ENGINEERING IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY 10 WOODSON PLACE: THE HOME OF PLASTICS 26 September 2016 0800 506 407 sales@macplas.co.nz www.macplas.co.nz EN099 importer of Plastic materials. • Plastics for all applications • Machined & fabricated • Extensive experience in a wide variety of industries and applications. MACPLAS No.10 Downing Street is well known in the United Kingdom as the headquarters of Her Majesty’s Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, a post which, for much of the 18th and 19th centuries and invariably since 1905, has been held by the Prime Minister. But when it comes to plastics, a different No.10 is top dog and has housed a regal supply to the New Zealand engineering industry and beyond for some time. No.10 Woodson Place, Glenfield, is the new home of Macplas: engineered solutions in plastic. The company has moved a couple of doors down from No.6, but it’s the site’s plastic heritage that is somewhat unique. “After working for a plastics company in Europe I returned and started working for Engineering Plastics in Palmerston North who were purchasing materials for the same company I worked for in Austria,” says Macplas managing director, Grant McCartney. That was in 1989, but the business had begun in the 70s and was well known and established. “Over the years the company grew, expanded, and I was shipped off to Auckland as the sales and marketing manager with an office in this exact building. The warehouse was located at No. 8, and the workshop was next to that at No.6… where Macplas has come from to here,” laughs Mr McCartney. “This is where they were, the MD had his ‘Taj Mahal’ office in the corner,” says Mr McCartney of what must be the engineering industry’s most unique full circle, albeit somewhat incestuous too. When Engineering Plastics was bought by another large plastics supplier in 2006, Mr McCartney ended up as general manager. Then, another competitor was purchased and the two businesses were merged and housed at a Mt Wellington site. The Woodson premise was closed. The original owners of the business, Engineering Plastics, had retained the Glenfield buildings and were subletting the properties until 2010, until Mr McCartney started Macplas, from Woodson Ave, growing at great pace and with a real need to expand. “We did a deal, and we’ve now purchased No.10 and back in the original Engineering Plastics building.” Swings and round-a-bouts within the plastics industry aside, Mr McCartney says that although there’s plenty of humour in the tale of the plastics place (Ed’s note: A message needed perhaps to council to actually rename the road, ‘Plastics Place’?) the level of quality and service is no laughing matter. “We are going great guns. We’ve got systems in place and business models that work. We’re here to stay and we’re on the move in terms of growth,” says Mr McCartney. So, the UK may have its No.10, but the plastics industry in New Zealand has one too: though it may not be cups of tea come late Friday afternoons. Spot the difference? Although the differences between 10 Woodson Place (Right) and 10 Downing Street aren’t immediately obvious to the naked eye, the major differential factor may indeed be that what’s inside Woodson gets the job done.
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