McClay’s shop floor is small but diverse, and sports everything necessary to complete in today’s machining marketplace. Image courtesy: McClay Tooling Pete McClay doesn’t like crashes. The owner of McClay Tooling Ltd, a machine shop and moldmaker in Christchurch, wants to leave his CNC machine tools running all night and not walk into a mess the next morning. And like most job shop owners, he also wants to reduce setup times while increasing shop efficiency. This is why he and his team have used VeriCut toolpath simulation software from California-based CGTech for the past six years, and look forward to expanding its use on a new five-axis machining centre from Haas Automation. Precision Down Under Many have seen the movies Avatar or Lord of the Rings, and many throughout the world associate New Zealand with snow-peaked mountains and lush grasslands rather than any advanced manufacturing capabilities. But our remote island nation offers far more than convincing movie sets: according to the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) agency, we are home to approximately 5,300 “high value” manufacturing companies that collectively employ more than 26,000 workers and produce everything from aerospace and medical components to wind turbines and locomotives. In fact, we earned the No. 2 spot on Forbes’ 2016 list of Best Countries for Business, lagging slightly behind Sweden but blowing the corporate doors off the United States, which came in a distant 23rd. Simply put, New Zealand is a good place to make products. McClay Tooling has been in business since 1989. It employs seven people and has 700 square metres of floor space. It’s located on the west side of Christchurch, fast becoming one of New Zealand’s key manufacturing hubs. HamiltonJet and Dynamic Controls are located there, and the city is host to several well-known multinational firms, including Pratt and Whitney, Eaton, Moffatt and others. The company started out as a progressive die builder for sheet metal stamping, but has since expanded into moldmaking, medical parts machining, and the design and manufacture of packaging equipment. This eclectic product mix has usurped the company’s tool and die work, which workshop manager Mark Fisher says has mostly gone overseas anyway. From Progressives to Packaging “The stamping industry has changed quite a bit since McClay first opened, and over the past 10 years or so we’ve moved heavily into medical,” says Mr Fisher. “There’s a company nearby that we work with quite closely, making custom hip cups, spinal www.engineeringnews.co.nz 31
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