Business View Oceania | Volume 4, Issue 3

69 70 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 Manufacturing has a lot of moving parts – in a pandemic it can feel like those parts are all moving in opposite directions. In New Zealand and Australia our manufacturers have found themselves second best to the rest of the world stockpiling components, a mentality akin to panic buying of toilet paper. For example who could have predicted such global shortages in micro-chips, some of our customers have faced up to 24 month lead- times! United Machinists hasn’t been left unscathed by supply chain issues either – steel pricing can fluctuate by up to 40% quarterly, aluminum lead times are touted to hit 12 months and surface finishing providers are bottle-necked. Not to mention freight providers are so stretched that they’re breaking stuff – we know, we’ve arguably developed the most beautiful bullet proof custom designed component packaging imaginable as a result! As a second-generation family owned machine shop in one of the Southernmost manufacturing areas of the world – we’ve had to adapt and pivot our way of operating. In 2020 we completed the expansion of our environmentally controlled machine shop purposely designed for the medical and aerospace industries. We can now machine and inspect thousands of medical components every week – to tolerances as low as 6 micron. In such a volatile world we’ve focused on delivering certainty – we’ve brought in specialist delivery expertise and new digital systems, such as real-time client production links and client KPI reporting. We’ve stepped up to client’s needs by offering production capacity planning, forward stocking of raw materials, additional rapid prototyping capacity and in late 2022 we’ll be launching our own medical and aerospace grade anodizing line. We’re proud of being a second-generation family business with the opportunity to engineer the futures of our people. Whilst robotic automation and continual advancements in additive manufacturing promise to transform labour productivity - they’ll never fully replace it. To address the short labour market we’ve created a workplace our employees love, and we’ve gone out to the schools and polytechnics to attract the best and brightest apprentice talent. At the end of the day we know that our clients can’t deliver if they don’t have all the parts. That’s why it’s hard coded into our values and sign-written onto our walls – “it starts with us for our clients to change the world”. Sarah Ramsay, CEO United Machinists Custom client packaging solution Precision medical components When the world’s stockpiling components like toilet paper – you need to know you’re in the priority queue. ESP MEDI CAL UNI TED MACHINI STS Business Manager Hillary Sharp shares ESP Medical’s evolution over the last two years. “We were created as a branch of ES Plastics when our Managing Director, Jeff Sharp, got together with two neighbours of his, who were both doctors, to discuss New Zealand’s shortage of medical supplies. Conversations started small and centred around PPE products, but Jeff quickly realised that we had the manufacturing and design capabilities to provide a more high-tech solution for critical care. And so, the concept for the RESPO2NSE ventilator was born, and that remains our main area of business. It’s pretty unbelievable how fast the last 24 months has gone for us, and the level of growth we have achieved. We also acquired our ISO 13485 manufacturing certification, which allows us to contract manufacture for other medical designers and companies in niche areas of the industry.” Currently, the RESPO2NSE ventilator is being commercialised in developing countries that lack basic critical care devices, as a support for national healthcare systems. Miss Sharp explains, “An important thing to remember is that a lot of the countries we service didn’t have sufficient ventilators or the infrastructure to support them, even before COVID. As an example, many of the countries in Sub Saharan Africa have ventilator numbers that you can count on one hand. Unfortunately, the current infrastructures in these locations are unable to support many modern medical devices, so we adapted our device to suit the use environment and were able to support that with our RESPO2NSE product. But it’s not just the pandemic- these markets have an ongoing need for these products, so we are making sure that the RESPO2NSE ventilator can continue to provide accessible healthcare to a variety of WRITER: Sarah Ramsay, CEO United Machinists sarah@unitedmachinists.co.nz +64 21 552 240 www.unitedmachinists.co.nz