10 | Scott Structural T T Hugh de Lacy Structural steel specialists in demand Christchurch’s new Te Kaha Stadium, with its 12,000 tonnes of structural steel, was the biggest job that local firm Scott Structural has been a part of – and the company came through the whole job without a single reportable safety incident. “We were pretty proud of that, and it reflected on our strong focus on site safety, especially since all our work is done on-site,” says Scott Structural founder and owner Jayden Scott. “We specialise in steel erection and site welding all round the South Island and, for the past three years, also in Wellington. “It’s highly skilled work with enormous potential for mishap if safety standards are allowed to slip, so we employ a highly skilled staff trained to look after themselves and each other on the site. “We also have Handling Equipment Canterbury make six-monthly site visits to check the quality and safety of the tools we use.” Jayden slowly got his company established in Dunedin from 2009 onwards, after a background of architectural drafting study at Otago Polytechnic. He then moved to Christchurch and worked for four years for Christchurch Steel under owners Gareth and the late Jack Jones, before heading off on his OE in the United Kingdom and Europe, beginning with 30 months in England, during which time he played semi-professional rugby in the mid-field for Ipswich. He was then picked up by a Paris-based mechanical engineering company that sent him flitting all round Europe building distribution centres. In 2009 he came home for a family wedding, and while there got a call from the people building Dunedin’s covered stadium to implement the new bolting algorythm of ensuring the tension of the thousands of bolts that hold the structure together. “A single loose nut in a building can spread like a crack, loosening others around it under the natural stresses built into the structure, and eventually weakens it, so I was employed as quality assurance manager for that aspect of the process,” Jayden says. “It’s become standard practice since the Christchurch earthquakes, and involves making spot checks of individual bolts, but mostly ensuring that the staff are tensioning the bolts up to the right tensions in the first place.” Jayden moved back to Christchurch immediately after the 2010-2011 quakes that flattened the central city, and Scott Structural faced huge demand from the major contractors for steel erection and site welding in the recovery process. “The move was a no-brainer,” Jayden says, and the company worked on a range of projects, from small seismic strengthening jobs to projects with over 1000-tonnes of steel input – and we grew.” The services expanded to include weld inspection, crane operation, independent quality assurance and skilled labour hire. “When I first started out working on the Dunedin stadium I had only one person with me, and he moved up to Christchurch with me after the quakes, and he’s since moved home to Wellington to run the branch there,” Jayden says. “From the start I grew the company only slowly, taking on just one new staffer a year, but after the quakes things moved quickly, and we now range between 12 and 15 full-timers, including Wellington.” The projects that Scott Structural has been involved in include the fastest stadium build in the country - Christchurch’s Addington temporary Stadium - the Southland stadium rebuild, the ASB Hospital wing, the Christchurch Convention Centre and, of course, Te Kaha Stadium. The company also has close relations with other key steel industry businesses, including John Jones Steel, VIP Structural Steel, HML Engineering, Petone Engineering, East Coast Steelwork, Stewart Engineering, Canterbury Cranes and Access Handling Equipment. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Supporting Scott Structural Ltd and the manufacturing industry with steel that works harder, faster, smarter. Proudly supporting Scott Structural Ltd
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