Who we are

We are experienced business consultants, passionate about positive change and supporting New Zealand's manufacturing industry. With experience in New Zealand, China, the Netherlands and Germany in the areas of Lean Management, Effective Process Improvement, Global Product Compliance, Efficient Product Development, Improved Product Safety and Risk Assessment Procedures, we know both the challenges and the opportunities for improvement.

We understand the changing expectations businesses are currently facing and as a New Zealand business, we want to help other New Zealand businesses lead the way in becoming strong and resilient future focused leaders.

Our founder and senior consultant

Fiona van Petegem has a B.E (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and an M.B.A. in International Industrial Management from the University of Applied Sciences in Esslingen, Germany. With 20+ years of experience in industry, and 12 years in mentoring and management, Fiona has a wealth of experience and resources to help you improve your operations.

Who we work with

These are a few of the organisations we have been working with over the last few years:

What we do
Our objective is to help you build the necessary competency within your business that enables you to develop better products/services through developing products/services in a better way.

These are just some of services we offer, talk to us about your specific needs:
Business Improvement through Quality System Integration
  • Assessing your current systems and identifying where value can be added
  • Assisting with the creation of procedures and best practices to align with your chosen quality system
  • Providing training or coaching as required to embed the system into your business
Outcome: A working integrated quality system that adds value to your business and reduces risk in your activities

Process Improvement
  • Understanding the weaknesses in your current processes
  • Eliminating unnecessary tasks
  • Ensuring responsibilities sit with the appropriate staff
  • Removing obstacles, that slow down processes
Outcome: Smoother processes with less wasted time

Understanding your legal obligations in Markets of Sale
  • Identifying what regulations/legislation and standards are relevant to your product in each market
  • Understanding the mandatory and voluntary requirements
  • Determining what registration or similar requirements exist for your product
 Outcome: A good understanding of what is required for you to sell your product in (a) particular market(s)

Product Safety and Quality Strategy and Procedures
  • Creating a product safety strategy
  • Putting together product verification and control plans
Outcome: Knowledge of how to create safe, quality products with supporting procedures

Product Risk Assessments
  • Performing FMEA on your products to reduce product risk
  • How to get the most out of an FMEA
Outcome: Reduction in the risk of product incidents and potential recalls
Efficient Product Development Procedures
  • Understanding how to identify items that add risk to meeting the timeline
  • Using parallel work streams to meet targets
  • Improving communications and transparency
Outcome: Less surprises and faster time to market

Product Development and Implementation Audit and Improvement plan
A review and assessment of all process relating to product development and implementation including:
  • Compliance documentation
  • Product verification and testing review
  • Warranty and customer feedback process
  • Change order management and traceability
  • Root cause assessments and corrective actions
  • FMEA’s (Failure Mode Effects Analysis)
  • Product and part approval processes
  • Control Plans
  • Common failure mode assessments
  • Physical product assessment
  • Review of user instructions and labelling
Outcome: An understanding of where there is opportunity for improvement and where there are risks to the company

Sustainable Business Development
  • Review of current Business Model and Activities to assess Adaptive Capacity
  • Application of Transition Engineering to identify innovation opportunities
  • Adaptation of corporate strategy to support a transition journey
  • Design of workshops and seminars for groups where a new path is sought
Outcome: A strategy for building a sustainable future

"Fiona substantially improved the processes related to product compliance. Her ability to analyse and assess existing systems and procedures to expose weaknesses and propose improvements was outstanding and well accepted within the whole organization. This acceptance was not only based on her competence and experience but also on her personal commitment, and her capability in terms of training staff and getting people onboard with necessary changes. Her professional, calm and consistent approach, her focus on continuous improvement and positive change allowed our business to move forward. Last but not least, her provision of sound, fact-based risk assessments enabled my decision making"
Hartmut Schürg | COO | Germany

"Fiona systematically analyses processes, quickly identifies problems, pinpoints the real root causes of the problems and works out corresponding process improvements in detail. Fiona created many important process descriptions for us and then quickly coordinated them in the organisation and trained the employees in handling the documents and the processes. I will consult with Fiona in the future where there is a need to analyse and improve complex business processes."
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Krupinski | Interim Quality Management | Germany

"Fiona quickly displayed her strong analytical and problem-solving skills, by identifying business gaps and putting robust procedures in place to fill them.  She has the rare gift of being able to view things holistically, while also having the attention to detail and patience required to devise and enact the necessary changes.  She created and implemented systems for product development, quality assurance and quality control, change control, risk analysis, and manufacturing improvement."
Tim Davie | Logistics Manager | New Zealand

"Fiona is an extremely experienced engineer and global product compliance specialist, with a laser eye for detail. Always calm and good leader of people, I would not hesitate recommending her skills to any business needing expertise in this space."
Jason Crowe | COO | New Zealand

"Fiona demonstrated very high level of proficiency in ensuring product compliance with all requirements. Her thorough knowledge of product requirements spanned the European, North American, and of course those of Australia and New Zealand. Not only is she an expert in the requirement, she is also well experienced in risk assessment and developing corrective actions to mitigate such risk. Her work has always been accurate and well detailed. She is self motivated and always delivered on time. Her experience will prove to be invaluable to any company where her services are used."
Said Nakhla | Head of Product Development | Germany

"Fiona has shown an exceptional ability, knowledge and understanding across a number of product quality, manufacturing and management aspects. I would recommend her as someone well versed in the above aspects and someone who can readily add value to an organisation"
Denis Witt | Business Compliance and Risk | New Zealand

“Fiona is a consummate professional. She is well-researched, and highly effective at challenging our thinking in a very constructive way. Together we have developed a strong future-focused strategy and created ‘shift projects’ to get us there"
Stephen Leitch | Managing Director |New Zealand
Regenerative Business Development
New Zealand