Business North November 2021

44 | Culham Engineering REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Finding the right engineering solutions Richard Loader F rom humble beginnings as a Whangarei based general engineering business 63 years ago, Culham Engineering has emerged as a major provider of innovative and high-value heavy engineering solutions throughout New Zealand. Founded in 1958 by Dave Culham, obtaining a maintenance contract at AFFCO Freezing works was a key milestone in those early years. That work led to a contract at Marsden Point Oil Refinery when it was established in 1962. To this day, Culham Engineering holds the main maintenance contract at the refinery, and is a valued relationship. Rob Kirwan has been Culham Engineering’s Managing Director since 2015, having worked his way up from starting his apprenticeship in 1981 as a boilermaker/Welder and holding pretty much every position within the compa- ny during this time. Rob has witnessed the company’s evolution and the development of the structural steel fabrication industry within New Zealand. He says New Zealand’s changing landscape is seeing structures getting more complex as industries evolve. “Predominately, those sorts of extensive projects used to be completed by off-shore companies. New Zealand now has all the skills and capability to attack pretty much any project there is. We have contributed to a significant amount of projects throughout the country. In recent times we’ve completed Commercial Bay and the NZICC Convention Centre in Auckland’s CBD. Both projects involved approximately 18500 tonnes of com- plex structural steel. Commercial Bay is New Zealand’s tallest structural steel highrise, and NZICC is New Zealand’s largest Convention centre.” During last year’s COVID lockdown, Culham Engineering was awarded a negotiated contract with the Whangarei District Council for the fabrication and erection of structural steelwork for the new Civic Centre. “We were very proud that the Council entrusted Culham Engineering to deliver this local project. All up, this project has approxi- mately six hundred tonne of steel. “Two hundred tonne of piling steel is driven into the ground to stabilise the main structure, with the balance being structural fabrication. The project is going very well, and we are on schedule to finish within the next month.” Embracing all corners of whatever a project may require, Culham Engineering has built capacity within its organisation to tackle all types of construction, infrastructure, marine, structural steel, piping and pressure vessels, petrochemical, geothermal, pulp and paper, storage tanks, maintenance planning and shutdown mechanical installations. “We’re a vertically integrated business, providing a turnkey one-stop-shop service for our clients. This includes project manage- ment and design-assist, fabrication and plate processing, painting, craneage, transport and erection. Early contractor involvement is the only way to go, but it needs to start when it is still possible to make changes. “This is the time that the client will benefit most. Clients may own the design but may not fully understand the buildability issues within the structure — our first question is, ‘how can we improve on it.’” Location is everything. Being based on the harbour with berthing facilities means Culham Engineering can undertake large fabrication projects and ship to sites close to water. One of the larger items fabricated and shipped was the Ballance Nutrients storage tank to Bluff. It weighed 400 tonnes and 36 metres in diameter. Workshops and staff in Tokoroa and Ka- werau service the central North Island while an office in Auckland supports project and construction teams. “Most of our work is in the North Island, but we also operate in the South. We did a bit with Christchurch’s rebuild, Timaru’s Holcim port terminal, and rolled all the sectional tunnel steel for the Manapouri dam. We go where the work is.” Culham Engineering prides itself on its quality, systems, and training, a legacy from its founder. The company has trained close to 700 ap- prentices in six decades of operation, predom- inantly boilermaker welders and fitter-weld- ers. It is the only company NZQA endorsed by COMPETENZ to undertake in-house block courses in New Zealand. “Currently, we have around forty apprentic- es,” says Rob. “Our apprentices are respected all around the world. If they have a Culham Engineering training behind them, very rarely do they not get offered a job anywhere in the world. “I tell our apprentices that ‘where you start is never where you finish.’ I get immense pride in hiring people and seeing them go on to bigger and better things.” In addition to the trades, skill sets include project and construction management, sched- ulers, project engineers, QC inspectors and estimators. With a large pool of team members who have grown up with the business, and under- stand the culture and values of the business stamped by the company’s founder, Rob says it is people who are the heart and strength of the business. “We have a special group of people who work for us. Including long-term contractors who are part of the Culham Engi- neering family, the company engages 850 staff and contractors. “The culture and the values are about hard work. We are very schedule-driven. ‘Plan Pro- duce Deliver’ is our catchcry. We don’t have a lot of clients — we just have good ones.”