MINUTES OF WELLINGTON BRANCH TRAINING AND NETWORKING EVENT
held on Wednesday, 12th April 2017 at 3:30pm for a 4:00pm start at MJH Engineering Wellington, 185 Gracefield Road, Lower Hutt, 5010
BRANCH MEETING:
Welcome:
Richard London – Branch Secretary
Attendance:
Murray Usmar (MBIE), Gary Higham (MBIE), June Osborne (MBIE), Pierre Verhaegle (Thermosash), Wayne Goodfellow (NZ Fire Service), Bruce Symon (Realsure Ltd), Bruce Glasgow (Artisan), Jack Lyons (BRANZ), Tom Edhouse (BRANZ), Richard London (Facio Ltd),Maggie Kay (Wellington City Council), Steve Kallahar (Wellington City Council),
Apologies:
Peter Laurenson (MBIE), Michael Portenes (Realsure Ltd), George Mason (Porirua City Council), Rob Tierney (Holmes Farsight), Michelle Te Ohaere (BOINZ), Walter Hill (BOINZ), Nick Hill (CEO BOINZ), Richard Nation (NPI), Craig Watson (Kapiti Coast District Council), Adrian Cullen (South Wairarapa District Council), Chris Scott (Wellington City Council), Katharine Wheeler (MBIE), Peter Webb (Mainland Claims), Matt Grant (MBIE), Natalie Hardy (Holmes Farsight), Mike Reedy (MBIE), Peter Burnet (Wellington City Council), James Firestone (NZFS), Barry Harlen (Wellington City Council).
Minutes and Matters Arising:
The previous minutes were accepted as an accurate record of the previous meeting and have been made available on the BOINZ Website.
Moved: Bruce Glasgow Seconded: Murray Usmar
Correspondence In/Out:
• BOINZ Senior Building Officials Forum is now open for registrations
• 50th Anniversary this year, members were encouraged to invite colleagues to join BOINZ and take advantage of the levy waiver this year.
• Training calendar noted as updated and available on the website for members to review
• The branch was made aware of the sudden passing of Stephen Katsougianis, a previous Wellington Branch BOINZ member working at Wellington City Council and good friend to all.
General Business:
No new items were brought forward
Guest Presentation: Steel Certification New Zealand
"New Zealand Steel Fabrication Certification Scheme" By Alistair Fussell
Alistair Fussell is the Senior Engineer and Director of Tangent Consulting Ltd, a company that offers specialist structural steel support services to industry, and design and construction professionals. He has over 25 years’ years structural engineering experience including 15 years working for various consulting engineering practices and 11 years for Steel Construction New Zealand. He is also a chartered professional engineer (CPEng), a member of the Institution of Professional Engineers NZ (MIPENZ) and a member of the Standards Australia BD 023 Committee: Structural Steel.
Alistair introduced members to the Steel Fabrication Certification scheme, which was launched in 2014. He noted the scheme was voluntary, but aims at reducing the risk of non-compliant structural steelwork for New Zealand building and infrastructure projects. There are currently 27 fabricators certified under this scheme, their combined output represents about 80% of the capacity of the local structural steel sector. All of Steel Construction New Zealand's 80+ Fabricator members must be certified under this scheme by 2020. This shows a huge commitment by the sector to be proactive in their approach to reducing the risk of non-compliance.
As part of the scheme the recently published Structural Steelwork Fabrication and Erection standard (AS/NZS 5131) provides the standards foundation for the scheme, so that the performance benchmarks can be measured.
The standard identifies four construction categories and their associated risk profile. Each has an associated conformity assessment criteria, which enables the fabricators to know what the technical requirements are and the expected level of auditing for that level of risk. This may include direct 1:1 traceability of steel source to completed fabrication down to a lower level of intermittent traceability (eg 1:10 by batch or assembly). Each category takes a risk based approach to providing a level of confidence that the fabricated part will be compliant. The use of weld specifications is becoming more common place as fabricators want to know they are producing a consistent product.
A synopsis of the scheme is available here
Further information can be found at http://www.scnz.org
Site Visit: MJH Engineering Limited
Attendees were invited to view MJH Engineering Limited's Steel Fabrication workshop. As one of New Zealand's leading structural steel fabricators, established in 1982 by Malcolm Hammond, MJH specialise in a wide range of structural steel works, including industrial warehouses, commercial buildings, multi storey tower-blocks, steel art works, residential buildings and seismic strengthening projects. MJH employing over 80 staff members, in 2014 they became a SFC certified Fabtricator (Category 3). This is an independent accreditation that enables them to show they meet the compliance requirements for steel fabrication certification in New Zealand.
