The 2014 year has been a roller coaster ride for the tool making industry in New Zealand.

The domestic market was very quiet in the later part of 2013 and right up until March of this year. Fortunately for our sector the market picked up and has remained fairly steady for the balance of 2014.

The high New Zealand dollar continued to hamper offshore opportunities however we have had a strong year in the Australian market. In very recent times the US/Kiwi dollar has improved to the point that opportunities are already presenting themselves which all bodes well for the coming year.

Over the past 2 years we have partnered with clients involved in the packaging, medical and construction industries as they developed leading edge technology and in one case world’s first in specialised packaging for the meat industry. These projects have seen the manufacture of several very sophisticated high class, high end injection moulds that are now in production. The flow on effect from these projects are enormous and will provide constant work for RPM over the next 24 months.

Our expertise and capability in the area of automation and robotics continues to increase with the design and manufacture of specialised plant for the plastics and packaging sectors. Simon Eccleston who has just been promoted to the position of Design Manger at RPM has recently completed his Graduate Diploma in Technology majoring in Mechatronics. Mechatronics is a design process that includes a combination of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, telecommunications engineering, control engineering and computer engineering.

As a substantial investment was made in new plant items in the 2013 year this year has seen only the addition of another 5 axis milling machine and the delivery of our 1000 ton Chun Mu hydraulic press. Upgrades have continued around our IT hardware structure with the recent installation of new switch gear to round off last year’s investment in a new virtual server platform.

We are very optimistic about the 2015 year ahead and fully expect it to be a very buoyant one. Our offshore market opportunities continue to increase and as already alluded to with the US/Kiwi dollar outlook it now looks like it will be the turn of the exporters to enjoy some exchange benefit.

A big thank you from the RPM team to all those customers and suppliers that have supported us throughout the year – we look forward to a successful 2015 for all of us.

Chris Vincent

Chief Executive Officer
RPM International Tool & Die

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