Territorial reinforcement – clear boundaries encourage community ownership of a space By defining a zone through features like stairs, painted surfaces, gardens or archways, you’re signalling the transition from a public to a semi-private area. It means people can be challenged if they leave a public for a private space.

Quality environments – maintaining the physical environment so it’s attractive and supports surveillance If people enjoy spending time in a place, they look after it and are less likely to create graffiti or leave litter. Think of the broken window effect – if a broken window doesn’t get repaired, things can deteriorate very quickly.

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Many of the city’s other anchor projects use CPTED, including the Avon River, justice, health, retail and performing arts precincts, the central library and the Metro Sports Facility.

Safer public transport Duncan Rothwell, Principal Urban Design Specialist at Auckland Transport, says it’s important the design of transport infrastructure incorporates CPTED principles.

“If we can ensure our transport network is as safe as possible, we can attract more people to use it.”

But he says safer environments don’t happen by chance.

“Research indicates the perception of crime or antisocial behaviour in transport environments can be a barrier for some, particularly the more vulnerable in our community.”

He says with surveillance in mind, Auckland Transport constantly looks at improving visibility by “opening up sightlines, facilitating ‘eyes on the street’ and attracting more activity and people into a place”.

“Some great examples of this can be as simple as using glazing in our train stations and bus shelters, lighting at bus stops, or introducing new cycleways into an otherwise underused park,” he says.

“We also look at how we can limit or encourage access to places and buildings to make them safer. Obvious

Ticket gates at Auckland's Henderson train station create clearly defined boundaries.

Photo: Duncan Rothwell

examples are gates and fences around potentially vulnerable locations, or landscape screening in front of a blank wall, otherwise vulnerable to graffiti.”

The layout of transport infrastructure also needs to be easy for people to navigate with no entrapment spots, so they feel confident moving around, he says.

When scoping any new project with CPTED in mind, Auckland Transport assembles as much information as possible to get a good understanding of crime issues in the target area, including obtaining police incident reports and talking with local residents and businesses.

“With this information to hand, we undertake a site visit.

It’s important we do this during the day and after dark, so we can get an idea of how the place feels and functions at different times.”

Duncan also recommends creating clearly defined boundaries that signal differences between public and more private spaces – an effect achieved by the new ticket gates at key Auckland train stations.

“Not only do gates cut down on fare evasion with access control, they also signal to users they’re moving into a more controlled environment where certain behaviours are expected.”

Engineering New Zealand offers a recorded webinar on CPTED for purchase on our website. For this and other CPD offerings, go to engineeringnz.org/learn

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On average, male engineers get paid around 19% more than female engineers. Why?

The Diversity Agenda started as a partnership between Engineering New Zealand, NZIA and ACENZ – and more than 40 firms have already come on board. Our goal is to get 20 percent more women in engineering and architecture roles by 2021. www.diversityagenda.org

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EG 3/2018

Grant Straker, CEO of Straker Translations.

Feature

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Modern technology, Māori values WRITER ALEXANDRA JOHNSON

The Māori economy is estimated to be worth $50 billion and growing. EG talks to two Māori-led companies with engineers at the helm whose engineering innovations are contributing to the Māori economy. One is helping remove language barriers and the other is supporting sustainable food production.

Rebuilding old cars in a shed with your dad can have a profound effect on a kid.

So says Grant Straker, CEO of award-winning Straker Translations, a cloud-enabled translation services provider experiencing rapid growth.

The Māori entrepreneur, whose mother is Māori and whose iwi is Ngāti Raukawa, grew up in Rotorua and West Auckland, and his formative years sound like the plot from a Spielberg adventure movie. A high school dropout, Grant’s experiences include being a paratrooper for the British army, an ironman competitor and a volunteer fire fighter.

He embarked on his technology career as a computer programmer in the 1990s after completing a mechanical engineering certificate and teaching himself to code.

He then launched, with his wife Merryn, a software development company that enabled multilingual website content.

About 10 years ago, Grant saw opportunities developing for high-tech language translations and transformed the business into a translations company, leveraging both AI and human labour.

Straker Translations now employs about 60 staff and up to 5,000 translators, and boasts production centres in Auckland and Barcelona and sales offices in nine countries.

“Outside of getting the information out of the different formats, which is quite a big engineering task in itself with lots of different languages and characters, it is also about being able to track the human translators. We know which ones are more efficient and produce the best quality – it’s a major undertaking to have an engine that can do all of that.”

He says the engine deconstructs the language into a structured format for the machine to translate. It is then reconstructed, allowing human translators to refine it.

The technology platform enables human translators to deliver faster and more accurate translations for more than 20,000 clients around the world. The company translates a vast range of content, from computer games, smartphone apps and website content through to historic manuscripts.

“We have about 15 software engineers working constantly on our platform and even then, there would be a job list in the thousands of things we still have to do. It’s a constant evolution of how the platform works and what it does.”

Grant attributes part of his success in the tech industry to his engineering background.

“It’s all about logic really,” he says.

“When I was a kid I used to strip down cars with my father and I do think that flows into the digital world.

One hundred years of thinking went into putting those cars together, and I think the whole logical process that dictates how one thing affects another, is applicable to solving complex problems when developing applications.”

The importance of Māori heritage and culture

“It’s all about logic really”

Straker Translations is contributing to the $50 billion Māori economy, which is defined as the Māori contribution to the New Zealand economy by Māori collectives, Māori

Despite his success, Grant says this is a complicated business.

employers and self-employed Māori.

Grant’s Māori heritage and culture has had a huge

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EG 3/2018

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These young engineers are right among some of the country’s best orchard managers so they can test their ideas with the people who understand the value chain. – Steve Saunders The Robotics Plus robotic apple packer includes an inbuilt electronics and vision system.

Photo: Robotics Plus

Feature

impact on both his success and the way he runs the business. He says it’s important staff understand that it is a New Zealand company, and when possible, he brings team members from overseas offices to New Zealand to have a marae experience.

“And we have just acquired another company and are going to have an additional 25 staff. It’s important that they understand the values of the company,” he says.

“If you are genuine, people trust you. Is that a Māori value or a Kiwi value? I think that’s a New Zealand value – people here are generally upfront and honest. In some cultures, that is not always the case.”

Looking after staff and whanau is key to the business, especially when operating across multiple cultures.

“We need to prove to our people that our standards are high and we expect the same from our team.”

an abundance of labour, but that market was getting difficult – now, some crops in the US are not being fully harvested.”

He and Dr Alastair Scarfe, then a PhD engineering student, now Chief Technology Officer, Director and co-owner of the company, began exploring automation opportunities and now some of their robotic innovations are being exported, such as an apple packer. This is a multi-headed pick-and-place robot with an inbuilt electronics and vision system that does the work of two to three people. The system orientates the apples to their most attractive side and includes analysis algorithms.

Steve says to create affordable, purposed tech you must understand the problem you’re trying to solve, and Robotics Plus is well placed to do that.

“These young engineers are right among some of the

Grant says that a fundamental part of Māori culture is wanting to explore, be challenged, and do the best you can. And when given opportunities to do so, that’s good for the whole country.

“If Māori are doing well, then New Zealand does well.”

He believes Māori need to get more involved in tech and says this starts with getting children to understand that, so they view success in this field the same way they view success on a sports field.

He has been actively involved in encouraging young people into the industry and is now exploring setting up an education centre to teach young Māori tech skills.

“It’s early days, but if we could run a programme, that would obviously be a great way to feed developers into our network.”

With its new acquisition and projected growth, Straker Translations' demand for software engineers is not about to let up.

