‘Working hard’ on plasterboard supplies
Fletcher Building chief executive Ross Taylor says social media vitriol about the plasterboard shortage is hurting staff who are doing their best to get product out to customers.
The company’s Winstone Wallboards unit holds a 94% share of the plasterboard market with its Gib product and it has come under fire for failing to keep up with a surge in demand, causing a construction bottleneck and stress for builders and the wider industry.
‘‘When the team see some of the vitriol online, that impacts them because they care deeply about getting the product out,’’ Taylor said.
‘‘I spent a fair bit of time with the teams that are working very hard just to keep them focused on doing the things we can do that are in our control, and keep them feeling good about themselves.’’
The impact on Fletcher Building’s reputation was ‘‘not good’’, he said. ‘‘The media we are getting and the commentary we are getting, that hurts. It is felt from my role right through the organisation when these things happen.
‘‘We really care about customers and how we are servicing them, and we have really been working hard.
‘‘The reality is we have got a large market share, we are not meeting demand, and there are customers hurting out there. Rather than spending a lot of time in the market debating that, and bemoaning it, we are better off leaning into that, getting the volume in, solving it and ending the pain for the customers and then, rightly, that is when our pain starts to end,’’ he said.
‘‘I am not denying our obligations in the marketplace to our customers.
‘‘We just need to solve it, because they are hurting and we just need to get in and get it fixed.’’
Fletcher expects the market to come back into equilibrium by October as it runs its factories 24/7 to boost supply, reconfigures plants to lift production, allocates supply, and imports plasterboard from Australia. Building consents hit a record 50,000 in the year to March – ahead of the country’s capacity to build 35,000-40,000 homes a year.
Building products have been in short supply as a surge in demand collided with constrained supply caused by lockdowns and supply chain disruptions during the pandemic. Fletcher had been meeting demand for plasterboard up to August last year but the subsequent move of Auckland into a level 4 lockdown for five weeks disrupted manufacturing and distribution of building products nationwide.
After the lockdown, people brought forward orders to ensure they had stock and rival plasterboard supplier USG Boral, owned by German company Knauf, pulled the plug on its New Zealand business. Fletcher’s order volumes for plasterboard more than doubled from November 2021 through to February 2022, which was about twice the industry’s capacity to build.
‘‘I think it is unreasonable to think anyone could have predicted that doubling of volumes overnight,’’ Taylor said. ‘‘It is important to us to respond to it but I don’t lament that we could not respond to a sudden doubling of volumes, which clearly is not sustainable.’’
He said people ‘‘piled in’’ to secure product, concerned they might not be able to source it in the future. Fletcher met some of the extra demand by drawing down inventory below normal levels and importing plasterboard from Australia, although its Australian supplier paused shipments in November due to high demand in its home market. Then Fletcher moved to allocate supply to give certainty to merchants and to clear the backlog of orders.