QRS wins regional contractors' award

Wairoa contractors QRS has received recognition at a regional level for its contracting work.

Quality Roading and Services (Wairoa) Ltd won the New Zealand Contractor’s Federation Hawke’s Bay Branch Contractor’s Award for its work on Affco’s carton tunnel and palletizing area. 

The $1.5 million project was completed at the Affco site over a seven-month period.

This is the first major award that QRS has won and the company’s managers are extremely pleased with what it means for the company and for Wairoa.

Jamie Cox – Construction Manager with the NZCF Hawke’s Bay Branch Trophy

In August 2005, QRS was nominated for a national award from the NZCF for the same project. QRS chief executive Leigh Aitken said although they were unsuccessful in winning the national award, the company was grateful to have picked up an award at the regional level. Being nominated for a national award and winning at a regional level was bound to have positive spinoffs for the company, he said. The publicity meant QRS had been placed on the contractors’ map. QRS was also very happy to be dealing with a meat exporting company that was a leader in the industry, Mr Aitken said.

QRS was a civil contracting company first and foremost, but the work for Affco was more of a building project.

Project manager Jamie Cox said it was interesting work. "The challenge is in working with an industry that can’t stop, that is dynamic. Roads can be closed, but with a business like Affco you have to work around their timetable."

It was a compliment to QRS workers that they were flexible enough to handle a lot of different aspects of the job, Mr Cox said.

The company had to make use of what resources it had and had to try that little bit harder.
Mr Aitken said Mr Cox deserved a lot of the credit for pushing to have the project entered and subjected to regional and national scrutiny.

QRS was nervous entering into the competition but they would be less nervous about entering more competitions in the future, he said.

Mr Aitken also thanked fellow QRS staff like project supervisor Gordon Preston and the work of Affco staff like engineer Paul Sullivan in facilitating the project.

There were benefits for the whole community as well, not just QRS. The awards are likely to be beneficial for Wairoa and could help improve the perception of the town.

Affco’s Palletizing Area

Being based out of a small community like Wairoa had been a positive influence on the company. Mr Aitken said Wairoa needed more of this sort of publicity and QRS was pleased to bring more exposure to the area. QRS is currently working on a number of projects that rival in scale the work done at the Affco plant. These include the Blue Bay development at Opoutama as well as a major roading upgrade at Mata Road in Tokomaru Bay for Gisborne District Council.