“It’s an exciting thing. It proves Māori can build companies, we can use the technologies, we can export, we can find markets and we can succeed from down here.”

country’s best orchard managers so they can test their ideas with the people who understand the value chain.

That’s been a huge advantage.”

The value of a partnership

Steve Saunders is a Māori entrepreneur intent on helping to feed the world.

Of Ngāti Ranginui and Ngai Te Ahi descent, he is owner of Robotics Plus Ltd and the Plus Group of Companies, which specialises in a broad range of horticultural ownership, products and services.

Based in Tauranga, Robotics Plus develops robotics, autonomous vehicles and automated horticulture machines such as orchard robotics for harvesting and pollination.

Steve says about 10 years ago he recognised that a shortage of labour in the horticultural sector could be a major threat to food productivity in the future.

The business has recently received investment and entered into a partnership with Yamaha Motor Co., predominantly to benefit from its engineering and manufacturing experience, and Steve is enthusiastic about the possibilities the arrangement could bring.

“If you take an idea, such as what we are doing in agriculture, Yamaha would look at it very differently to us as they have a completely different mindset – that’s where we could truly create some disruptive opportunities.”

The company’s values were also a good fit.

“The Japanese cultural values aligned a lot with our Māori values – they are long term, they are intergenerational, very culturally oriented, so we like that.”

Steve began to recognise his Māori heritage about six years ago, when Hemi Rolleston, Callaghan Innovation’s General Manager Māori Economy, invited him to join other Māori entrepreneurs and leaders on a trip to Silicon Valley to look at what was happening in the food and technology sector.

“I guess you can be an entrepreneur and create businesses and be successful, but for me that was one of the fundamental shifts. How can I add value, help our people move forward?”

Māori values are now pivotal to him, particularly kaitiakitanga, guardianship of the environment.

“Being Māori and being able to lead a Māori tech company – tech that will help support the sustainability of food production into the future – is important to me."

He says reconnecting with his culture has driven him in a different direction with real purpose.

“It’s an important journey and it’s really great to see people buying into that, identifying that I’m Māori and

“There had not been a lot of investment in highly intensive food crops because there had always been

that this is a tech company, and using it as inspiration to other Māori and organisations.”

Robotics Plus – sustainable food production

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EG 3/2018

Next stop: Wellington

Capital expenditure

Feature

29

WRITER JENNIE CLARKE

Wellingtonians are well aware that if a major earthquake were to strike the capital, the results could be catastrophic. So a significant amount of engineering work has already taken place, and more is planned,

Population (Wellington region)

513,900

to shore up the city and ensure people and places are prepared.

Engineering a water supply

Known for its vibrant café culture, cafés were preceded by

Imagine the headline: 100 days without water.

No flushing toilet, no shower, no washing machine, no turning the tap to start preparing dinner or fill a glass of water. It’s a three-month dry spell that communities in Wellington potentially face in the wake of a major earthquake and a damaged pipe network.

Fortunately, there’s a plan – Wellington Water’s $12 million Emergency Water Plan to be precise. And it’s due to be operational in mid-2018. Kick-started as a result of the November 2016, 7.8 magnitude Kaikoura earthquake, and half funded by central government, it’s the first community infrastructure resilience (CIR) plan of its kind in New Zealand.

In a nutshell, it’s about creating a system separate from the pipe network across the entire Wellington region. This means a parallel, stand-alone system, operational within eight days after a disaster, supplying the community with emergency water until the pipe network is repaired.

That’s 22 community water stations, each with its own generator, treatment capability and water source, which is either a stream in the hills above or a newly drilled bore. Upwards of 300 water collection points would provide 20 litres of water for everyone every day, with people going no further than a kilometre to collect their share.

It’s also about major investment in projects that will make a big difference in the longer term. Bulk storage capacity will be increased, with a new 35-million-litre reservoir in Mt Cook planned, and there’s research underway into a fault line-free alternative water supply for Wellington city. The plan is looking at either a cross-harbour pipeline or sub-harbour aquifer bores

milk bars, which began popping up on the city’s streets in the 1930s when US troops were stationed in the capital.

to dramatically reduce the number of days water is down on the city's eastern side.

Area (Wellington region)

8,130km

2

Engineering New Zealand branch membership

2,262

Did you know?

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EG 3/2018

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Engineering the arts Beginning mid-2018, the city’s much-loved St James Theatre in Courtenay Place is set for a major seismic facelift. While an extensive refurbishment and seismic strengthening were completed in the late 1990s, the 1,600-seat theatre was recently re-assessed to the new standards and found wanting. A 14-month retrofit programme will see all three areas of the theatre, the 1912 Category 1 heritage auditorium, the stage house, and back of house, strengthened. The building has importance level (IL) 3 status and is being designed to have a seismic rating of 67 percent New Building Standard.

Its three structures are made of concrete encased steel framing with unreinforced masonry infill, Insulform and standard reinforced concrete block work respectively. Part of the challenge was figuring out how they would interact under extreme seismic loading. Not only does each require a different intervention, but once you consider the large voids in the centre of the building, and a range of heritage constraints, complexity quickly builds.

A diaphragm cleverly installed from above the auditorium ceiling, for example, will leave the ornate, highly decorative ceiling untouched while strengthening the space that is the auditorium. It’s an outcome that’s good for the ceiling, but it does have implications for construction methods, time taken and of course, cost.

Meanwhile, cosying up to the west side of the St James Theatre is the Counties building, home of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Strengthening here will see viscous damper technology installed, one of the few applications of this technology to date in New Zealand. Under seismic loading, eight dampers incorporated across three V-brace frames will act like giant shock absorbers, controlling the accelerations the building experiences. Happily, they also reduce the scope of strengthening that might otherwise be required.

tower is just 250 metres from the Lyall Bay waterfront.

Then, guided by data from North America, the design process came up with a concrete shear wall and concretefilled steel-tube structure at ground level to resist a 2500-year tsunami event.

And while 13 lead rubber bearings effectively address seismic demands on the structure, allowing 700mm of movement, base isolation also freed up architectural design options, including a maximum visibility 360-degree, structure-free exterior at cab level, and the now-infamous lean.

The new tower’s landmark design has it leaning 12.5 degrees into the prevailing northerly wind.

Engineering connectivity

In terms of technical challenges, Wellington’s baseisolated, nine-storey air traffic control tower had it all.

Soon to be opened, and replacing a 1950s’ structure wellpast its use-by-date, the new tower’s landmark design has it leaning 12.5 degrees into the prevailing northerly wind.

With exceptionally high performance requirements from severe seismic demands, plus its post-disaster IL4 status, the tower is also located on poor marine soils and exposed to extreme winds laden with salt and sand. To top it off, it’s also at high risk of tsunami inundation.

The design includes mitigation against tsunami inundation, currently not specified for in the New Zealand Building Code.

Using a 2013 GNS tsunami hazard report as a starting point to determine tsunami wave sizes at various coastal

Scheduled to open in 2020, design and construction of Transmission Gully’s $850 million, 27-kilometre, four-lane motorway is huge by New Zealand standards. Part of the Wellington Northern Corridor, it includes a staggering 25 structures: underpasses, interchanges and bridges of one sort or another. The largest, Cannons Creek Bridge, will tower 60m above ground and stretch 230m as it gently curves across one of the steepest ravines in Belmont Regional Park.

Engineers grappled with design challenges including proving the 1:1 gradient rock slopes would be stable in a design earthquake. They also had to figure out a bridge design that would minimise seismic loading on that same ground and created a steel superstructure – four three-metre-deep steel box beams supported on two reinforced concrete, square, hollow-section piers. They had to understand exactly where and how seismic loading would be shared between those piers and the base-isolated bridge ends.

