Electronics Cluster Thriving when the Chips are down!

MEDIA RELEASE 13 December 2011

Electronics Cluster Thriving when the Chips are down!

An Auckland-based group of Hi Tech companies is creating innovation for the world market in a diverse range of industry sectors requiring electronic solutions.

The ElectronicsAuckland cluster http://www.electronicsauckland.co.nz includes businesses that have designed micro chips for tracking high speed trains, developed automation systems to manage growing crops, commercialised robots for water infrastructure inspection, customised solutions for optimised solar water heating and manufactured touchscreen technology for live performance DJ’s.
“Despite the current global economic climate and recent trend of shifting manufacturing offshore, these companies are innovating and growing exports from a New Zealand production base,” Dorian Scott, ecentre Business Manager and ElectronicsAuckland Chair, said.

“This success is underpinned by the collaboration between the companies under the ElectronicsAuckland umbrella. The companies are diverse in size and focus, but all have the common goals of growing their businesses and raising the expertise within, as well as promotion of, the New Zealand electronics industry.

“What this growth means is that contracts are being won against sizeable and significant international competition. It means there are over 50 new high-skilled jobs created in one year among the companies themselves within New Zealand to meet this growth. It means greater overseas profile for the New Zealand electronics industry leading to significant export earnings,” Mr Scott said.

“The ElectronicsAuckland members share a strong sense of trust and integrity. This allows freedom to collaborate, share market information and solve technical challenges. We hold monthly meetings where current interests are discussed and problems are addressed,” said Brian Knolles, CEO of Senztek, an ElectronicsAuckland company.

“Depth is added to the cluster through the participation of several technical consultants who contribute design, product development and embedded software engineering skills. As one of our consultants said ‘it’s about getting it out of the head and on to the bench!’ Experts are brought in to share knowledge and familiarisation visits are made to member companies,” Mr Knolles said.

“ElectronicsAuckland, part of AucklandICT, has been running for 3 years now under the sponsorship and leadership of ecentre,” Dorian Scott said. “ecentre, the Massey University business innovation centre, is delighted to be associated with such a successful industry cluster. It continues ecentre’s commitment to support the growth of Hi Tech NZ companies.”
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About ElectronicsAuckland
ElectronicsAuckland (www.ElectronicsAuckland.co.nz) is a special interest group under the AucklandICT industry group (www.aucklandict.org.nz) whose members are involved in the electronics sector. Members are CEOs, business owners and senior engineers within their companies and the cluster has both a technical and marketing focus. New members are added with the agreement of existing members, if they are members of AucklandICT and if they are prepared to give cluster meetings a high priority.
About ecentre
The ecentre is a business innovation centre on the Massey University, Albany campus. ecentre specialises in helping companies grow through innovation by providing services in market validation, customer development, product development, commercialisation of intellectual property, business model creation and export market entry. ecentre helps entrepreneurs take an idea from garage to global using its national and international networks of experts and mentors. It helps companies to scale and grow and contribute to the New Zealand economy. www.garagetoglobal.com

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ElectronicsAuckland member company profiles
Cleanflow Systems: has recently merged with a US company, and competitor in the large pipe inspection industry, Redzone Robotics. As part of this merger a $US 25 million investment was made by ABS Capital Partners Inc., a leading growth equity investor. With an increased US-based sales force, Cleanflow Systems has invested more in research and development and expanded manufacturing including outsourcing to members of the cluster. www.cleanflowsystems.com
PowerShield: is successful with its innovative battery monitoring product in major data centres in North America and Europe. In North America the Powershield system is being installed in one major data centre with over 4,000 batteries and 6 other medium to large data centres and in Europe installations are underway for an international bank with over 4,000 batteries. Another cluster member has been assisting with new product development. www.powershield.com
Define Instruments: now has distributors in South Africa and is looking at opening a branch in Johannesburg. The Define Instruments simple and easy to use transmitters and wireless devices have enabled it to increase exports tremendously to Australia and South Africa. They have grown this year by 45% and employed 6 new people. Of particular value in this expansion has been the exchanging of international electronics market information with another cluster member. www.defineinstruments.com
Compac Sorting Equipment: successfully tendered for a $US15m contract against strong competition to design and develop a Hi Tech sorting and packing line for the world’s largest citrus company. Compac will be building a sorting machine the length of a rugby field that will sort approximately 2.7 million mandarins an hour and will run 20 hours a day during the citrus packing season. Compac is hiring more staff such as project managers, designers and assembly staff to provide extra capabilities and capacity. www.compacsort.com
Autogrow Systems: won the ANZ exporter award in the Business.govt.nz Flying Start competition and is using the prize to fund a trip to China for the official opening of a large new farm using Autogrow Systems horticultural automation equipment. Revenue is forecast to rise dramatically over the coming years with a new product range including a revolutionary greenhouse control system and new distributors. Autogrow Systems collaborates with other cluster companies in marketing, governance and technical areas. www.autogrow.com
Senztek, who manufacture energy management and control technologies, has tripled the number of customers to whom it sells over the past 12 months and has entered into two potentially large OEM deals including a global opportunity. Senztek has just released a new range of innovative solar differential controllers to be known as the SolaSmart. Senztek has successfully engaged with several cluster members in technical and market development projects. www.senztek.com
QuickCircuit: offers component sourcing and procurement, design for manufacture, electronic board manufacturing and product final assembly and testing. QuickCircuit has experienced excellent growth and will be adding another 20 staff before April 2012. QuickCircuit’s customers include several high profile companies, as well as many start-up and emerging companies that have innovative ideas and products. It has engaged strongly with other cluster members to improve product development and to provide quality control and testing services. www.quickcircuit.co.nz
Fero: is an integrated electronic and wire technology company that provides services for electronic manufacturers. Fero has collaborated with many of the cluster companies to enable new product development and manufacturing including projects to develop a microbrewery and a research submarine. As a result of the cluster the CEO of Fero has joined the Advisory Board of another cluster company. www.fero.co.nz
ICE AV Technology: designed and manufactured the DJ multi touch mixing and control surface for the international live performance DJ market. The system became world famous overnight when used in a concert in Earls Court, London with a huge 74 inch touchscreen. Building on this success the Holo-Info-Desk has now been developed for companies to use at trade fairs and was used by ElectronicsAuckland members to provide an interactive display of electronics capability at the technology showcase held in The Cloud during Rugby World Cup 2011. www.holodesk.biz
Actronic Technologies: creates electronic measurement and control products and software – productivity solutions that endure and perform in some of the world’s most rugged environments. Their hydraulic weighing systems, conveyor belt scales, and specialised log-harvesting products are in use throughout the Americas, Europe, Australasia and China. Actronic has grown in all markets this year and has been busy adding staff and collaborating with other cluster members to meet this demand. http://www.actronictechnologies.com/

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