PlaceMakers Frame & Truss has doubled its upper North Island capacity with its existing team, following the official opening of its new plant in Wiri, South Auckland.
It features some of the most advanced manufacturing technology in New Zealand, including the country’s only fully automated truss line. Automated timber cutting and robotic systems now cut and position components, work previously done by hand.
The plant can produce frames and trusses for more than 3,500 homes a year. Frames form a house’s walls and trusses hold up its roof, and both are made to order for each build. For builders, more capacity means shorter lead times, and machine precision means a more consistent product with fewer fixes on site.
“Frame and truss sets the pace of a build,” says Fletcher Building Distribution Chief Executive James Peters. “When it’s late or wrong, everything behind it waits. This plant gets it to builders sooner and right the first time. It also lets us scale production with demand. Housing moves in cycles, and we can now lift output when the market picks up and stay efficient when it slows.”
Fletcher Building Chief Executive and Managing Director Andrew Reding, Deputy Board Chair James Miller, and Fletcher Building Distribution Chief Executive James Peters officially open the new PlaceMakers Frame & Truss manufacturing facility in Wiri, South Auckland.
Rather than build from scratch, PlaceMakers converted an existing Fletcher Building manufacturing site, completing the work in nine months while production moved across from the old plant.
Precision cutting keeps timber waste below five per cent. Offcuts are chipped by Green Gorilla and supplied to Golden Bay Cement, another Fletcher Building business, for use in its operations.
The Wiri plant has been in production since June and was officially opened last week by James Peters, alongside Fletcher Building Chief Executive and Managing Director Andrew Reding and Deputy Board Chair James Miller.