As for construction and scale, enter gravity-defying “incremental launching”. Steel beam sections, bolted together behind one abutment, will be slowly pushed, or launched, over the gully, stopping at a pre-determined threshold to connect additional beam sections. The process resumes and repeats until the giant structure touches down on the other side of the ravine, passing over the piers on its way. This is about heavy steelwork, massive

locations around the country, engineers determined how big that wave might be once it reached the tower. The

bolts, huge temporary works, enormous lifting equipment, strong supporting structures and giant jacks.

Engineering air traffic

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Thanks to these contributing engineers and their associates: Wellington Water’s Emergency Water Plan: Mark Kinvig, Group Manager, Network Strategy & Planning, Wellington Water. St James Theatre: Henry Tatham CMEngNZ CPEng, Technical Director – Structural Engineering, Beca and Tony Pettigrew MEngNZ, Senior Structural Engineer, Beca. Wellington Air Traffic Control Tower: Hamish McKenzie CMEngNZ CPEng IntPE(NZ), Business Manager, Holmes Consulting (Wellington) and Peter Rivers, Project Manager, Airways New Zealand.

Cannons Creek Bridge (Transmission Gully motorway): CPB HEB JV (responsible for the motorway’s design and construction) and Wayne Juno CMEngNZ CPEng, Project Director, Holmes Consulting (Wellington).

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1. Harbour bores in Wellington Harbour. Photo: Wellington Water 2. Structural model of the St James Theatre upgrade.

Image: WCC/Beca 3. The new air traffic control tower. Photo: Holmes Consulting 4. Construction animation of Cannons Creek Bridge. Image: Transmission Gully motorway project

by Zephyr Airworks in March. Shown here in California. Photo: Thomas Heinser

Snapshot T axi! Two-passenger air taxi Cora, built by Kitty Hawk, combines electric power, self-piloting software and vertical take-off. Trialled in Christchurch

Constructive NZ CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY FORUM 2018

39 Get smarter with your data

41 Dealing with difficult people at work

42 Confused about CMEngNZ and CPEng?

44 Building consents and building relationships

46 On track for future growth

Best practice

36 Refrigeration: a hot topic

EG 3/2018

36

Refrigeration: a hot topic

Opinion Mike Odey CMEngNZ CPEng IntPEng(NZ) is the recently retired Chair of the NZ National Committee of the International Institute of Refrigeration and Chair of the Wellington IRHACE Branch. He practises in industrial refrigeration and worked for the Department of Labour on the Tamahere Fire Investigation, and wrote the refrigeration section of Engineering New Zealand’s Practice Note 15 “Coldstore Engineering in New Zealand”.

Best practice

MIKE ODEY CMEngNZ CPEng IntPEng(NZ)

As the demand for cooling increases around the world, public safety is paramount when choosing acceptable refrigerants. But as the selection has narrowed due to environmental concerns, what are our best and safest options?

been phased out here. New Zealand adopted the Protocol’s Kigali Amendment in 2016, phasing down the use of potent greenhouse gasses, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). This Amendment will reduce HFCs by 85 percent by 2036, with the first New Zealand reduction intended to occur in 2019. This will be challenging due to current technology and the New Zealand refrigeration industry skill base.

Things are heating up in the refrigeration industry. There are around three billion refrigeration systems in the world – think refrigerators, air-conditioning, heat pumping systems – and refrigeration’s

The choices

playing an essential and growing role in the global economy. The sector is expected to grow in decades to come, particularly in developing countries. This growth must be sustainable, with limited impact on the environment.

Refrigeration played a huge role in advancing New Zealand’s prosperity, turning us from a subsistence economy into the world’s third most prosperous country after WWII, with 36 percent of export earnings in 1980 being refrigerated food. It continues to play a significant role in the processing and export of foodstuffs, and the country has been a world leader in research on food properties, including storage and refrigeration.

But we’re facing the same challenges as other countries. As the types of acceptable refrigerants change to ensure minimal damage to the environment, how do we keep people safe?

hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) – and natural refrigerants – ammonia, carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons (most commonly ethane, propane, butane, isobutane and propylene).

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently screened 60 million chemicals, estimating their properties based solely on their chemical structure. This yielded 138 possible fluids providing low global warming potential (low-GWP) properties. Further screening out chemically unstable, very toxic compounds or those with low energy efficiency resulted in a list of 27 low-GWP fluids. The final list provided no “ideal” candidate refrigerants, with all either having some degree of toxicity or flammability. The conclusion of the NIST study indicates the need to recognise and deal with trade-offs.

Europe has been very active in scaling back use of perceived environmentally “at risk” refrigerants, strongly promoting natural refrigerants, while the US has lagged, with change limited by insurance rules.

Global warming impacts cooling A succession of scientific environmental discoveries, and increasing knowledge of atmospheric ozone depletion and global warming, means refrigerants that were acceptable in the past can no longer be used or are being phased out.

New Zealand is a signatory to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the use of ozone depleting substances. Under the Protocol, the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) as refrigerants has already

Society would prefer the use of a safe, effective and efficient “perfect refrigerant”.

In reality, there will be an increased use of new synthetic refrigerants –

37

The final list provided no “ideal” candidate refrigerants, with all either having some degree of toxicity or flammability.

Approximately 8,000 people work in the New Zealand refrigeration industry.

Historical deregulation of the industry has resulted in a lack of qualifications for refrigerant handlers, despite 30 years of industry group lobbying. There are very low numbers of professional engineers specialising in the area. Competency in

electrical and control engineering, along with general skills, including project management.

The combination of low industry skills, new equipment and new flammable or toxic refrigerants in an industry that is an important contributor to the national health and wealth is of major concern.

Young, forward-thinking problem solvers are required, as is regulatory action to meet the challenges of this industry going forward. We are pleased that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is recognising refrigeration as a safety-critical matter and has made it one of its top six priority areas, looking at existing legislation and regulation around toxic, flammable or high-pressure refrigerants.

Engineering New Zealand promotes safety in this area and has a Practice Note that provides guidance on coldstore design, available at engineeringnz.org under “resources”.

Refrigeration is a critical component of national infrastructure. New qualifications and training, and a review of how WorkSafe regulations are applied, are necessary to ensure the safe, efficient

thermodynamics and fluid mechanics is required, with familiarity with structural,

and economic application of refrigeration technology.

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Best practice

39

Opinion

Get smarter with your data PAUL BURTON

All engineering projects require data, but how can you be sure the data you’re using is quality data?

Have you ever used one of those charger cables for your phone that is generally cheaper and not quite the same as the one from the original supplier, and it didn’t work as well as expected? It’s tempting, cheaper and convenient and yes, most of the time it doesn’t make any difference to the performance of your phone. But what are the potential consequences? While in the short term your phone was charged, negative consequences could turn up when you least expect them. Your phone won’t turn on, you can’t make or receive calls and you might not receive an email key to your project’s success, all because you chose an inferior product as one small input at a very discrete decision point. That one small decision corrupted a part of your world.

As an engineering professional, you make important decisions and you take responsibility for these decisions, signing your name and potentially your company’s name to them. While I write this from the perspective of civil engineering, the overarching message here is relevant to all engineers.

All engineering projects require data. You may be investigating a problem, designing a solution, or looking at performance.

These activities require data and this data must be used with a good understanding of

So how do you know the quality of the data you are using for your projects?

Have you collected it yourself? Have you received it from another member of the project team or from a third-party supplier, or sub-contracted it?

How you gather your data varies depending on your project and the level of certainty required. However, I would like to share with you some insights around requesting data from suppliers with an assurance you are receiving an agreed level of quality to recognised standards.

