The $70 million-a year export success of Waitakere City's boat-builders demonstrates the benefits possible when firms in an industry pool their talents.
By Yoke Har Lee
At its best, Waitakere City's boat-building cluster operates like a giant network spread across the city, completing one task after another.
The city is host to 40 boat-building firms, which employ about 400 people.
A recent example of the network's work was the construction of 11 patrol boats for the police, says Brian Saipe, business cluster development specialist for Enterprise Waitakere, the city council's economic development agency.
The work was done sequentially. Brent Bakewell-White did the design, Sensation Yachts made the hulls, Nimrod Rescue Inflatables made the inflatable tubing for the hulls and Marine Creations made fibreglass wheelhouses and fitted out the boats.
This example best reveals the benefits of clustering.
Firms band together to develop a critical mass of capabilities, all concentrated geographically in one area.
For Waitakere, the further development of Westpark Marina and upgrading of local boat-building skills are some of the keys to the cluster's future growth.
The marina is an economic gateway, with facilities to
haul out large boats for servicing to provide work for those involved in the maintenance and refitting of boats. This in turn provides the flow on to other work.
Enterprise Waitakere does not offer financial incentives to attract companies to the cluster, but it facilitates new investments or reinvestment by helping to smooth the kinks for companies in their dealings with the city council.
"A lot of the advantages you can accrue are related to how quickly you can get local government to respond to the needs of new investors," says the chief executive of Enterprise Waitakere, Clyde Rogers. "It is very much that facilitation-type role that we play.
"We also focus on encouraging collaboration between boat-builders to develop the local skills base; also on issues of improving networking within the industry. As a result we have seen players come together to bid for contracts."
But a big hurdle to exporting is the financial help foreign competitors get. Mr Saipe says Australia's marine industry, for instance, has a well-structured Government-supported financial and insurance infrastructure backing its marine industry's bids for big international projects. New Zealand has none.
Waitakere's boat-building industry is very export-oriented. Export income exceeds $70 million a year, representing about 25 per cent of the nation's boat-building turnover.
Besides the 40 boat-builders, about 160 other firms are directly involved in subtrades, retailing, wholesale distribution, importing and producing related products and supplying raw materials.
The cluster (core boat-builders plus others) employs over 1000 people and is possibly the city's largest export revenue earner, Mr Saipe says in a report.
Waitakere's boat-makers are divided into various categories:
* Large sail boats and motor sailers (companies such as Alloy Yachts International and Sensation Yachts).
* Coastal cruising craft (Vaudrey Miller).
* Aluminium work boats for sport fishing, diving, shellfish industries (Blue Water Boats, Bladerunner Silverwing, Triangle Marine).
* Fibreglass-hulled day boats for sports fishing and waterskiing (Bonito Boats).
* Class racing yachts (McDell Marine, Lidgard Marine).
* Inflatable rescue boats, oil pollution barges and chase boats (Lancer Industries).
* Blue-water passage-making vessels, trawler yachts (Trans Ocean Yachts).
* Sea kayaks and canoes.
* Small leisure boats and catamarans.
Some of the capabilities developed within the local marine cluster, Mr Saipe points out, include Alloy's work with flat panels. The company has developed the technique of nesting together components, allowing them to be cut together on the same sheet of flat panel to save time and material.
In another example, Marine Creations has eliminated an entire process - the industry term is lofting - when making the fibreglass moulds for hulls and decks, enabling it to produce them at greater speed. It has also developed its own computer numeric control cutting equipment for the plugs and moulds. This can handle joinery with complex curves and shapes.
Kinetic Engineering Design is another company that produces computer numeric control machinery which can deal with repetitive cutting of very complex shapes.
Mr Saipe says one notable gap in the local cluster is the ability of companies to progress from handling one-off projects to handling mass jobs, with the exception of companies such as McDell Marine.
"This is a reflection of the lack of investment in mass production technology by some companies and a reflection of a lack of capital available, particularly for speculative boat building."