Westco Lumber is a highly regarded supplier of quality timber products.
The mission of the Company is “to Build Brand Value” and everything we do is
designed to enhance the value of our products to our customers.
We manufacture and market an excellent range of appearance grade pine products.
Our focus is on the dressed boards, furniture and joinery segments of the timber
products market.
We are focused on delivering value to our customers by consistently supplying high
quality timber products, in full, on time and in spec.
Welcome to WESTCO LUMBER
HISTORY
Westco Lumber is a respected supplier of quality timber products, with a mission to "Build Brand Value" by enhancing product value for customers. We specialize in appearance grade pine products for furniture, joinery, moulding, and millwork segments. Our commitment is to consistently deliver high-quality timber products on time and in spec, striving to be "World Class" with a customer-focused team-based approach.
Westco Lumber was established in October 2015 to take over the operations of Westco Lagan and to implement ownership changes for the business. This has allowed key senior leaders to become shareholders to assist the ongoing viability of the Company.
Westco Lagan was formed in1994 by the merger of two privately owned companies, Westco MTP and Lagan Lumber. However, the history of the operations within these businesses goes back a lot further than this.
Westco Lumber’s main operation is the integrated sawmill and processing facility at Ruatapu,10 kilometres south of Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island. This is a site with a long history. The first sawmill was built here in 1903. This was followed by a “bandmill” built by the Butler Brothers, who were prominent in the New Zealand timber industry in the first few decades of the century.
Ownership of the operation moved into corporate hands from the 1960’s to the 1990’s with Fletchers, Henderson and Pollard and Carter Holt Harvey all owning what was by then a much larger integrated operation developed in the late 1960’s. Private Company ownership was restored in 1993 with the purchase of the Ruatapu operation from Carter Holt Harvey and established Westco MTP.
The Christchurch operation was established in 1989 with the purchase of the assets of Associated Suppliers by Lagan Lumber. This operation developed from a custom-processing base to a significant stockist and distributor of a wide range of local and imported timber and wood products.
The newly merged company, Westco Lagan, quickly became the leading player in New Zealand’s indigenous timber industry. However, with the decision in 2000 by the Labour led coalition Government to halt indigenous logging on state managed public land, the Company has changed its focus to the processing and marketing of high-quality pine products.
OPERATIONS
Ruatapu is an operation in which Westco Lumber takes a great deal of pride. The well-structured sawmill includes a servo setworks and independent knees on the log carriage,
a Southern Cross edger and resaw.
The sawmill is complemented by superb yard facilities with sealed roading providing good access for timber storage and drying preparation. These facilities enable the value of the timber to be preserved at all times. The quality of the facility is maintained as more value is added, with five medium temperature kiln drying chambers feeding directly into one of the most impressive dry stores of any timber operation in New Zealand. A 4.5 megawatt woodwaste boiler provides the energy for the kilns.
The timber dry store leads directly to a manufacturing facility with a bandsaw and Stetson Ross planer. This Stetson planer enables us to surface product and manufacture a range of quality wood products. The wood waste from the manufacturing process, together with sawdust from the sawmill, is captured to provide all the energy for the kiln drying process, another example of the integrated nature of the operation.
All in all, Ruatapu is well designed for extracting and preserving the value from the high quality Radiata Pine available on the West Coast and surrounding districts.
The company’s prime operation at Ruatapu is complemented by the processing facilities developed at Christchurch.
With a moulding machine, a bandsaw and four docking saws, Christchurch is designed to service the speciality product requirements of our customers.
Excellent yard and warehouse facilities have also been developed, enabling the value of timber processed, to be preserved at all times. Both of these sites maintain quality management systems. Westco Lumber has inherited and developed excellent facilities that make it possible “to Build Brand Value”.
RESOURCE
Westco Lumber is a respected supplier of quality timber products, with a mission to "Build Brand Value" by enhancing product value for customers. We specialize in appearance grade pine products for furniture, joinery, moulding, and millwork segments. Our commitment is to consistently deliver high-quality timber products on time and in spec, striving to be "World Class" with a customer-focused team-based approach.
Our business is focused on Radiata Pine. The pine resource from the West Coast, Nelson and Canterbury has many fine attributes such as a light, bright colour, low pith proportion and freedom from resin pockets.
A large proportion of these forests are FSC ® Certified. Westco Lumber holds FSC ® Chain of Custody Certification (FSC-C003279) therefore, where required, we can supply FSC ® certified wood.
The wood is rated low to medium density and as such is well suited to appearance
grade uses in the furniture and joinery industries. We believe that customers will recognise the benefits of this product, and to help them specify it we have prefixed all of our grade names with the brand “Westco”.
Our operations focus on milling pruned butt logs to produce a high yield of clear timber. The logs are sourced in a variety of lengths, predominantly those suitable for the US market. The knotty core of the logs is cut into a number of knotty grades that
are marketed to the furniture industry.
Westco Lumber will continue to develop its capability to convert this “Westco Pine” into quality wood products for specialist end uses.
PEOPLE
Westco Lumber has survived market and resource challenges, and prospered due to the quality of its people, 70 who are employed at our Ruatapu operation and 20 at
our Christchurch site. Through comprehensive training we have developed multi-skilled employees that can work in 2 or 3 different processes when required.
Our business uses external training providers along with internal trainers to meet the skills to operate our business. A number of our employees have gained NZQA
recognized qualifications in Timber Machining, Saw Doctoring, Engineering and Solid Wood Manufacturing and we continue to offer apprenticeships covering these
qualifications.
The Company was the winner of the Skills Highway category of the 2020 NZ Diversity Awards in recognition of the culture of learning among its employees.
Our Health and Safety policy is:
“To ensure our people feel safe, think safe, work safe, play safe aiming for zero accidents within a safe and healthy environment”. Health and Safety is put first in our company.
We talk about it all the time, it has leadership focus, and it is the first thing on the agenda at meetings: we take it
seriously.