Much like most other engineering disciplines, civil engineering has a technical society that focuses on the continuous development of its members.

The Civil Engineering Testing Association (CETANZ) encourages members to promote the accreditation process provided by International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ). So what does that mean for engineers signing Producer Statements, used when processing building consent applications, for projects? The facilities accredited by IANZ are usually termed laboratories, providing data to industries including engineering.

The accredited providers are audited against international standards for their management, technical expertise and systems. Staff carrying out technical testing are peer reviewed and when assessed as technically competent, their facility may be awarded accreditation and key roles as signatory.

the certainty that can be placed on it in the context of your decision making.

What about our clients – will they pay for this third party? Perhaps the more

pertinent question is, who will pay for a bad decision to be resolved? Ask yourself whether you have acted competently and met the requirements of your insurer and your Code of Ethical Conduct. Should we leave it to the principal to set the rules or should it just be normal practice?

Engineers need to make good decisions based on good data and projects need to be successful. What if something goes wrong and you need to prove the data you used in decision making was good?

Would you like to prove to a court that a contractor’s test data is equal to IANZaccredited laboratory data?

So back to the phone charger. Are you going to make a cheap, convenient choice with your project data, or use data you can rely on that comes with an assurance of quality, meets the standards your project requires and doesn’t corrupt your project world? Use an IANZ-accredited supplier and be confident when you sign your Producer Statements.

Paul Burton is Executive Leader of Testing for Geotechnics.He has been involved in civil engineering testing and instrumentation for 21 years in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

He has been a regional representative for the New Zealand Geotechnical Society, inaugural and Past Chair of CETANZ, and is on the Association of Consulting Engineers New Zealand Board.

Continuing your professional development.

FAST-TRACK YOUR CAREER Our suite of courses and webinars will help you be the best you can be. Learn about topics as diverse as stormwater management, liability, crime prevention through environmental design – and so much more.

Get online and find out more at engineeringnz.org/learn If you don’t see what you’re looking for, get in touch so we can create something especially for you and your organisation. Email learn@engineeringnz.org

Best practice

41

Dealing with difficult people at work DAVID HENTON

Do you ever have trouble saying difficult

be trying to exaggerate the earthwork

something genuinely appreciative

things in a professional situation because you fear you might jeopardise the relationship? These tips will help you say tricky things in a way that could even enhance the professional relationship.

volumes they’re claiming for, but they did a really good job putting in extra pumps to cope with that tropical downpour over the weekend. Their foresight saved thousands.

Anyone can knock a situation or find fault. It takes some skill and deliberate thinking to notice the good things in a difficult situation.

to someone it puts a credit into that relationship. If we make deposits, we’re allowed to make the occasional withdrawal.

When a colleague or client does something that really winds you up, do you find yourself grinning and bearing it, only to explode down the track when you can’t take it anymore? And when you ask yourself why you didn’t say something sooner, is it often because you’re not quite sure what to say or how to say it?

In many situations, people are overaware of the problem, the mistake, the negative, and far less skilled at noticing the good stuff. Why? Because most of us have been the recipient of predominantly negative feedback since our earliest days. In too many lives, praise is rare and reluctantly given, whereas criticism is rampant and more vigorously expressed.

French homework at school? Big red circles around everything we got wrong, and hardly any fuss made about all the stuff we got right. Today’s news? Typically, a focus on the negative – the latest shootings, bankruptcies – no wonder we’re all so good at spotting what is wrong.

Firstly, look for the good stuff When we’re in a difficult feedback situation, if we can recognise there’s probably more to it than meets the eye it will help us stop, scan the scene, and start looking for the good stuff – what’s working and going well.

For example: the contractor might well

Recognise the good stuff Once we’ve become good at spotting the good stuff, it’s important to acknowledge it. Genuine compliments can be a really good way to increase harmony around us.

Sadly, compliments are quite rare in many people’s lives and people never actually find out how much they’re appreciated.

Think of those lovely things that are said about people at their funeral – wouldn’t they liked to have heard them? There are few things as powerful in building respect and appreciation between people as genuine compliments that express appreciation, so let’s get good at it. You’ll be amazed how your life improves and how conflict dwindles.

Keep feedback balanced In many organisations and situations, the only communication that ever occurs is negative – employees only see the boss when there’s a problem. But when we create an atmosphere where praise, appreciation and respect are commonplace, the openness and trust that follow make it easier to handle the inevitable occasional difficult situation.

Think of a relationship as being like a bank account. Every time we say

It’s how we say things that counts Often, people don’t hear what was said because they’re struggling with how it was said. So, build rapport by chatting about more general, positive things first (this is especially vital if it’s a short-term, one-off encounter, say, with a client) before moving gently into the delicate area. Using “By the way…” can be a good opener. Keep a positive twist on things. For example, say “How about doing it this way? I think that’ll make you even more effective” or “Here’s an idea I think you’re really going to like”.

End on a positive note if you can. When giving tricky feedback, the underlying sentiment is never “you’re wrong”, but rather “you’re already OK, this will help you become even better”. With practice this technique gets easier and if your attitude is genuine, open and non-judgemental, it works well.

David Henton has a first class Honours degree in Civil Engineering from the University of London. He provides staff training in New Zealand and abroad, specialising in communication. He is a motivational conference speaker, presenter and facilitator and runs CPD courses for Engineering New Zealand.Find out more at confident.co.nz

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EG 2/2018

CMEngNZ and CPEng – what’s the difference?

Engineering New Zealand Registrar Peter Lourié talks to EG about the similarities and differences between Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) and Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng).

Last year Engineering New Zealand introduced the class of Chartered Member as part of our new Membership Pathway.

Chartered Member is an internationally benchmarked quality mark, like CPEng, and sits at the same level. But unlike CPEng, it doesn’t require evidence of New Zealand-specific good practice. This makes it especially relevant to professional engineers working in leadership and management roles, and academics. And unlike CPEng, Chartered Members don’t have to be reassessed every six years.

Let’s look at CMEngNZ in more detail.

What are the advantages of this membership class?

CMEngNZ is a voluntary, aspirational mark for an engineer. It confers an internationally benchmarked and recognised status.

There are categories of CMEngNZ that recognise engineering technologists, technicians and geologists, so we can better represent and celebrate these different groups.

The competence standard for CPEng and Chartered Membership is the same for professional engineers, although Chartered Members don’t necessarily have to demonstrate that competence in a New Zealand context. This makes

Consent Authorities, we intend to maintain a process of re-assessment for this category of chartered membership.

Chartered Members get all the perks of being part of of the Engineering New Zealand community.

Chartered Member more accessible for engineers practising overseas, and provides direct entry for engineers who have been assessed in an equivalent overseas jurisdiction.

There is also a difference in the assessment portfolio of work which engineering technicians and technologists submit. Technicians must show well-defined engineering activities and well-defined engineering problems.

Technologists must show broadly-defined engineering activities and broadly-defined engineering problems.

Engineering geologists are required to demonstrate an ability to deal with complex engineering geological problems and activities, and given the recognition of our previous Professional Engineering Geologist (PEngGeol) register by Building

What is the biggest hurdle to gaining this membership category?

Compiling the work samples. We have put a lot of work into streamlining the assessment process, but for an applicant, compiling this evidence can be the most time-consuming part of the process. We tell engineers when they first become members of Engineering New Zealand to start collecting work. You can store this work in your personalised membership space on our website.

What does the assessment process for CMEngNZ involve?

A professional engineer must demonstrate they can deal with complex engineering problems that require specialist knowledge.

