Building Taranaki from ground up

BY ROB MAETZIG

In the fourth of a series of features on the companies to achieve success in this year's Westpac Taranaki Chamber of Commerce Business Awards, Rob Maetzig profiles Opus International Consultants, winner of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Medium Business Award.

The Taranaki office of Opus  International Consultants  has a remarkable  photograph album.

It contains photos of the development of just about every major roading, industrial and infrastructure project in Taranaki over at least the past 80 years.

Construction of the first-ever Mokau bridge, building the highway over Mt Messenger, development of the Kapuni gas production station, road and rail works out in eastern Taranaki - it's all there.

There's an obvious reason why Opus has such a comprehensive selection of historic photographs. It's because the company had its beginnings as the Ministry of Works and Development, the government entity established in 1885.

In 1988, the ministry became the consultancy division of state- owned enterprise Works and Development Services Corporation NZ. Then in 1996, when the consultancy service was sold to Kinta Kellas of Malaysia, it was renamed Opus International Consultants.

All this means that although the Opus name has been around for only a relatively short time, it has real history in infrastructure development, covering planning, design, project management, construction supervision, maintenance and rehabilitation throughout New Zealand.

In Taranaki this history means Opus is very highly regarded as a "local" business, even though the head office is in Wellington and there are branches all over the country and in Britain, Canada and Australia. Since business history can only be developed through solid client relationships, it makes sense that the Taranaki office provides its clients service of a high standard.

This is well illustrated by Opus' success in the annual Taranaki Business Awards.

Last year the company won the Service Award, and was highly commended in the Employer of Choice Award.

This year the company received highly commended honours in both the Service Award and the Employer of Choice Award, and won the Medium Business Award.

It came as no surprise that last week when the Taranaki Daily News visited Opus for an interview for this article, the entire staff sat around the boardroom table for a chat.

They proudly showed off their historic photograph album, and also displayed the contents of an equally historic drawing register (a register of project-based drawings and technical files) which dates back to 1920 when the first notation was for a trial section of railway line in central Taranaki.

The person in charge of the Taranaki office is business manager Steve Barbarics, an Englishman who moved to New Zealand six years ago and is now so fully immersed in the Taranaki lifestyle that he works in New Plymouth, lives in Stratford, and owns a lifestyle block near Eltham.

He loves it here. He says he was extremely fortunate to walk into an office with a quality workforce, a loyal client base, and a range of challenging and motivating projects.

That range of projects is very wide. Clients include the Crown entity the New Zealand Transport Agency, power company Trustpower, railway network owner Ontrack, and several energy companies including Shell Todd Oil Services.

Another major client is the New Plymouth District Council - the primary role of Opus is the management of around 1300 kilometres of the district's roads to provide a safe and efficient roading system. It entails everything from optimising spending, organising forward works programmes, and managing operations and maintenance, to supervising traffic signal operation and pavement marking, through to street cleaning.

That task also involves keeping close tabs on the condition of the roads.

Opus has its own laboratory in New Plymouth which is constantly checking materials like roading base course and concrete.

All that represents a lot of work for the 15 full-time and three part-time staff at Opus' Taranaki branch.

It also means that all the staff find themselves in the unique position of regularly spotting the results of their work whenever they are travelling around the region.

During last week's interview, one quipped that this is often like what happens when an individual paints their own ceiling - only they can spot any flaws.

"So we often find ourselves saying that we could have designed that road corner a little better. It's a pride thing," he said.

That led to an obvious question: Is there a project the Opus staff are really proud of?

The response was very quick in coming. It's the 2006 replacement of a small footbridge over the Waiongana-iti Stream at Kelly St, Inglewood, with a two- way vehicle bridge.

"Up until then the only vehicle crossing over that stream was the main road bridge, and for various strategic reasons including civil defence, it was felt there should be a second crossing," said Steve Barbarics.

"So the district council asked us to cost such a project.

"We developed a suitable bridge design, but the cost was too high so the council said the project would need to be shelved.

"We brainstormed, and came up with a plan for a steel-arch culvert with cathodic protection - zinc anodes were embedded in the backfill which would be electrically monitored to help prevent corrosion.

"The cost of the culvert came in under the council budget limit, which allowed it to be built.

"We think that's an example of us being innovative and going the extra mile for a client."

- © Fairfax NZ News