mbie-report-2018

Benchmarking New Zealand’s performance in innovation and R&D

New Zealand’s R&D and innovation performance – can we do better? The answer is yes! NZ’s expenditure on R&D is benchmarking alarmingly low. This is the key takeaway from MBIE’s recently released 2018 Research, Science and Innovation System Performance Report.   But why does this matter? According to the OECD and Treasury, low R&D investment…

branz-research-LR0477

Solving the housing crisis with a sustainable light steel framing multi-storey building option

The Greater Auckland region is facing a housing crisis that requires greater urban density to help fix it. That’s why our Structural Systems team has been conducting innovative research on a light steel framing (LSF) multi-storey building solution. An approach that answers the Auckland Unitary Plan’s calls to action to house a growing population. While…

fire-fighter-disaster

Could your company infrastructure be set to face a natural disaster?

In today’s digital age, traditional manufacturing companies must harness disruption before it engulfs them. If you aren’t prepared – your company infrastructure is a natural disaster waiting to happen through digital disruption. That’s because natural disasters aren’t just restricted to events of nature. Nature of events can run their course in businesses and markets as…

leadership-win

Building real estate in innovation leadership

Property infrastructure is on our radar for the month of October. And, not surprisingly it got us to thinking about what infrastructure needs to be developed to create a better organisational leadership culture. To answer this, we took inspiration from the Founder of Doblin Larry Keely who said “Innovation is the elegant integration of many…

innovation-lightbulb

How valuable is your business to you? And, what are you willing to do to achieve business growth?

We hope a lot, and that you’re willing to do anything! Because growth is a critical key metric for any organisation to survive. Yet, time and time again, we see our members not giving the ‘time’ needed to focus on this in their day to day work. A likely reason being that growth and survival are…

maori-language

Why should our engineering industry celebrate Māori Language Week | Te Wiki o te Reo Māori?

Many people believe they have no role to play in supporting the revitalisation of Māori. But the truth is, every New Zealander can help strengthen Māori language – even our metals industry! As a person who is of Māori decent, I’m not writing this article with a hidden agenda. I’m writing it because what better day to…

page-macrae-peter-swan

Page Macrae Engineering’s Peter Swan talks innovation!

Aug282018 We’ve been on a quest to help our members become more Innovation READY. Developing a bespoke course focused on arming them with the tools and understanding to implement innovation strategies into their organisations. So of course, when Page Macrae signed up their Business Development Manager Peter Swan to attend, we knew we had to…

disruption-engine-prosperity

Disruption – the engine of prosperity

In the next ten years, 40% of the fortune 500 companies won’t exist in a meaningful way. When we stop paying attention to being the disruptor – we become the disrupted. Growth matters. Throughout history we’ve seen this happen many times. As our CEO Troy Coyle mentioned in her ThinkTank@HERA article ‘Are you disruption ready?’ the journey…