Surtees -- a cut above

Surtees Boats has installed a new ProMax 1800 Plasma Cutter into its Kawerau (NZ) manufacturing facility in a move to increase production and to meet growing demand for the company's range of production aluminium boats.

Plasma cutting isn’t new to Surtees, the company says it was one of the first New Zealand aluminium boat builders to install a plasma cutter over 15 years ago, but the new machine is significantly more advanced than the previous version.

"The new cutter will allow us to increase the speed and accuracy of the aluminium cutting process by 28 per cent. That equates to more boats leaving the factory en route to dealers and customers,” says Surtees Boats Managing Director Phil Sheaff.

The new equipment is a lot bigger than the previous machine used and boasts a sophisticated extractor system that extracts and filters 99.9 per cent of the dust and plasma left during the cutting process and then re-distributes the warm air throughout the factory during the colder winter months.

The company produces one boat every 4.5 hours, with production to target 400 boats in 2014.

Surtees has four dealers in New Zealand with the Bay of Plenty and Central North Island sales handled direct from the factory. Ten dealers retail the boats in every state in Australia with the Australian marketing accounting for 60 per cent of all sales.

"We have seen unprecedented demand for our models, particularly the 4.85 Workmate which we released in 2008 -- now our most popular model," said Sheaff.

The new plasma cutter followed the addition of Surtees very own paint booth, making the company one of New Zealand’s most technological advanced and self-sufficient builders.

"The painting booth gives us more control over the entire build process and we’re proud to say that our paint finish is now ‘car’ like," Sheaf added.

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