54 | Bathroom products direct to builders Whanganui-based Newtech has lately added a direct-to-trade element to its high-speed customer supply chain. MANUFACTURING Newtech T T Hugh de lacy Overnight to Auckland, and two days to Christchurch: it’s a delivery guarantee unparalleled in the bathroom-ware industry, and Whanganui-based Newtech has lately added a direct-to-trade element to its high-speed customer supply chain. It features a five-day lead time between receiving an order from a client for any number of vanities, and delivery to any building site in the country. For Auckland deliveries, one of Newtech’s trucks leaves the Whanganui factory at 5pm five nights of the week, and arrives at the company’s Auckland depot between 2.30am and 4.30am the following morning. “There, we reload on to a local delivery service and the units go straight to the building site,” says Marcus Wycherley, a shareholder, director and the contracts manager for Newtech. “We can often get product down to Christchurch overnight too, but we stick to the two-day guarantee to be on the safe side. “But beyond that, we were able in March this year to introduce a new disruptive channel to the market in the form of direct supply to builders. Previously, builders had to acquire our products through re-sellers, and while those connections are still available, they now have the option of buying direct from us.” Marcus says the new initiative has been “very well received”, and it has already justified the company’s investment in trucks and vans. Newtech has a staff of 70 manufacturing mostly bathroom vanity units at its three-yearold, purpose-built 7000sqm factory on Mill Road, from which it supplied no fewer than 30,000 units in its first year. It has the capacity and is on target to double that production by the end of next year. The company was founded in Whanganui in 2000 by Jeremy Anderson, now chief executive, when he bought out a one-man local business making engineered marble vanity tops. Jeremy expanded the business within a couple of years by importing bathroom ware and bringing in Tony Hart, now the operations manager and a shareholder, and made their point of difference the speed of their product delivery. Four years ago, the decision was made to invest $4 million in new equipment for the processing plant, featuring the latest Homag machinery from Germany, to be housed in the new factory in Whanganui. The building was finished, and the staff moved in, in December 2022. Newtech has its own in-house product development team, who create designs to customers’ specifications, both for the MDF and the vanity top and basin components, with the MDF panels supplied by the likes of Laminex and Prime Panels. “We cut and assemble the bathroom vanities, adding the marble tops, which are these days manufactured overseas, then ship the complete unit or units to the clients,” Marcus says. “Vanities aren’t the only bathroom product we produce – we’re able to supply a large range of mirrors, baths, heated towel rails and tapware.” The handsome new Whanganui building has transformed an old sawmill site in the city’s suburb of Castlecliff, while the delivery service ensures there are no delays in getting product from there to the client. Proudly supplying quality corrugated packaging to Packaging Central 0800 220 500 casectrl@ojifs.com ojifs.com PROUDLY SUPPORTING NEWTECH 160 Somme Parade, Aramoho, Whanganui 4540 06 343 7500 www.furnique.co.nz office@furnique.co.nz
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