BACKGROUND OF McKENZIE & RIDLEY (KAWERAU) LTD

McKenzie and Ridley (Kawerau) Ltd is a privately owned New Zealand company having its head office in Edgecumbe, Bay of Plenty.

In 1950, Tom McKenzie and Bill Ridley pooled their resources and formed a partnership (McKenzie and Ridley Ltd). This general Engineering Company quickly expanded and began to find areas of speciality. While gaining a reputation for expertise and manufacture in the fields of steam generation and dairy factory equipment, their Company soon found itself successfully bidding for major installation contracts against much larger and longer established concerns. Personalised service, innovative design and conscientious follow-up were the hallmark of success in those early years.

McKenzie and Ridley Ltd are not operating as a manufacturing facility now, with McKenzie and Ridley (Kawerau) Ltd now manufacturing and servicing plants around the country, with those same key factors which made their reputation in earlier years, still ensuring success today.
As licensees to Foster Wheeler, McKenzie and Ridley Ltd pioneered the manufacture and installation of packaged water tube boilers in New Zealand. The company has built and installed water tube boiler in capacities ranging from 11,000 kg per hour up to 68,000 kg per hour, with design pressure up to 6,000kPa and superheat temperature to 400°C.

The larger of these installations include a Field erected wood refuse and oil/gas fired unit of 39,500 kg/hr capacity, a Field erected coal fired unit of 38,500 kg/hr capacity and gas/oil fired package units of 68,000 and 50,000 kg/hr capacity. A combination wood refuse/coal/oil fired field erected system of 68,000 kg/hr, was supplied in component form from Canada and erected for Tasman Pulp and Paper Co in the Bay of Plenty.

In conjunction with the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute, McKenzie and Ridley Ltd developed two firsts in New Zealand history; machinery for the continuous production of casein and of cheese. This equipment was well received locally and has also been installed extensively throughout the world.

McKenzie and Ridley (Kawerau) Ltd  -  2003 Onwards

The staff of McKenzie and Ridley (Kawerau) Ltd have come from McKenzie and Ridley Ltd and have experience in the dairy, steam, geothermal steam reticulation and pulp and paper plants.

McKenzie and Ridley (Kawerau) Ltd maintain a group of skilled service engineers. They are available at short notice to deal with breakdown situations and minimise lost production. Experienced in all facets of maintenance, repair and operation of stationary, marine boilers and other factory equipment, and are also available to supervise the installation and commissioning of new units/upgrades and train operating staff as required.

Although maintenance and servicing of dairy machinery and steam plant of all kinds has been a speciality for the past three years, the company staff are also experienced in the pulp and paper, timber, canning and frozen meat industries.

A team of engineering designers are on hand at McKenzie and Ridley (Kawerau) Ltd. From this technical expertise comes the conceptual developments from which projects are designed, manufactured and installed.

The Company's engineering designers have worked on projects as diverse as steam raising plants, cheese and milk powder plants, geothermal steam reticulation and food processing plants.