An innovative Rotorua trailer manufacturer, which is relocating its assembly operation to the Western Bay, has done its research in China and is about to dramatically increase its sales.
A modest Bill Groves, the founder and designer of Ground Loading Technology, made 39 trips to China and visited 120 factories over two years to find the perfect manufacturing factories.
He finally chose the last three he visited and now the factories are ramping up production of the hydraulic ground loading trailers, which have been patented in 148 countries.
"I had heard all sort of stories about China," said Mr Groves, a former tanker and logging truck driver. "I was told the first container of product would be excellent and the rest not so good; and they can pull the wool over your eyes about quality."
Mr Groves had his own checklist: ISO 9001/2000 certification, materials used, financials. "I knocked out 55 per cent of the factories straightaway. They couldn't produce statements and wage records."
He established a Ground Loading Technology offshoot in Singapore (6 per cent corporate tax there) and this company contracts the factories in Wuxi, Zhenjiang and Hangzhou to manufacture the Ezyflo trailers.
The New Zealand invention has the potential to turn into a $100 million business, selling about 10,000 trailers a year worldwide at an average price of $12,000 each.
At present, Mr Groves and chief executive Mike Gibbons are concentrating on production at the Rainbow Special Vehicle Co in Wuxi, about an hour north of Shanghai.
Rainbow is producing five different Ezyflo products - a horse and stock float and a furniture, commercial and car trailer, ranging in length from 3.5m to 6m, and weighing 2.5-3.5 tonnes in New Zealand, and up to 4.5 tonnes in Australia.
Exporting its own trailers, floats and mobile homes to North America, Oceania, the Middle East and western Europe, Rainbow employs 300 people in a 38,000sq m workshop.
At Zhenjiang, Ground Loading Technology will move into box, bike and boat trailers - the prototypes are being signed off to prepare for marketing and a container of about 50 units will be sent to New Zealand for testing.
The factory at Hangzhou will produce open deck, ground loading heavy transporters weighing between 4.5 and 55 tonnes.
Already, Ground Loading Technology has sold 65 trailers - it has been turning orders away - and the next container with 27 trailers, in kitset form, will arrive at Port of Tauranga at the end of this month.
The trailers for the New Zealand and Australian markets are assembled in a hangar at Rotorua. The hydraulic systems are made and sent down from Auckland Hydraulics Supplies.
But Ground Loading Technology needs more space and Mr Gibbons will be looking for a 1200sq m site, including a 600sq m workshop, "somewhere between Te Puke and Pyes Pa".
He told me in Shanghai that "we need to get closer to the port".
"It will further reduce our costs of taking the product to Rotorua. We can land the trailers in Tauranga at 69 per cent less than the cost of manufacturing in New Zealand," he said.
Mr Groves and Mr Gibbons left the Bay of Plenty World Trade Expo delegation soon after making a presentation at the New Zealand Pavilion and travelled to Wuxi to make sure the latest orders were on track.
They have their own accommodation on the factory site, and Mr Groves joined three of his own engineers and other Chinese workers on the floor making any last-minute adjustments and keeping an eye on the quality.
"We are already upgrading the product with a new suspension that requires no springs," said Mr Groves. "This has created more deck space and the ability to lift the trailer as high as 1.8m off the road (previously it was 300mm).
"We can get the trailer through narrow bridges and the suspension provides a much smoother ride," he said.
Mr Groves used to haul concrete mixers, drums, piles and cement on to small trailers when he worked for Ken Thompson House Removals in Rotorua. It was a back-breaking exercise and he always thought there had to be a better way load the trailers.
Twenty years later he finally had a prototype. "I guess it's Kiwi ingenuity but being in the field helped and I knew what type of steel to use," said Mr Groves. He also drove a Fonterra milk tanker and logging trucks and trailers off the highway in the central North Island forests.
The Ezyflo trailer has a combination of hydraulics and mechanical pivoting, operated by a remote, to lower the trailer to the ground, providing safe and easy loading and unloading of materials, animals and vehicles.
The horses and livestock can simply walk on to the trailers and exit at the other end; they don't need to be turned or backed in.
The trailers can be used in military manoeuvres and even for aircraft maintenance where the engines can be dropped from the planes sitting on the runways straight on to the trailers.
"It's taking transporting into a whole new era," said Mr Groves, who got the backing of his family to pour all their savings into the development.
"I spent two years researching the market to make sure no one else was doing it. There's no competition for us; I couldn't believe it. Not one of those patents was challenged in any of the 148 countries."
Mr Gibbons, who concentrates on sales and marketing, said "we have created a brand that has global reach". "But we have to control the growth - or else we will become a cowboy with no horse."
He said there are 20,000-23,000 new trailers registered in New Zealand each year and 170,000 in Australia. "That staggered us and we knew a market was there."
Mr Gibbons said the company had to turn down an order of 1000 trailers from Australia and 120 from Ireland - until it was ready to step up production.
The Texas Trailer Association, in the United States, wanted 50 containers, representing 2000 commercial and car trailers, and "we can put 35 of them in a showroom in Brisbane tomorrow".
Ground Loading Technology sold the New Zealand master distribution licence to Hunt Development Foundation, which includes a Tauranga director, to raise cash for starting production in China.
But operating under the brand Ezyflow Trailers, Mr Groves will retain the distribution licences for Australia, deliveries starting in October, and for United States, with sales under way in February/March.
"Our aim is 12,000 trailers a year, selling between $7000 and $27,000 each," said Mr Groves. "We can sell 3000-5000 a year in Australia and New Zealand, even without setting up in the United States. The top 10 manufacturers over there are producing up to 35,000 units each per year."
The Bill Groves Intellectual Property Company has been established - and will possibly list on the sharemarket - to ensure that the knowledge and marketing rights remain in New Zealand.
That's a chance for Mr Groves to get some of his hard-earned money back. He used his superannuation and borrowed $10,000 more to build his prototype in Rotorua at a cost of $36,000.
First, he asked his wife and five children whether he should commercialise his idea.
They told him: "Go for it, Dad." Mr Groves can't wait to repay them.
"We've skimped on family things to reach this [production] stage," he said.
Legwork makes it Ezy to build trailers in China
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