46 | Waitaki Business Awards: AcuCut Richard Loader Award win a closely guarded secret Oamaru based CNC precision was engaged to design and manufacture the trophies for the award winners at this year’s Waitaki Business Awards. Ironically, the precision cutting company went on to win the Best Manufacturing Business of the Year Award and Supreme award. REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Proud To Support Acucut www.centralcnc.co.nz 021 748 411 mike@centralcnc.co.nz VERSATILE AFFORDABLE APPROACHABLE I There is a delightful story about AcuCut, the Oamaru-based CNC precision cutting business that won the Best Manufacturing Business of the Year Award at this year’s Waitaki Business Awards, and went on to win the Supreme Award. AcuCut was engaged to design and manufacture the trophies for the award winners, and the job of doing so was assigned to team member Kathryn Swann by Managing Director Matt Melton. “Kathryn designed and made all the trophies for the winners and knew a couple of days before the special evening ceremony who the winners were,” says Matt. “I had told Kathryn not to tell me, whoever won the award, and so she had to keep that a closely guarded secret.” On the night the awards were announced Matt says it was a massive surprise to everyone except Kathryn, who joined Matt and his wife Abby on the winners’ podium to collect the beautifully designed and crafted trophy. “I really didn’t expect that AcuCut would win, particularly going up against other well-established companies like Canterbury Spinners and Whitestone Cheese, and then to be awarded the Supreme Award was really quite overwhelming. It took me a couple of days to comprehend it. Winning the award has certainly raised the profile of the business and that it is so much more than just profile cutting. We support just about every industry you can think of in some way, from Canterbury all the way through to North Otago.” A marine engineer with the Royal New Zealand Navy for eight years, Matt later spent some time as a chief engineer working on super yachts, but always harboured a desire for his own business. While working on the super yachts, Matt completed a small business ownership course which included market research. “I wanted to stay within engineering, but didn’t want to do general engineering. I had seen waterjet cutting on Discovery, and thought that might be something I could do. It involved precision and had a very high quality. I did market research in the Waitaki, North Otago and South Canterbury regions and found that at the time no-one was doing that kind of work.” After saving a lot of money to buy the first abrasive water jet cutting machine, Matt founded AcuCut (Accurate Cutting) in his parent’s farm workshop in 2016. With a clear vision for being customer focused, Matt has seen significant growth over the last six years. “In 2018 we built a workshop in an industrial park in Oamaru. It started as 320sqm and we’ve now doubled that. We do a lot of niche signage and that part of the business is growing very rapidly. That includes custom safety signs, trophies, laser marked and printed tags. “Then you have your profile and CNC machining side — which can be anything that is really industrial through to tiny components for robots. And there is vapour blasting, which is wet sand blasting to clean up components that we make, but it can also be used for cleaning engines, and that kind of thing.” Matt’s goal was to buy a new CNC machine every year, but having been in business for six years now has nine different machines and counting. “We have three large waterjet machines, a CNC milling machine, three different laser machines for marking and engraving, a UV printing machine so we can print full colour graphics onto any flat material. “We’ve just added the vapour blasting machine and next year we’re adding a big CNC router.” AcuCut’s growth has all been organic, through repeat business and referrals from happy customers. Matt says there are three business tenets that he closely adheres to. “The first is always being very customer focused. If someone asks for a quote, I’m always prompt at getting it back, and it’s important to ask the right questions to get an understanding about what the customer wants to achieve for the end result. “The second thing is providing a quick turnaround and to do that I have to carry a big range of stock. The third is quality of the product - getting it right first time at high quality. “I really get a buzz when you make something for the customer and they’re just amazed by the finished product. Seeing it on screen is different to actually seeing and touching the physical thing.”
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