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Hardware Journal featuring Sutton Tools

Industry Supply Chain Issues due to the pandemic intensified when the Sutton Tools Kaiapoi HSS drill plant near Christchurch suffered a devastating fire in January 2022. After just six months, the plant was back at work with three new custom-built machines working 24/7 – and another three machines to be in production by year-end.

In operation for 60 years, the Kaiapoi plant is integral to Sutton Tools’ operations, producing many of the groups standard HSS drill production. The rush was on to meet customer needs promptly and equitably.

An amazing team of New Zealand staff relocated to Victoria to provide indispensable assistance, pulling together with Australian engineering, logistics and packing staff. Having met the challenge during an extended period of intense effort, they are now gradually returning home. The New Zealand Engineering team has also grown from 10 to 26 staff, through the promotion of production staff – fast-tracking the rebuild process and enabling gradual improvement of stock levels over recent months.

By May, 11 production units – dubbed by the engineering team “Phoenix Machines” – had been salvaged and recovered from the conflagration. Deployed at an adjacent site, this enabled restoration of at least some output, with the remaining production capacity temporarily covered by Sutton’s production facilities in Maryborough and Thomastown in Victoria, Australia.

Thanks to their suppliers, Sutton Tools have received fantastic support during this critical period – from packaging materials to machine components. As a result of recovery, the company has added an additional 18 full-time staff to meet ongoing rising demand.

Each month production in both Australia and New Zealand continues to grow along with service rates. Meanwhile, the company is well underway organising a new state-of-the-art centre of production just 9km away at Rangiora – with construction expected to start early in 2023 and more new machines on order. The Australian company is expecting a full recovery in late 2023, considering they’re already dominating numbers, we can’t wait to see what they will achieve in the new year.

This transcript was previously published in Hardware Journal Oct 2022 issue.

Click below to read our feature:

https://hardwarejournal.com.au/flipper/AHJOct22/