Candidates submit proof of their engineering qualifications or equivalent knowledge, a portfolio of work samples and learning records, referees, their practice field and a description of their practice area plus a self review, demonstrating competence. The self review shows an engineer’s ability to create a narrative of their work and shows their competence in relation to the minimum standard.

The assessment, once successfully completed, shows an engineer meets an internationally-recognised standard.

Best practice

How long does the assessment process take?

Once our team has received a submission we check for all the required documentation then set up the candidate with an assessment panel of their peers. The panel reviews the documentation and meets the candidate to discuss the submission. The panel will then provide a recommendation to the Competence Assessment Board, who will have the final say on the candidate’s competence. Last year, on average, the process took 81 days from start to finish.

Once an engineer has achieved CMEngNZ, how do they stay current?

Every Engineering New Zealand member is now committed to completing 40 hours of professional development a year. What’s most important is the quality, currency and application of the learning.

So what is the difference between CPEng and CMEngNZ? Chartered Professional Engineer is a registration that sits under the CPEng Act 2002, unlike CMEngNZ, which is a membership class not a registration.

REGISTRATION

43

A CPEng application must cover specific reference to, and understanding of, current New Zealand good engineering practice, as well as showing current competence. CPEng is reassessed at least once in a six-year cycle. This process takes on average 60 days and looks at continuing professional development (CPD) records and examples of recent work. Most of the professional conversations with the assessment panel are conducted via tele- or video-conference.

What does the future hold for CPEng registration?

For some time, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has been working on a new occupational licensing regime and Engineering New Zealand has been advocating for this licensing to cover all safety-critical areas. Over the next few years, CPEng will be aligned to focus on New Zealand-specific technical competence. This will be based on agreed Bodies of Knowledge and Skills for safetycritical areas, starting with structural, geotechnical and fire engineering.

Can you be both CMEngNZ and CPEng, and why would you?

If you are a CPEng you can also choose to be a CMEngNZ, and this is common.

It means you gain all the benefits of Engineering New Zealand membership.

Having CMEngNZ as well as CPEng gives you an extra quality mark and as long as you remain committed to CPD and the Code of Ethical Conduct, you can maintain CMEngNZ for life.

How have engineers responded to the new Chartered Member class?

Some engineers have chosen to shift from CPEng to CMEngNZ. They want to maintain recognition they meet an international benchmark, as well as making it clear they are committed to professional development and the Code of Ethical Conduct, but don’t have any regulatory need for CPEng in their work.

Other engineers see a new opportunity in CMEngNZ to gain a recognised quality mark.

Find out more by emailing the team at assessment@engineeringnz.org

MEMBERSHIP PATHWAY DISTINGUISHED FELLOW FELLOW

CPENG ASSESSMENT

CHARTERED MEMBER ASSESSMENT MEMBER EMERGING PROFESSIONAL STUDENT

EG 3/2018

44

Building consents and building relationships

Opinion Denise Whelan is Principal Specialist – Building Consents at Auckland Council specialising in complaints, Building Act-related matters and policies on Producer Statements.

Best practice

45

DENISE WHELAN

By avoiding these five common pitfalls with building consents, engineering professionals and councils can work together towards a smoother process.

Engineers play a significant role in the construction industry in New Zealand, so the need to have trust and confidence in engineering professionals is vital not only for councils, but for builders and laypeople. Auckland Council has many interactions with engineers in all parts of its business on a day-to-day basis. It also maintains the Auckland Council Producer Statement Register and Policy, under which many engineering professionals will be approved authors.

We’d like to share five common themes we see through the consenting process.

Bearing these in mind will help build a stronger working relationship between councils and the engineering industry, regardless of the council.

1. Producer Statement templates If you're a member of Engineering New Zealand or ACENZ, use their template.

If not, contact your local council.

For Auckland Council’s policy, go to aucklandcouncil.govt.nz and search for Producer Statements.

Many of us are moving significantly into the digital space, where we create our own documents both for convenience and aesthetic reasons. However, when councils are faced with unique-looking documents, it can leave staff questioning the authenticity of the document and whether it covers all that is required. It takes time to review it for essential content.

From a legal perspective there is no regulated template, as Producer Statements are no longer referred to

in the Building Act. However, use of a standardised format that we all know and are familiar with, covering all critical items, means we will be more efficient and can

4. Signing a certificate of design work as a licensed building practitioner (LBP)

focus instead on what it says.

the number of certificates of design work being signed by both structural and civil engineers for the full architectural aspect of a consent design. A certificate of design work is a regulated form and makes a very clear statement that the work designed complies with the Building Code. If you’re a Chartered Professional Engineer and you’re taking on restricted building work as a LBP, remember you should only be carrying out work within your competency.

While you might not have designed it all, you would be taking full responsibility.

2. Reporting adverse consequences In accordance with the Code of Ethical Conduct, engineers must report adverse consequences. Firstly, inquire into the matter to see if it can be resolved. If not, tell the regulatory body as soon as possible so council inspectors can ensure people are kept safe. Council might visit the site and/ or appoint specialists to undertake reviews or issue any notices if there are concerns the works are dangerous.

3. Providing input into consents Council is mindful time is money and contractual relationships in the consenting space can be complicated.

However, as the author of a Producer Statement (PS)1 and a PS4, you should be aware of any changes to your designs during the consenting process.

Sometimes the set of architectural drawings and the structural plans submitted for consent do not correspond.

This causes additional information requests that can slow down the consent process.

Where possible, ensure the completed design, calculations and PS1 (and documents from PS2 reviewer if applicable) are ready before the consent is lodged and that these have been checked against the architectural drawings as part of your internal QA process to ensure they match. This can reduce issues during construction monitoring and help manage your risk.

We have seen a significant increase in

5. Conflicts of interest Councils will always need to know if your involvement in any project could pose a possible conflict of interest. Some examples we see on a regular basis are when engineers would like to be the design and construction monitoring engineer on their own house. Some have reasoned that because it is their own asset they trust themselves and know it will be done perfectly. Engineers are required by the Code of Ethical Conduct as well as by Auckland Council policy to disclose any conflicts of interest. If we are notified of the conflict of interest upfront, we can manage it. For example, Auckland Council can either do a full review in-house, or select a peer reviewer. If in doubt, disclose.

We are always happy to talk through any issues or concerns you might have and want to work closely with engineering professionals and Engineering New Zealand to ensure the building consents process runs as smoothly as possible.

46

EG 2/2018

On track for future growth IAN COTTON

Auckland’s massive rail upgrade, and the recent reopening of the Main North Line railway following the Kaikoura earthquake, have put rail in the spotlight. But even when rail was in decline, there was a group working to better the industry and its participants.

Rail has been a key part of New Zealand’s development and transportation systems for 150 years. Today, after many years of underinvestment and decline, it’s undergoing a renaissance. Significant investment has been made in recent years upgrading and re-equipping KiwiRail’s national freight network and modernising and rebuilding urban passenger systems in Auckland and Wellington.

The Railway Technical Society of Australasia (RTSA) is a joint Technical Society of Engineers Australia and Engineering New Zealand, formed to further the interests of the railway industry at large and its individual participants.

It was established in 1997 and is a non-profit organisation with more than 1,100 members. This includes around 50 in New Zealand, where there are six active chapters. Although the majority of RTSA members are from engineering backgrounds, membership is open to anyone working in the rail industry and related fields such as academia.

The New Zealand chapter, established in 2007, runs regular meetings, field trips and events in Wellington and Auckland.

These include presentations on topical railway issues, such as the extension of light rail on Australia’s Gold Coast,

new turnout designs (the mechanical installation enabling railway trains to be guided from one track to another) and new developments in international level crossing interface design.

