It's rare that a resource comes along that can really make a step-change to your business. I believe Professor Roos, and the highly valuable knowledge and experience he has to share, is such a resource.

Those who attended his presentation last week will know what I'm talking about, but if you missed it, we have captured some of the Professor's pearls of wisdom and made them available for you online - see below.  

Catherine Beard
027 463 3212 or cbeard@businessnz.org.nz

The presentation last Wednesday by Professor Göran Roos on the success factors for the mid-size European Manufacturers was very inspiring and I know from feedback that many of you got great value from it.

His two presentations are now available to download.

1. Morning Session – How mid-sized manufacturers outperform the rest of the economy.
2. Lunch Session – This has more of a focus on the policy issues that governments need to think about in order to support and nurture their manufacturers and how important manufacturing is to an economy.

Click here for my key take-outs from the day.

Click here to download the Professor's recommendations to the South Australian Government.

C Beard

A new NZTE publication on NZ manufacturing illustrates why NZ is an increasingly attractive place to invest in manufacturing. There are multi nationals putting their R&D teams in NZ to take advantage of our combination of a well-educated workforce, competitive costs, good regulatory environment and I will add – a lifestyle that can attract talent. NZ is open for business!

Each new manufacturing job generates (on average) between 2 and 5 jobs in the rest of the economy and each $1 of turnover generates $1.74 turnover in the rest of the economy. If we want to grow our manufacturing salaries we want to be at the innovative end of the spectrum and benchmark ourselves against the Europeans.

Download the report here

 Manufacturing activity produced a mid-year flat patch, which was in line with offshore movements, according to the latest BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI). 

 The seasonally adjusted PMI for June was 50.2. More...

Standards are a very useful way to reduce barriers to trade (it lowers transaction costs if you can design a product to one standard that gives you access to a wide range of markets e.g. one EU wide standard or one Australia/NZ standard.  Also conformance with credible standards gives consumers faith in your product quality.

Personally I think this will be a good opportunity to say that the way we fund our approach to Standards is suboptimal. More...

C Beard

Research shows that a positive safety culture means fewer workplace injuries and reduced staff turnover. It can also enhance a firm’s reputation and lead to higher productivity. And like any aspect of an effective business, growing a positive safety culture requires a commitment of resources and focused actions.

The Safety Culture Snapshot has been created by the Department of Labour to help businesses assess and understand their own workplace safety culture. More...

Specialist Rentals is a great new company I came across that provides an online secure service for businesses to share test equipment. Co-founder Derek Law has an R&D background and was used to working in labs with highly specialised and expensive equipment that sat idle for too much of the time.

The genesis for this service was formed as it allows companies with specialist equipment to rent it out to other companies instead of having it underutilised. It also allows smaller companies a cost-effective way of carrying out testing and getting products to market, without having to invest in really expensive test equipment. A win-win for all. More...

C Beard

Intelligent wireless road lighting? Yes it’s happening here. Find out more about the lighting technology that can pace motorists to a guaranteed green light at an intersection, and can power wirelessly through almost any substance. It’s an innovation developed by the University of Auckland and UniServices and commercialised by 3i innovations. More...

The Materials Accelerator is an MSI Funded programme set up in 2009 to provide technology and support to NZ manufacturers, with the specific goal of increasing their export revenues through R&D partnerships between industry and researchers, using a co-operative R&D model. More...

This new conference will share the knowledge of experienced supply chain and logistics experts, and the latest research into industry trends from New Zealand.

It will cover topics ranging from procurement and global supply chains, to a legal update, strategy, warehousing and human resourcing, plus much more. More...

What does your organisation do well? What is helping your organisation to succeed and why?

Get your colleagues together to think about this and enter your organisation into the BEST PRACTICE COMPETITION to be held at the World Business Capability Congress, Auckland, 5-7 December 2012. More...

The recently launched Vocational Pathways have been designed to help clarify for young people how to get from junior secondary school through to desired work or study destinations, combining academic with technical and career education.

The Pathways relate to manufacturing and technology, primary industries, services, construction, and social services. More...

Huge congratulations to the Young Enterprise 'Just Water' team, who won the national title for the Global Enterprise Challenge and went on to place second in the worldwide competition.  They also took out the Creativity Award.

This is a great accomplishment as they were competing against 15 countries including Australia, Cambodia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Macedonia, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Wales and USA. More...

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