Category Archives: Manufacturing

August 21, 2009 Posted in Business, Design, Manufacturing, My businesses, New business, New Zealand 5 Comments

Yikes! The Ryans are at it again

By Ben Kepes

The Ryan brothers are something of a powerhouse of Kiwi entrepreneurship and innovation. Between them Doctors Shaun and Grant (underachievement obviously being a familial trait!) have set up and been involved in a raft of exciting companies – GlobalBrain, Eurekster, SLI Systems among them. They’re also involved in a bunch

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May 14, 2009 Posted in Business, Design, Manufacturing, My businesses Leave a comment

The Consumerisation of Design, the Death of Fitness for Purpose

By Ben Kepes

On my way to the United States, US Airways unfortunately misplaced my bag. Faced with the prospect of a week without my stuff i made a quick assessment of what I really couldn’t do without. Top of the list 9after a NZ/US power adaptor) was my gym gear. I trundled

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December 16, 2008 Posted in Business, Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, Manufacturing, My businesses, Society 2 Comments

What Part of Rampant Consumerism do People Not Get?

By Ben Kepes

Doing the rounds at the moment is a UK Sunday Star Times story about an undercover operation at an Amazon warehouse. Basically the reporter discovered terrible working conditions, very high demands on staff and not allowance for sick days off. The thing that caused the shock for people (we all

August 23, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Manufacturing, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 2 Comments

Another one bites the dust…

By Ben Kepes

Its been a few months since I had a rant about the demise of first world manufacturing. Sure there are companies like American Apparel and my own Cactus Climbing creating a brand story out of retaining a first world manufacturing ethos but they are in the minority. News this morning

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July 14, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, Manufacturing, Strategy 2 Comments

Enterprise software adding value – or not

By Ben Kepes

I was a little flummoxed to read that Levi Strauss, the venerable Jeans maker, reported a 98% drop in quarterly net profit last week. Well I wasn’t flummoxed about the drop in profit – these are difficult times after all. No, what really surprised me was the major reason given

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June 16, 2008 Posted in Business, Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, Manufacturing, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 3 Comments

Ethical manufacturing is great, until it hits the bottom line…

By Ben Kepes

I normally refrain from commenting on the domestic vs Asian manufacturing issue on this blog for two reasons; The focus here is on tech, not hard goods Given my ownership of a domestically manufacturing business I’m reluctant to whine But this morning I can’t resist. I read Icebreaker, the former

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June 10, 2008 Posted in Design, Efficiency, IT, Manufacturing 2 Comments

A plea to Andy Lark….

By Ben Kepes

Andy Lark is VP marketing at Dell and a Kiwi boy to boot. He’s also a nice guy and tends to listen to what people say. So here goes… We’re needing a new desktop for one of our CSRs here so I went to the Dell site to customise one.

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April 30, 2008 Posted in Design, IT, Manufacturing 2 Comments

I want a ThinkPadAir

By Ben Kepes

Check this out – and come flame me fanboys…. I like it!

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April 10, 2008 Posted in Design, Economic Development, Manufacturing, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 3 Comments

Where is the vision….

By Ben Kepes

I’d been avoiding posting about the recently signed free trade agreement between New Zealand and China. Every time I talk about trade, some readers see it as a last ditch attempt to save New Zealand manufacturing, bolster my own business and keep New Zealand isolationist a la Muldoon and the

March 10, 2008 Posted in Economic Development, Manufacturing, New Zealand, Society 3 Comments

On globalisation, M&As and manufacturing…

By Ben Kepes

There’s been a fair amount of hyperbole this week over the closure of two carpet making plants in the North Island. To give a synopsis of the situation, a few years ago Feltex carpets went bust. After a length liquidation the assets were purchased by an Australian carpet manufacturer wo

The Author

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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