The New Zealand chapter also joins with other technical groups to organise joint forums on topics with a broader reach beyond rail. Recent examples include a level crossing forum held in 2016 and earlier this year a forum on the reconnection of vital transport links in the South Island after the devastation caused by the November 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. The Engineering New Zealand Wellington Branch, Engineering New Zealand’s Transportation Group and the RTSA’s New Zealand chapter collaborated to facilitate a forum celebrating the reconnecting of communities in the upper South Island by the rebuilding and reopening of State Highway 1 and the Main North Line railway. The forum in Wellington showcased the human and technical requirements and challenges faced by the North Canterbury Transport Infrastructure Reconnection (NCTIR) alliance, the NZ Transport Agency and KiwiRail.

The RTSA’s biennial Conference on Railway Excellence (CORE) has established itself in recent years as the premier technical event in the Australasian rail conference market. The 2018 conference was held in Sydney in May, attracting international speakers with diverse backgrounds including advancement of sustainability of rail and intermodal trade and urban planning. There were around 90 selected high-quality, peer-reviewed

papers in the technical sessions.

At the conference, KiwiRail and the wider team responsible for the reopening of the rail line between Blenheim and Christchurch, just nine months after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, won the RTSA’s Biennial Project Award. The judges said the recovery project was an “inspiring example of how railway people respond energetically and successfully to the most severe challenges”.

KiwiRail’s Earthquake Recovery project director, Walter Rushbrook CMEng CPEng IntPE(NZ), says the win recognises the determination and dedication of all those involved. He says the earthquake recovery project was the fastest paced and largest job any of the team had ever been involved in, with more than 1,700 people involved at the peak.

The New Zealand chapter of the RTSA provides an exciting and convenient portal to the technical world of railways, while offering opportunities to learn and network with peers and new members are always welcome.

Ian Cotton has been part of the changing environment of New Zealand’s rail industry for the past 40 years.

His roles have included management of operations scheduling, operational systems development and implementation, codes and standards, customer service, safety assessment, investigations and safety case management.

51 Day in the life

52 Saying yes key to success

55 C-Suite

56 Bedside table

57 Review

59 Obituaries

60 Engineering genius

Shorts

48 The secret life of engineers

48

EG 3/2018

The secret life of engineers

Peter Smith DistFEngNZ CPEng IntPE(NZ) Wellington Consulting Structural and Civil Engineer, Spencer Holmes BASED IN: ROLE:

Bachelor of Engineering (Civil), University of Canterbury, 1968 EDUCATION:

Shorts

Theoretically, new Distinguished Fellow Peter Smith retired five years ago. But in practice, he still works fulltime – and then some – as he has for the past 45 years.

Peter is a former Engineering New Zealand Board member and was awarded the MacLean Citation in 2002 for his industry leadership and expertise in structural engineering and engineering practice. But in addition to work, he enjoys a rich family life and a range of interests and there’s one that’s particularly colourful.

You’ve never had to apply for a job in your life, how did you get your first break?

Career influences are often outside of the control of the individual. I was fortunate to complete my degree at a time when there was a strong demand for structural engineering graduates and I was given a job offer over a casual lunch.

What’s your current involvement with work?

The company has a suggested retirement age of 65, a requirement I instituted and fully support. However, it is important to clients that a retiring Director has an ongoing involvement for some years beyond retirement. Those years have been increasingly centred around technical issues following the Canterbury and Kaikoura earthquakes.

The Canterbury earthquakes provided a unique opportunity for semi-retired engineers to make a constructive contribution to the Christchurch rebuild. I worked with some of the most competent members of the profession to develop guidelines to meet the challenges liquefaction created in lower-lying Canterbury land. The earthquakes also created a demand for detailed structural assessments of many buildings, often with many technical challenges as today’s codes are focused on new building compliance.

The Kaikoura earthquake raised further challenges regarding floor systems in ductile framed buildings. As President of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, the Kaikoura earthquake provided a further opportunity to contribute to many public safety issues that arose after reviewing damage to buildings in Wellington.

engineer. Jon is now a Director of Spencer Holmes and I now work as a consultant for Spencer Holmes.

You work for a family member, how did this come about?

As the twists in my life would have it, I employed my son-in-law as a graduate

What’s the best advice you’d give someone looking to work for/with a close family member?

Any promotion must be based on merit and the relationship must have mutual respect.

What are your main interests outside work?

I enjoy the outdoors and the wonderful range of opportunities for water sports and access to native bush and mountainous areas. We have three children and six grandchildren and our family enjoys boating, fishing, walking and skiing. I play casual golf and take an interest in watching sports such as rugby and cricket.

What does being made a Distinguished Fellow mean to you?

You’ve been known to use your engineering skills for a colourful purpose, tell us more…

My wife, Lynette, has been heavily involved in floral arranging for most of our married life, frequently creating large arrangements for galleries and charity fundraising events. Achieving the artistic requires an element of structural mechanics that need to be supportive, rather than obvious, in the completed arrangement. These arrangements needed to be supported on slender stands or suspended from an overhead structure. This is where I was able to assist. The structural mechanics

I am humbled by, and consider it a distinct honour to have received, this recognition.

are micro scale compared to normal structural engineering. One instance was

49

suspending six, two-metre-deep floral arrangements from the large suspended donut some 6m above the stage in the Michael Fowler Centre. By minimising the size of the suspension wires, it was possible to gain the visual effect of the arrangements being suspended in space.

Some years ago, we recorded Lynette’s work in a coffee table book and I became an amateur photographer, learning the art of capturing artistic arrangements under the correct light and camera settings.

During your career, how did you juggle work life with family commitments?

Probably not well. Being the Director of an engineering practice involves more than a 40-hour week and can be disruptive to family life. To some extent, I worked around family activities and trips, using the quiet times to undertake background reading or develop concepts for projects. The arrival of computers with remote access has made working away from the office easier.

Any plans for full retirement?

I have no plans for fully retiring, hoping that my professional life will fade as other interests develop.

I have always enjoyed the challenges of a heavy workload and the intellectual challenges that an engineering career can offer.

Finally, what advice would you give to young engineering professionals?

During my career I have always contributed to technical groups and the professional organisation and I encourage younger engineers to actively participate in the affairs of Engineering New Zealand and technical societies relevant to their work. As young professionals they are also professional ambassadors of public safety. It is only through undertaking this role that we are worthy of the public’s recognition as a profession.

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Shorts

51

ay in the life

Dr Paul Jaquin specialises in buildings and roading projects in Otago and other parts of the country. He holds a PhD in rammed earth construction, is a sustainable building expert and has authored books and academic papers in this field. He travelled to Nepal as part of the New Zealand Aid team providing technical assistance in the restoration and recovery work following the 2015 earthquakes that caused extensive damage to property and infrastructure.

10:15

07:30 I walk to work every day – it’s

some unconventional work vehicles. I hop onto the mountain bike to inspect the cycling and walking trails around Queenstown. Our team might be working on upgrades to existing trails, exploring routes for new trails or a new bridge, or assessing rockfall risks.

Some sites need a helicopter as we do routine inspections of rockfall sites on the state highway network. We check for changes since the last visit, and dispatch an abseiler to remove the rocks if there is danger of them falling onto roads. We also respond to emergency situations, which means getting a helicopter or a boat into Fiordland, usually to assess weather damage, slips or rockfalls. We also decide whether to restrict public access while working with the contractor to decide how to fix the issue.

a great 30-minute walk, watching the sun rise over the Remarkables mountain range.

08:00

Make a cup of tea, chat with colleagues then plan my day. The day will almost certainly not go to plan, but it’s a good starting point.

