Through its specialised ability to design, manufacture and commission high-capacity bulk-material-handling systems, PW Engineering occupies a unique space in New Zealand. The family-owned engineering business is based in Mosgiel but operates nationwide and has accumulated an impressive portfolio of projects since it was founded by managing director Peter Wharehinga in 1991.
Its comprehensive services cover design, fabrication, machining, installation and maintenance, and with 40 staff, PW Engineering is a significant employer in Mosgiel. This scope of operations provides the turn-key ability to handle an entire project from concept to delivery, including installation and commissioning, which is a considerable competitive advantage along with being attractive to companies it contracts with. Peter’s son, Nick Wharehinga, a qualified fitter-welder, is the company’s operations manager and has worked for more than 15 years.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a “profound impact,” much of its work was centred on large agriculturally based fertiliser and primary industry businesses, but this has increasingly become centred on the design and fabrication of multi-purpose bulk-material-handling equipment. PW Engineering was contacted in late 2018 by Gyptech, an international specialist in the design, construction and commissioning of wallboard equipment and services with a concept for an extensive conveyor system for Winstone Wallboards’ new $400 million plasterboard factory in Tauranga.
PW Engineering’s design department employs skilled staff, who use leading-edge software to create 3D modelling, along with employing FEA (finite element analysis) simulation software, which assesses factors such as mechanical stress and vibration, fatigue, motion and heat in mechanical systems. “We are probably one of the only firms, particularly in the South Island, that’s doing this level of project work that has a full in-house design team, and quite a big one. We’ve got six in-house designers all full 3D modelling, which is how we are able to participate in large-scale projects. We are not really general engineering as we were 20 years ago, but now we are involved in multi-million-dollar project works, which is where we are targeting.”
Winstone Wallboards’ plant includes a 260-metre-long automated intake conveyor that can carry 1,000 tonnes an hour of raw gypsum rock – the core material for Winstone’s plasterboard products. The gypsum is offloaded straight from vessels at the Port of Tauranga into large hoppers, then to trucks, which drop their loads into in-ground hoppers and a conveyor system into a gypsum storage shed.
The systems designed and manufactured by PW Engineering contribute to increasing the plant’s capacity by up to 50% compared to Winstone’s Auckland manufacturing site. Construction of the 67,000-square-metre plant was able to continue during the pandemic due to its national significance and was completed in late 2023. “That was the biggest project that PW Engineering has ever undertaken. It was cool to be involved, given that we are down in Mosgiel. I would say that 90% of the work that we do is outside of Dunedin.”
Among its equipment, PW Engineering has a fully equipped CNC-capable machine shop that specialises in general engineering machining and production machining for industries such as timber, meat processing and appliance manufacture. During the past decade, Ravensdown has been a key client for which PW Engineering has designed and manufactured bulk-material-handling equipment that includes conveyors and hoppers, while also successfully completing other significant and sometimes technically challenging projects for many other clients.
Maintaining a high standard of professionalism is always a key driver, and this requires recruiting and retaining skilled staff as well as regularly recruiting and training apprentices, who are currently number eight. Of these, three are female, with one training as a fabricator and two as fitter-welders, while all the current crops are in their final year.
“So we are about to intake a bunch more. There’s a lot of young people wanting apprenticeships; we have to really make some criteria around their qualifications before we take them on because there’s so many wanting to get into the trade.” Farmer’s children are great workers, Nick says. “Some of them turn out to be the best tradespeople going. They’re fantastic.”
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