32 | Prison break just the ticket The $1.2b Waikeria expansion stage of the Government’s $1.9b planned prisons spend was completed in April this year. T T Hugh de Lacy “This job raised the bar, demanding mature planning, disciplined QA, air-tight health and safety, and realtime cost control every day, in all weather over a long period.” REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT CCNZ: JWI Group It got its big break doing odd jobs – digging, fixing, building, pouring – on the huge Waikeria Prison expansion in the Waikato four years ago, but what began as JWI Earthmoving has expanded into the JWI Group, comprising earthmoving and forest cartage businesses. JWI Earthmoving, based in Te Awamutu, was established in 2016 soon after its founder, Jason Inness, returned to New Zealand after years of working machines in the mining and rail industries, before moving to civil and bulk earthworks projects and poly pipeline construction. Jason came home that year and launched JWI Earthmoving in the residential sector, but growth was slow until he landed that first small job at Waikeria in 2021, and it blossomed into more and more work as other contractors shifted to other projects in what was briefly a buoyant market. The $1.2b Waikeria expansion stage of the Government’s $1.9b planned prisons spend was completed in April this year, adding 500 high-security beds, as well as 96 beds dedicated to supporting the Hikitia Mental Health and Addictions Service. By the time of its completion, JWI Earthmoving had grown to 50 staff, doing everything from earthworks and trenching, formwork and concreting for roads and pavements, to soft and hard landscaping. “Our scope cut across the bones of the project,” Jason would later say in an end-ofproject speech to staff, but that rate of growth inevitably brought complications. “When we first walked into Waikeria we were a small, hungry outfit with good people, good gear and plenty of grit, but we didn’t have the systems or the scale you need for a project of that complexity – we were used to making things happen by sheer effort and attitude.” “This job raised the bar, demanding mature planning, disciplined QA, air-tight health and safety, and real-time cost control every day, in all weather over a long period. “We had to grow up fast – and we did,” he says. “Waikeria professionalised JWI by embedding structure and discipline into the way we work, introducing proper planning tools such as look-aheads and daily job plans, ensuring clarity of targets and responsibilities.” Quality assurance was tightened with rigorous tracking and close-out of all activities, building real-time visibility into costing and programming, and enabling immediate corrective action, while health and safety were lifted to a non-negotiable standard. “The only acceptable outcome was everyone going home safe,” Jason says. As Waikeria wound down, staff numbers were scaled back to about 15, but JWI continues to balance civil and rural earthworks with its forestry log cartage and binwood salvage operations. Today the forestry arm runs two log trucks and a five-person crew supported by a 14-tonne excavator and hook-bin truck and trailer units. By day the excavator sorts and trims salvageable timber into six on-site bins, and trucks ferry loads to the Kinleith mill and other customers day and night. Together JWI Earthmoving and JWI Logging make up the JWI Group, a company Jason built on “grit, adaptability and the ability to seize opportunities in challenging environments.” Te Awamutu 07 871 5209 - Otorohanga 07 873 8510 www.bowersconcrete.co.nz
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