08:30

Design. Most days I can usually get in a few hours of design work. I’ve got an unreinforced masonry (URM) building on the books at the moment, which is very interesting in terms of earthquake strengthening.

New Zealand engineers are world leading in assessment and strengthening of URM buildings. I also have a Passivhaus (Passive House) project that I am working on. This requires some interesting and complex detailing to fit within the Passivhaus philosophy, a European technique centred around creating airtight, energy-efficient buildings.

Site query. This is the time I typically get a call from a site, either asking for clarification on a drawing – something isn’t quite how we have assumed – or that a part requires an inspection.

Midday Eat. If it’s a Wednesday, then its fast food day – this is an office ritual.

We usually hit BK, but we are an innovative bunch and like to try new ideas and concepts, so last week we went to Maccas.

Dr Paul Jaquin CMEngNZ CPEng IntPE(NZ) Queenstown Senior Structural Engineer, WSP Opus EDUCATION: Master of Engineering (Civil), University of Durham, United Kingdom, 2004, PhD (Civil Engineering), University of Durham, United Kingdom, 2008 BASED IN: ROLE:

13:00 Site inspection. This calls for

use this as an opportunity to upskill on details that can only been learnt on the job.

17:30 Walk home – a chance to unwind and process the day’s events.

19:30 Mountain biking at 7 Mile Bike Park. An advantage of living in Queenstown is the awesome outdoors!

We mountain bike in the summer and ski in the winter.

21:30 Research. For example, peer

with a graduate who is working with me on

reviewing a paper about rammed earth for a journal. It’s a great way to keep up to date with current research. Later I relax and catch up with the latest drama on Netflix to wind down for the evening,

a project. A tricky landslide assessment brings up some real life training and we

in preparation for another busy day tomorrow.

16:30 Teaching. Technical discussion

52

I wanted to create opportunities for people, as well as to continuously learn and challenge myself.

EG 3/2018

Shorts

53

Saying yes key to success JENNIFER BLACK

Young Engineer of the Year 2018 Jenny Chu is a civil engineer with an impressive track record in community involvement.

She describes her win as “an honour and a privilege” and plans to build on her success to keep creating opportunities for others.

Jenny Chu CMEngNZ CPEng, 29, knew from a young age she wanted to be an engineer and follow in the footsteps of her father.

“Hearing about all the exciting work that he did, how it helped millions of people, and seeing the cool toys that he got to play with planted a seed in my mind at an early age to grow up to be just as cool as him.”

She studied engineering and law at the University of Auckland and was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand, but chose to focus on engineering.

“It’s a personal, creative and innovative endeavour that creates opportunities for people, especially through the very infrastructure work that enhances communities and will last for many generations.”

Jenny says her legal background allows her to look at issues with a broad lens.

“Being able to leverage on this diversity of thinking and mix of skill sets has allowed me to solve problems more effectively and creatively.”

To date, her career has centred around transport. She is Senior Civil Project Engineer at City Rail Link Ltd (CRL), working on the huge transformation of Auckland’s rail network (see March EG for a full feature on the CRL).

“It’s a project that has been discussed for over 100 years. It’s an honour to be part of the team that is turning this idea into a real legacy for Auckland and the New Zealand engineering industry.”

Engineering New Zealand’s Young Engineer of the Year award recognises an engineer who is a model of excellence for other engineers, demonstrating excellence in their career, leadership qualities and contribution to their community.

Jenny says the win is a great reminder of the projects she has worked on and the people she has worked with, and a reminder of why she chose engineering.

“I wanted to create opportunities for people, as well as to continuously learn and challenge myself.”

Her community involvement includes being UNICEF New Zealand Executive Board Trustee, Aotearoa Youth Leadership Institute Board Chair and a member of the Asia New Zealand Foundation and Infrastructure New Zealand. In addition, she has been selected for high-profile international delegations including being New Zealand Youth Delegate for a UN Climate Change Summit. She also helped establish the New Zealand Tunnelling Society as a platform to promote best practice for people involved in the tunnelling community.

“It is a very exciting time for tunnelling in New Zealand as there is a resurgence

So, of her many and varied achievements, what makes her most proud?

“Establishing Engineers Without Borders New Zealand with my friends 10 years ago. This was to build a network of socially minded engineers and provide equal access to engineering knowledge in New Zealand and the South Pacific to enable communities to live a life of opportunities.”

Jenny speaks English, Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese, and as an Asian female she knows she’s helping break down stereotypes about engineers.

“This reflects the changing fabric of the society we are living in and our industry.

I’m looking forward to supporting further work to embrace and celebrate the diversity we have in engineering, such as the Diversity Agenda.”

Jenny is happy to reveal the secret to her success – it’s putting up her hand to try a variety of things.

“And I have been very fortunate to have had people who support, challenge and guide me along the way to give different things a go.”

As for a 10-year plan, Jenny’s is still broad.

“I look forward to continuing to build on my experience to plan and deliver infrastructure projects for our communities, which will facilitate an exchange of knowledge between different disciplines and industries,

in major tunnelling and underground work,” she says.

and different parts of the world.”

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Shorts

55

C

–Suite

Simon Fleisher FEngNZ CPEng Wellington Chief Executive, Wellington Cable Car Limited (WCCL) EDUCATION: Master of Engineering (Mechanical), University of Bristol, 1990 Master of Business Administration, Victoria University of Wellington, 2012 BASED IN: ROLE:

What was your first job after graduation?

I was offered a three-month graduate internship with Hamersley Iron in Western Australia. It was a great experience and a fabulous opportunity to travel. I then returned to the UK to complete an undergraduate engineering sponsorship with Ford Motor Company then joined the Royal Navy as a Marine Engineering Officer.

What has had most influence on your career to date?

Joining the Royal Navy transformed the way I think about engineering by teaching me the value of working in a team and how to competently maintain and repair an extremely complex warship while working with some of the funniest, most professional people I have ever met. Also, completing an MBA helped my career and broadened my way of thinking.

Why did this CEO role appeal to you?

I love being a professional engineer, but I love the combination of being an engineer and a Chief Executive even more. When I got offered this role in 2013, the job was a step up in terms of responsibility. It was more commercially orientated, with leadership at a more strategic level than my previous roles. This really appealed to me as I thought it would be interesting, challenging and varied.

What are the best, and the most challenging, aspects of being a CEO of a smaller organisation?

WCCL has 30 staff and 20 sub-contractors.

One of the most enjoyable features of running a small organisation is our ability to be agile and move quickly to take advantage of business opportunities.

We also try hard to make the business an enjoyable place to work and our size makes it easier for us to be flexible and innovative with our working practices.

The challenge is we lack the dedicated resources to handle more complex, time-consuming issues whereas a larger organisation often has a larger pool of more specialised resources to draw upon.

and maintaining public transport infrastructure. When I was recruited, the Directors wanted the CEO to be an engineer as they felt this would enhance the company’s ability to safely operate and maintain its infrastructure. Theoretically, a non-engineer could do it, but this would leave the company and the CEO at a bit of a disadvantage and detract from the company’s ability to drive excellence and innovate to get the most out of its infrastructure assets.

What is WCCL’s biggest challenge in the next year?

We’re currently halfway through decommissioning Wellington’s trolley bus overhead electrical network. It’s going well but it is a complex project that requires precision planning to get the job done while ensuring worker and public safety and avoiding traffic gridlock throughout Wellington during the work day.

How does your engineering experience help in this CEO role and could a non-engineer do it?

If you were starting your career now, what key skills would you focus on?

