Tandarra Engineeringis one of the companies who were awarded an R&D Grant by Callaghan Innovation to help foster Tandarra's innovation and growth.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND, January 31, 2014 /EINPresswire.com/ -- When products from your machines have been used across the world on some distinctive and distinguished building projects, including Westfield Stratford City (Europe's largest shopping mall, and a rail portal to the 2012 London Olympics’ site); the ultra-modern Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport; and, closer to home, Auckland’s Vector Arena and the RWC revamped Eden Park, you don’t have to prove you’re a roll-forming ‘player’ of significance.

And in an age when ‘outsourcing’ rules, it is most refreshing to hear they have strict limits on what and how much can be ‘shopped out’.

General Manager Lance Watson takes up the story: “We place a strong emphasis on production control, and as such, limit the number of components not manufactured completely in-house, to less than 10-percent of all parts in each machine. At the same time, we rigorously ensure we source only the highest quality materials from our local partners/suppliers.”

East Tamaki, Auckland-located Tandarra, like so many of our legendary companies has the street-cred of starting in the garage of the family home – in this case Brian and Marie-Claire Watson’s. Back in 1982, Brian, the current owner and director, manufactured his first roll-former, producing kiwifruit angle-boards, used for exporting the fruit, using a manual lathe and simple drill.

Today, Tandarra’s 20-odd staff operate a 10,000sqm full-production workshop and assembly plant, manufacturing custom-order roll-formers and accessories for a number of clients – many of them going back some 25-plus years -- both locally and abroad. CNC lathes, VMC mills, radial drills, table-grinders and even their own heat-treating facility, mark this as a world-class design and manufacturing hub, which also ‘loves a challenge’.

But, you’ll be pleased to learn, the original, simple drill press and manual lathe are still making parts for their current machinery, because that’s part of the company culture: it’s about maintaining a tradition of quality and high-precision which has had the likes of Bluescope Lysaght, throughout SE Asia, calling on them to produce speciality products over the decades.

“Our attitude is one of ‘almost anything is possible’, so along with producing a wide-range of generic profile machines, we also regularly find ourselves involved with projects to develop new profiles that have never been made before - often because we are the only ones willing to attempt them.

“We welcome those, because they stimulate the long-serving team to come up with the solution and then implement it to the budget and the deadline. To date, we have a perfect record on that score, and mean to keep it,” says Watson, who had just received an enquiry from Ethiopia, from a manufacturer who is so impressed with a 15yr old Tandarra machine he’s acquired, that he wants another.

Watson was due to fly to Thailand a couple of days later to supervise the training on and installation of the company’s latest project for Bluescope Lysaght – a containerised (custom-made, 40-footer, with roller door on the end and soft curtains) roll-forming machine which will be craned up onto scaffolding for continuous sheet rolling onto the many and massive warehouses and retail centres popping up all over that rapidly industrialising country.

“Although we have a reputation for mobile roll-formers, amongst others, this was a real weight challenge due to the on-site lifting requirements. It will be used to produce continuous sheets, up to 200M in length which have to be spot-on accurate as the profile uses a concealed clip system instead of traditional screw fixing. That and they have to be monsoon-proof.

“We also don’t want any problems which would require us to fly back-and-forth to fix. We made it with some 28 kg to spare; and just to keep the team on its toes – we had to accelerate the completion date, right at the end, to beat the pending Auckland dock strike” he notes.

Test-sheets were sent to their Australian laboratory in December and only a few minor tweaks were required before the client signed the profile and machine off just before Christmas.

“We are committed to continuing our existing relationships, as well as fostering some new ones, through the continuous improvement of our machinery, the safety features within them, and our manufacturing techniques, to ensure a safe working environment, both for our own team, and that of our customers.”

New Zealand manufacturing at its best.

Source: MSCNewsWire

Max Farndale
Manufacturers Success Connection
64 6 870 4506
email us here

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