Consolidation forces Mount plant to shut

Operations at PlaceMakers Newton St factory at Mount Maunganui are moving to Hamilton.

PlaceMakers' frame and truss factory at Mount Maunganui will close when manufacturing shifts to a new purpose-built plant in Hamilton.

The closure of the Newton St factory and office, which employed 27 staff in 2011, follows the decision to "drive efficiencies" by the construction of the new manufacturing base at Te Rapa.

Comment could not be obtained from the PlaceMakers head office after the closure was announced in a recent job advertisement seeking a manufacturing manager for Waikato and the Bay of Plenty.

"We're moving our frame and truss manufacturing operations from Mount Maunganui to a new purpose-built factory in Hamilton," the advertisement said.

Industry sources subsequently confirmed that job relocations were being offered by the company to its Tauranga manufacturing staff.

The shift to Hamilton will take place nearly three years after PlaceMakers closed its Tauranga building materials and hardware store in Marsh St. The closure of the store was the result of the opening of the Harbour Bridge flyover in 2009 dramatically reducing passing traffic. Staff were relocated to the Mount Maunganui store in MacDonald St.

PlaceMakers said in a recent press release that the new Hamilton factory was part of the company's plant optimisation and consolidation plan.

"This new plant will provide significant increased capacity to accommodate future growth in the region," PlaceMakers national manufacturing manager Robert Grimmer said.

He said the company had been upgrading its frame and truss network in preparation for an upturn in building and the new Hamilton factory would be industry-leading in terms of equipment and systems.

The new plant would serve a wide geographic region and drive efficiencies across the board. State-of-the-art technology meant levels of accuracy and "component marking" would make it easier and quicker to build, he said.

The central Hamilton location would service the building industry's frame and truss requirements from South Auckland to Rotorua, with the technology reducing waste timber by 40 per cent.

Mr Grimmer was confident there would be further job openings as the new plant geared up and the market grew. No date has been set for the opening.

Major Tauranga building companies supplied by the Newton St factory include Generation Homes.