I believe every good engineer needs the fundamentals of a broad-based education that covers the requisite engineering science and provides sufficient background to be able to specialise later. Also, good interpersonal and communication skills and a reasonable

WCCL is a relatively small company with a heavy bias towards operating

awareness of commercial and project management procedures are essential.

B 56

EG 3/2018

edside table

New Fellow Rosalind Archer’s career was global from the outset – she held summer jobs in engineering roles in five different countries during her studies. She returned to New Zealand after her PhD at Stanford University in the US, via a few years teaching at Texas A&M University.

She has been on the staff of the University of Auckland since 2002 and, in addition, maintains an active consulting practice.

Professor Rosalind Archer FEngNZ

What’s on your bedside table?

A clock radio with an alarm set for 5.30am since I beat Auckland traffic by coming in early from a lifestyle block in the Waitakere Ranges. A stack of airline boarding passes and travel medication as I have been to Myanmar recently designing a New Zealand Aid Programme project. Assorted treatments for aches and pains incurred from dance class, and even the occasional aerial silks class (think Cirque de Soleil with less grace and more gravity). My greatgreat-grandmother’s ring, made of gold from the gold rush in Gabriel’s Gully. And a couple of books…

ROLE:

Auckland Head of Department – Department of Engineering Science, University of Auckland; Director – Geothermal Institute EDUCATION: Bachelor of Engineering (Engineering Science), University of Auckland, 1994; Master of Science (Petroleum Engineering), Stanford

Let’s focus on those books, what are they and why did you choose them?

Tragedy at Pike River Mine: How and Why 29 Men Died by Rebecca Macfie.

The book is a must read for anyone who has any kind of responsibility for an enterprise that entails health and safety risk. The tragedy is something I wanted to

University, 1996; PhD (Petroleum Engineering), Stanford University, 2000

have a personal understanding of since it has shaped modern health and safety

BASED IN:

legislation and practice in this country.

The Runaway Species by Anthony Brandt and David Eagleman. I’m always intrigued by the workings of the human mind and any book that starts its introduction asking what NASA and Picasso have in common has me wanting to know more.

How do they help you in your role?

Tragedy at Pike River Mine never leaves my bedside table. It is a silent, daily reminder of the need for best practice and constant vigilance in all aspects of health and safety, in engineering and in governance.

(I’ve been a director of New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd since 2014.)

The Runaway Species looks at the principles of creativity, which can involve bending, breaking or blending ideas. I was drawn to it because I am always interested in how to stimulate and support creativity in any organisation I am involved in.

Which group of engineering professionals are these books most helpful for?

While very different, both books are

Shorts

R

57

eview

relevant for anyone in engineering. To innovate, engineers must challenge established thinking and (figuratively) “break the rules”. However, good health and safety practice must go beyond a set of rules; it must be a cultural norm.

What book has most influenced your career?

My “number crunching” side always returns to Petroleum Reservoir Simulation

by Khalid Aziz and Tony Settari when I need to think about the fundamentals of how reservoir modelling codes work.

These days I also spend a lot of time in leadership/governance roles. In that regard one of my favourites is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It unpicks some of the factors at work in the brain as we make decisions.

What work-related books are on your must-read list?

The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies by Scott Page. The book makes a case for the benefit of cognitive diversity in organisations. Right now I’m reading as much as I can about gender diversity to support my role leading the Faculty of Engineering’s goal to be enrolling a first-year class that is 33 percent female by the year 2020.

What do you read for fun?

Travel guides!

Speed read Ebook/paper copy Library/own Bookmark/turn down page

Ellie, Engineer

By Jackson Pearce NZ RRP $22.99 If you’re looking for a book to get primary-school aged girls interested in engineering, Ellie, Engineer is a good choice.

Schoolgirl Ellie Bell is a self-professed engineer and she and her best friend Kit are going to run an engineering company one day. In the meantime, Ellie’s happy place is her workshop where she dreams up projects, sketches plans and builds her creations, kitted out in a tool belt worn over a fluffy skirt.

With black and white illustrations and design sketches to complement the story, Ellie, Engineer centres around Ellie secretly building a doghouse for Kit’s birthday. Ellie’s a positive role model for young girls as, in addition to her STEM interest and skills, she uses her problem-solving strengths in practical ways. She’s also adept at juggling the delicacies of friendships and turns her anger at being barred from the boys’ game of soccer (because she’s a girl) into something constructive and inclusive. Interspersed with some old-school pranks for humour and a few failures on the road to ultimate success, Ellie, Engineer is an everyday adventure story aimed at 8–12 year olds.

Cover to cover/interesting chapters first Reviewed by EG Editor Jennifer Black.

10

YEAR

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Shorts

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Obituaries

Geoffrey Richard William (Geoff) Walsh

Alexander Stuart John Allan (Stuart)

1953–2017

1956–2018

Geoff Walsh, a member of the Heavy Vehicle Engineers (HVE) Technical Group of Engineering New Zealand, died suddenly on a job in November, aged 64.

Geoff grew up in Reporoa where he spent a lot of time as a young boy annoying the local garage and trucking company with his interest in heavy vehicles. They adopted him as their mascot and he enjoyed many excursions in their trucks, kindling his lifetime interest in heavy vehicles. He started his engineering career as a draughtsman at IST Consolidated in Penrose, Auckland, in 1971. His career included a three-year stint in England, then in 1980 he started at Steelbros as a Design Engineer/Workshop Manager. There, he became involved in the Truck Trailer Manufacturer’s Federation.

In 1984, Geoff began working at Transport Specifications and won the EJ Brennan Memorial Trust Award which enabled him to travel to Australia and Canada to study the design of dynamic behaviour of heavy vehicles. In 1986, he and his wife Paula began their own heavy vehicle design and certification company, Transport Technology Ltd. In 2002, he became one of the inaugural members of what is now the HVE and remained a highly-valued member of this group.

Stuart Allan CMEngNZ CPEng, a Senior Lecturer at Otago Polytechnic, first entered the doors of the polytechnic in 1975 as a student in the New Zealand Certificate in Engineering course. At the time he was “working on the tools” as an electrical technician and taking night classes. He started as a part-time teacher at polytechnic in 1996, becoming full time in 2003. From 2006 he was Programme Manager (Electrotechnology) for two years then returned to work in the engineering industry. He returned to the Polytechnic as a full-time Senior Lecturer in 2012, managing the Certificate in Electrical Technology, then moved into a co-management role for the New Zealand Diploma in Engineering (NZDE).

He inspired and engaged his students and related well to people, regardless of their level. Stuart was also involved in international education, undertaking lecturing exchanges to Spain, Austria and Germany, and facilitated learning opportunities for overseas students.

He was an active member of Engineering New Zealand, an NZBED Board member, a member of its Electrical Management Committee and an examiner/moderator for the NZDE and the BEngTech Metro Group. He passed away in February aged 62 .

David Andrew Burns 1953–2018 David Burns CMEngNZ(PEngGeol) was a graduate of Waikato University’s Department of Earth Sciences, completing an MSc in 1980. He embarked on his career in engineering geology in Tauranga, finishing as a highly respected, experienced Technical Director in Ground Engineering at AECOM in Auckland. During his career David spent considerable time overseas for AECOM in Belize, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Lao PDR and Vietnam as well as throughout New Zealand, bringing engineering geology to projects.

He was a life member of the New Zealand Geotechnical Society and a past Chair. He also helped engineering geologists gain recognition at the same membership level as Chartered Professional Engineers.

While report writing was David’s forte, his ability to interpret geology and solve problems was more important. His professional legacy is best seen in those with whom he worked with, whose careers he influenced. David died in Auckland in January aged 64 and is survived by his wife Carmen and two children.

EG 3/2018

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Engineering genius

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