There's a good deal of local electronics manufacturing history behind the company name Fero. Derived from the Latin phrase In Caelum Fero (roughly translated 'We Make Our Mark'), Fero was launched in April 2010 by the joining of two well-established companies: 

(L-R) Roger and Greg Fulton with ViAGO's Peter Thorby

TradeTech and Wire Solutions. The former is an importer and distributor of electronic parts and components for the manufacturing, audio-video and service industries. The latter provides wire, terminal and assembly engineering, including low-pressure molding products.

TradeTech had been purchased by brothers Roger and Greg Fulton in 2001. Roger, a consulting engineer and small business owner, brought a fresh approach to management. Greg, an ex-farmer, saw the growth opportunity and the synergy with his own appliance parts company Prime Distributors.

2001 was to be a watershed year for the Fultons. It was also the year Greg sold Prime to Fisher & Paykel and, together with technician Grant Holmes, established Wire Solutions - a response to the growing demand for power cables, looms and wire harnesses.

Synergy would eventually drive TradeTech and Wire Solutions under the Fero Group umbrella in 2010. "There was this huge synergy between the two companies," recalls Roger. "Our manufacturing clients required the electronics and they required the connectivity - boxes, a bit of assembly, wires, and so on." Greg also had customers that just required the connectivity products. "Between us, we had a large spread of knowledge, power engineering, accounting, virtually every process."

It also made sense to bring the two companies together from a geographical perspective - with TradeTech based on the North Shore and Wire Solutions in South Auckland - and both requiring bigger premises.

It was at the launch of Fero at the new Mt Wellington premises, that the Fultons were introduced to the 'Theory of Constraints' (TOC) - a system that can address the production 'pinch points', or constraints within a business.

Roger immediately read up all he could on the subject and subsequently got in touch with Peter Thorby at ViAGO, a Christchurch-based company specialising in the TOC process.

"We decided to just go for it," says Roger, "and committed to a very rapid implementation."

Reducing lead times

"Our manufacturing is geared for shorter production runs, which is typical of many smaller New Zealand companies," says Greg Fulton. "Large local manufacturers also have a requirement for short production runs, because every time they make a design change on whatever they're building, there's always a modification of wires. This is where we have the upper hand over Asian companies.

"When we first considered TOC, we were very mindful of how it could help keep New Zealand manufacturers looking to onshore suppliers like ourselves. The key to this was keeping lead times to a minimum," he says.

"We already had excellent lead times by New Zealand manufacturing standards at 15 days. Our goal was seven days and we saw TOC as a great mechanism for doing this."

The ViAGO implementation began on February 14, 2011, with Peter Thorby instructing the Fultons to "cut all schedules, cut all batches and empty this place out!"

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