Photo: PNG CR’s 95 percent nationalised workforce manufactures buildings in-country and thus helps clients achieve their local content objectives
It is readily accepted that prefabricated and modular building systems are better suited to Papua New Guinea than conventional modes of building. This is especially so for remotely located resource sector projects such as camps, but also for housing developments and large civil infrastructure projects including hospitals, schools, and government offices. There are several prefabricated and modular building providers in PNG, however they differ in the extent to which they ‘give back’ to PNG, as well as the extent to which they help their clients achieve their local content objectives.
While cost is always a critical criterion for building procurement, companies are increasingly placing greater emphasis on building suppliers that make a meaningful contribution to PNG. Managing Director of PNG CR, Allen Tyson says that “most of the country’s modular and prefab builders are doing a similarly good job when it comes to corporate social responsibility, but they do differ when it comes to local content.”
Having good local content credentials encompasses much more than a company ensuring it employs as many PNG Nationals as possible. It’s also about maximising the number of PNG owned businesses in their supply chains, as well as supporting and capacity building these businesses.
PNG CR, with its 14 years’ experience providing world class modular and containerised buildings in PNG, implements a range of initiatives that maximise the incorporation of local businesses in their supply chains of large projects:
- Centralised procurement of local goods,
- Agricultural co-ops,
- Business start-up training,
- Assistance to scalability of local partners,
- Expansion of business partners at national levels, &
- Training and upskilling of local workforce.
“In addition to making sure we have as many local businesses in our supply chains as possible, 95 percent of our 250+ workforce is Papua New Guinean” says Tyson. “This workforce is largely permanent, and we increase it by hiring more local workers when the need arises.”
Unlike some of its competitors, which manufacture cheaply off-shore, PNG CR manufactures in-country. Tyson acknowledges this wasn’t always the case but says that over the last 14 years his company has established the capability to produce PNG made building solutions. According to Tyson, 80 percent of a typical PNG CR building (e.g., framing, cladding, roofing) is manufactured in-country.
Manufacturing locally obviously has many benefits for PNG in terms of employment, upskilling, and reducing the reliance on expensive expatriates who send their money overseas. It also assists clients who procure PNG CR buildings with their own local content requirements.
PNG CR has delivered a broad spectrum of buildings in PNG in addition to the 9,700 person camp complex with ancillary buildings it designed, supplied, and installed for the PNG LNG project back in 2010. The company has also provided PNG with several other camp and staff accommodation facilities, an airport terminal, a medical centre, an ambulance control centre, numerous offices, and many more buildings.
As well as the buildings PNG CR supplies, the company also has full facility management capacity. Tyson says that this capacity is highly valued, particularly by resource sector clients with hundreds or even thousands of staff to accommodate and multiple buildings to operate.
“We provide a design-manufacture-construct-operate model – essentially an ‘A to Z’ turnkey suite of solutions for clients. In short, we can take care of absolutely everything building-related which enables our clients to get on with their core business. Obviously dealing with one contractor like PNG CR who can literally ‘do it all’, is a lot easier than managing multiple contractors.”