Malcolm J. Hammond Engineering Limited Seaview
The training event was a great opportunity for members to view MJH’s Wellington facility and to see some of their current fabrication projects. Members were also able to see the implementation of the steel fabrication certification Quality Assurance process, discussed in the previous presentation with Alistair Fussell. 
Main site office where project fabrication is managed.
Members were first given a health and safety briefing, learning about the site hazards and processes they were about to see. Paul Sommerville introduced members to the “Stick form structure” modelling programme used by MJH to identify all the structural components. This allows them to batch and specify the steel that is to be fabricated. Steel billet and bar are recorded against the steel type and strength required so parts are matched and batched correctly. 
(top) A copy of AS/NZS 1554:2014. (Bottom) Supervisors can see the current production batching on the office whiteboard, which shows all the current onsite assemblies being fabricated that week.
Jobs are able to be tracked and traced, for every assembly, recording parts, steel type and origin, weld specifications, welder/s and weld supervisors. This tracking is critical to the certification process especially when steel parts require specific steel strength. The recipe for the steel is known as the “HEAT” number, this tells the engineer what the composition of the original steel billet was, enabling consistent strength characteristics to be achieved for that part.
Members were then taken on a guided tour of the fabrication facility. Seeing each of the main processes that parts undergo to become completed assemblies. The parts currently being fabricated were for the structure of Customhouse Quay rebuild of the old BP House building.
Main loading bay into the factory, steel is sorted and prepped and cleaned (sandblasted) for fabrication.
(top) Assembly parts list. (bottom) Batched steel parts, sorted and numbered, ready for further processing.
The inside of the factory there is an area approximately the size of two football fields with a 12m high roof in the main entry. MJH process between 80,000 and 120,000 kilos of steel per year. Members were shown the various processes used to change all that steel into structural components. MJH use a range of cutting techniques including, a 5 tonne saw for straight bar and beams, CNC plasma and lazer cutting for circular and hollow sections, along with manual gas axe tools. They have an onsite sandblasting chamber for large scale pieces fed via a gantry crane and conveyor.
(top) Members are shown CNC milling machines cutting and machining parts. (bottom)A 30mm tungsten milling head with replaceable cutting tips (each head costs approx. $2-5000)
(top) Punch and die sets for the 20-ton punch. (bottom) 20-ton punching press.
Close up of punch and die sets, with a batched plate in the background.
Members watch a lazer cutter demonstration and in foreground a set of punched and machined parts have been collated for an assembly.
(top) An assembly parts list with it's labelled parts. (bottom) Bruce is shown one of the completed beams, the end plate is 30mm thick steel.
Members were given a demonstration of MJH’s CNC Plasma cutter, working on a circular steel column (click on thumb to view video) 
The steel is cut using a CAD file that gives the exact profile of the steel section intersection and weld point. This enables steel beeams to be directly welded to the column in a continous section.
(Left) CNC Plasma cutter being setup for a cutting run. (Right) Plasma cutter in operation.
(Left) CAD images of the weld intersections to be cut. (Right) An example of a finished cut around the column.
An “I” beam inserted through the column and tack welded into the column ready for its final weld.
1(Left) Laminated cards are used to show the required steel preparation prior to welding. (Right) A certified Auzzie import about to show us his welding skills.
Members getting a close up look at the welding procedure in action. Two passes as per procedure MJH 19.1 E3
Prior to any steel being welded, the fabrication supervisor checks that the steel has been prepped correctly and that the welding procedure being used is the right one. The procedure sets out all the parameters needed to create a consistent weld. This includes wire feed rates, maximum and minimum current levels, thickness of weld, the number of passes etc. An example of the MJH 19.1 E3 weld specification can be seen here. The importance of following the procedure is that it enables confidence that the weld will be consistent.
The only way to accurately test a weld is to destroy it, x-ray’s will show if there are pockets of unfused metal, but this doesn’t confirm how well the metal is fused. As part of the steel fabrication certification process, all specified welds have been destructively tested, so that the characteristics of each are known. If the weld is undertaken using the procedure then the expected strength characateristics can be replicated each time it is performed. 
A completed weld junction, all the parts are completely traceable throughout the process (note: the weld specification).
(Left and Right) Completed parts ready for a final sandblast and protection coatings.
Members networking over a sumptuous supper of delicious cakes, savouries and even a cooked ham - Thanks Mary-Rose
Further information can be found at http://www.mjh.co.nz
Members were then offered with a fabulous supper with all the trimmings. The event was concluded with members thanking our hosts for an informative and enjoyable training event.
Special Thanks to:
• Alistair Fussell - Steel Certification New Zealand
• Malcolm and Mary-Rose Hammond for the fabulous food and hospitality
• The MJH Engineering team for showing us around the fabrication plant
6:00pm - Close of Event
Richard London
Wellington Branch Secretary
