December 2018
www.nzmanufacturer.co.nz
9 TECHNOLOGY
15
MANUFACTURING Unleashing the creative entrepreneurs.
YEAR IN REVIEW A ‘snap shot’ of successful companies in 2018.
19 MANUFACTURING SMART
Taking plant-based meat global.
Manufacturing
– A year in review
Professional 3D CAD Design software
Dieter Adam, Chief Executive,The Manufacturers’ Network
It is the time again to look back on the year that was – how did our manufacturing sector do, and what were the major developments that impacted our sector in another year of political change, both in New Zealand and around the world? Internationally, issues around trade have dominated much of the economic headlines, with the trade war between the USA and China, but conflict between the USA and Europe not far behind – not to mention Brexit, the trade implications of which appear to be just as uncertain as the question of whether it’ll actually happen or not. While these trade disagreements have not yet had a major impact New Zealand exporters, they remain as a downside risk if they start impacting the wider flow of goods and supply chain which our companies are involved in. The exchange rate experienced some depreciation throughout this year, however, much of this has been eroded over the last month. While 2018 has experienced a more favorable exchange rate than the highs experienced in 2014 and 2016, it remains systemically higher than the average of the previous decade, with the AUD cross-rate remaining as the biggest concern. Domestically in 2018, we have seen a number of policy changes which will impact our sector. The improvements made to the Government’s R&D policy, increasing the proposed tax credit rate to 15% while halving the eligibility threshold to $50,000, have been a good step forward, and the move to use a committee for monetary policy decisions at the Reserve Bank makes solid sense. On the downside, the Employment Relations Amendment bill has been moving through the parliamentary process largely unchanged, with the only material concession being a weakening of the
requirement to participate in collective bargaining by introducing opt-out provisions, the details of which are as yet unclear. This government’s declared goal of redressing a perceived imbalance between employers and trade unions has already seen very substantial public sector wage increases which – were they to influence wage demands in our sector without corresponding increases in labour productivity – would pose a serious threat to our sector.
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Technology improvements for manufacturing companies, particularly in the area of automation and Industry 4.0, have continued to become more accessible, and, critically, are becoming cheaper with faster payback times. At The Manufacturers’ Network we have continued our work in helping our members investigate and share knowledge and experience in this area, including study tour with Callaghan Innovation to the U.S to give manufacturers an opportunity to see some practical examples of Industry 4.0 and related advanced manufacturing technologies in practice. I also want to reflect on recent data on the manufacturing sector, stepping back and seeing how growth for 2018 compares to the last five years. The numbers I will be referring to go up to the September 2018 quarter – if you click the like below you can find this full article along with a number of graphs create based on the Statistics NZ manufacturing survey data. Looking at across sub-sectors, including the meat and dairy, manufacturing has seen a fairly steady
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