Heidelberg on the ground for Christchurch customers

Heidelberg’s Christchurch customers received assistance within days as engineers assessed damage received from the 22 February quakes.

Heidelberg New Zealand’s Troy Wild said its engineers were on the ground as soon as sites were marked safe to enter, to inspect the level of damage. “Within three days of the earthquake our Christchurch engineers, Phil Patey and Bill Kennedy, as well as support staff, had spoken to most of our customers to see what we could do to assist them”.

Long-term customer Allprint Marketing Services came through the quakes relatively unscathed, though managing director Ray Tansey said “some of our machinery walked its way across the floor” including its Heidelberg presses.

Tansey says two Heidelberg engineers were on the scene to assess the damage within days, one local and the other from Auckland. “They got us back on track despite the shaking and the liquefaction which went right through the factory and crawled into stock as well”.

Pakworld operations manager Jonathan Flett was out of town at the time, on the phone to his sales team when the quakes struck. “All of a sudden I heard screaming and then the phones went dead – it is a phone call that will haunt me for a long time.”

Pictured: Pakworld factory after earthquake

After a draining six-hour drive back to Christchurch he saw the factory hadn’t suffered any structural damage, but inside was a different story. “All our racking had collapsed and all the machinery had moved from the earthquake pads, but it could have been worse.”

Flett says having a well laid out factory and installing the earthquake pads certainly reduced the severity of the damage. The factory was up and running within two weeks after everything had been striped, realigned and moved back onto pads.

“I am glad to say that after all the hard work from our own staff, Heidelberg’s engineers, support from other printing companies and a thorough assessment of our building, we are now running to full capacity with day and night shifts,” he said.