Business North May 2021

48 | ENGINEERING Grayson Engineering The ‘go to’ company for complex projects T Karen Phelps Current projects by Auckland based Grayson Engineering include warehouses, apartments, supermarkets and schools. R ecognised as a market leader in the steel fabrication industry, multi-award win- ning Grayson Engineering 2015 Ltd has built its reputation on embracing challenging and complex projects. “We do tend to be the ‘go to’ company for the more complex projects,” says Managing Director David Moore. “Our fabricators like a challenge and with the diverse range of work we take on there is enough there to keep them interested and they always rise to the challenge. The awards we have received over the years tend to recog- nise that level of complexity.” Based in Auckland’s industrial suburb of Wiri, the business was founded by David’s fa- ther Patrick in 1972, and was originally known simply as Grayson Engineering. Initially a small operation with just a handful of fabricators, one of the first major projects undertaken was Stage One of the Huntly Pow- er Station in 1976. As the company’s reputation gained mo- mentum new premises were required in 1980 and again in 2010 when a large purpose built workshop was constructed on the current site. “The buildings cover a floor area of 14000 sqm and that reflects the size of some of the projects we undertake which require a substantial proportion of the floor space available. “Our current projects include large ware- house structures, apartments, supermarkets, schools and we are just about to commence a new aircraft hangar project at Ohakea Airbase. We also do a small amount of high-end indus- trial sculpture, some of which goes to the four corners of the earth.” Primarily operating throughout the Auck- land/Waikato regions, Grayson Engineering 2015 Ltd is now one of the largest steel fabricators in the country employing a team of 155 permanent staff, along with a family of subcontractors. Projects are taken from detailing workshop drawings, once a contract has been awarded, all the way through to erecting the fabricated structure on site. “We have quite a diverse range of disciplines within the business including draughts-people, quality surveyors, estimators, a commercial manager and construction manager, project managers, site supervisors, riggers and crane drivers. In the workshop we have mainly fabricators, welders and CNC operators. Over the years we’ve invested heavily in sophisticat- ed CNC machinery and we’re just installing a new one at the moment. But you have to be quite clever in what you do purchase. It’s easy to buy a machine where you don’t get the full utilisation out of it because there simply isn’t enough work for it.” A newly commissioned paint shop on the same site as the workshop will significantly re- duce Grayson Engineering’s need to transport fabricated structures to paint contractors and therefore its carbon footprint. “It also means we have more control over the entire production process, as most of our painting will now be done in-house.” With the fifty-year milestone fast approach- ing, David says the success of the business is always about people. “You have to have the right people — your business is nothing without them. At the mo- ment with the borders being closed you really have to hang on to your people. We do have quite a big presence of overseas people on our teams and at present there are no visa ap- plications for skilled people being processed so it is virtually impossible to employ overseas workers. Australasia’s Only Dynamically Tested Steel Rod Bracing System DonoBrace ® is Australasia’s only rod bracing system to be dynamically tested to simulate it’s behaviour in earthquakes. ’ ’ . John Lawson | 021 410 778 john@donovangroup.co.nz . . Warren Dingle | 021 867 009 warren@donovangroup.co.nz . . www.modnbp.com . . ENQUIIRE NOW