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A good-news story (at last)

There aren't many news stories I read that bring a smile to my face and a sense of pride to my mind.

It's a brilliant tale of kiwi innovation and determination to solve seeming unsolvable problems.

Apparently NZ Steel had a major problem with the water-cooling system in its Glenbrook mill.

When something went badly wrong, pipes and fittings designed to carry nothing hotter than liquid water were exposed to scorching-hot gases that simply melted many of the rubber components.

No problems, just replace them.

Big problem -- replace them with what?

Like most sensible operators, NZ Steel did carry spares - it's just that they didn't carry enough spares.

Although they had the parts to repair one of the damaged cooling systems, examination revealed that all eight of the systems were victims of the fiery blast of superheated gases.

Bugger!

No worries, just contact the manufacturer in Norway and have some more replacement parts flown in ASAP.

And ASAP was important because while it was out of action, the company was facing around $150K an hour in lost revenues - that's $3.6 million a day!

After a quick phone call to a Nokia in the fjords the news was all bad.

It seems that the parts weren't available and wouldn't be for at least another six weeks (that's $150 million in lost revenue).

Bugger!

So what did the guys at NZ Steel do?

Well they did what any Kiwi would do -- they figured they'd just come up with an alternative solution to what was rapidly becoming a *very* expensive problem.

"We'll make our own replacements" they told the Norwegians.

"You can't" they replied. "These are specialist parts that no stupid sheep-shearing Kiwi could possibly hope to duplicate. Besides, the rubber compound required contains a special blend of secret herbs and spices that only we have the recipe for."

Well NZ Steel immediately commissioned special moulds to be made and got ahold of some smart Kiwi chemists that came up with their own herbs and spices to produce a compound more than capable of doing the job.

Within a surprisingly short space of time, NZ Steel's Glenbrook mill was up and running again, almost faster than those crazy Norwegians could press the "end" key on their fancy Nokia cellphone.

And everyone (especially NZ Steel's shareholders) had a good night's sleep.

So what does this *true* story tell us?

Kiwis *are* innovative, smart and more than willing to rise to a challenge.

Kiwis consider the phrase "can't be done" to be an inspirational chant rather than a reason to try something else instead.

Despite the brain drain, NZ has some of the smartest, most skilled and knowledgeable experts in their respective fields.

Sounds like a recipe for global success in a hi-tech world doesn't it?

So what's holding us back?

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