Winstone Wallboards project engineer Hannah Orchard. Photo / George Novak
Winstone Wallboards project engineer Hannah Orchard. Photo / George Novak
The hunt is on to fill 100 permanent roles at Tauranga's $400 million plasterboard manufacturing and distribution plant.
Winstone Wallboards, at Tauriko Business Estate, is offering a range of jobs including manufacturing operators, warehouse and distribution positions to maintenance and management roles.
The new 12.8ha Tauranga site, set to openin 2023, will be more than double the size of its Auckland facility.
Winstone Wallboards project lead Stewart Vaughan said there would be about 100 people employed: 30 per cent were relocating from the Auckland site "at best" and the rest would be recruited. The company had just hired a senior electrical engineer from the Bay of Plenty.
The new $400m Winstone Wallboards plasterboard facility in Tauriko. Photo / George Novak
Vaughan said the company would start taking on appointed roles in March and April next year, and most of the recruitment was hoped to be done by September.
He said there was also a focus on diversity and inclusion in the recruitment and the company was aiming to employ as many women as possible.
"We would really love to attract more women into the operations area of the business.
Vaughan said the company had worked closely with the two hapū who had mana whenua of the site to prepare members to potentially upskill and apply for jobs.
"We're not restricting it to mana whenua, we're widening it to the Bay of Plenty and the iwi involved in the region."
The new $400m Winstone Wallboards plasterboard facility in Tauriko. Photo / George Novak
He said it would pay staff at least market rates.
For manufacturing, the plant would run off a 24-hour, five days a week basis and 12-hour shifts between three shifts. It would work on a three-week rotating cycle which would allow these staff to have two four-day weekends every three weeks, he said.
Currently, about 140 people were working on the Tauranga site and that was expected to rise to about 300 at the peak of the construction project between March and May 2023.
That did not include the "significant support" that would be needed from the logistics, such as trucking, and service firms that would be contracted to maintain the site, he said.
"We will have to employ local service firms to help support the business going forward.
"We're talking about a very large operation and with it comes all of the support."
New plant and equipment were set to arrive in about 300 containers through the Port of Tauranga during the next year with parts from China, Mexico, Europe, and Canada.
The first piece of equipment went in last week and the next step was to start building the drier, which would take about a year to finish.
It is the largest project that project engineer Hannah Orchard, 30, has ever worked on.
The new $400m Winstone Wallboards plasterboard facility in Tauriko. Photo / George Novak
She joined the company straight out of university in Christchurch before moving to Auckland.
But she said the Tauriko site was a whole new level.
Orchard said the main building was about a quarter done and was about 400m long and would hold "state-of-the-art" technology to produce 90sqm of gib per minute - or one full house lot every 10 minutes.
The Auckland site produced about 70sqm per minute.
"It's cool to know that you're contributing to something that's putting a roof over people's heads."
The production process recycles onsite waste plasterboard, uses a highly efficient board drier to reduce energy use and carbon emissions, draws water from an underground aquifer to not put pressure on the town's water supply and recovers and recycles wastewater.
Orchard said some of the product would be exported, but it was predominantly for the New Zealand market.
The building beside this structure was nearly complete; one half would store up to 46,000 tonnes of gypsum shipped from Australia every six weeks, the other half was for processing gypsum as well as recycling.
Orchard said Covid-19 had meant getting access to some of the items was "more of a challenge".
"Getting anything from steel to taps to computers ... there are challenges all over the show, especially getting stuff on boats."
However, she said the site was still on track to be complete by 2023.
Tauriko Business Estate director Bryce Donne said Winstone Wallboards was the largest site sold at the business estate so far.
"It is also the largest and most valuable building project to date and the most significant relocation out of Auckland, so is a very exciting project for Tauriko Business Estate and for the region as a whole."
Priority One chief executive Nigel Tutt said the new Winstone Wallboards facility would provide a short-term boost to construction and employment options for talent coming to the city.
Tutt said the company was working with Priority One's Ara Rau - Pathways to Work which was an employment hub.
Priority One chief executive Nigel Tutt. Photo / Supplied
With the estate being the second largest industrial estate in the country and was a big employer for the region with around 6000 jobs in the estate now, he said.
Tutt said the company took its employment practices seriously.
"I think they'll be a great employer ... they're an excellent company to deal with and I know they'll look after their employees really well."
