Roofing Games

An idea hatched at the 2016 conference of MRM has resulted in a nationwide competition to test the skills and knowledge of the country’s metal roof installers.

The issues addressed by MRM were warranties and the workmanship of installers: rollforming member companies opted to tackle these issues by supporting a training/competition scheme to check out the performance of installers throughout New Zealand.

When the finals of the 2018 Roofing Games are held at the Roofing Association of New Zealand (RANZ) conference in July, the Roofing Games team will have processed 350 roofers with nearly all pledging to support the event going forward. The Roofing Games have benchmarked the standard to be achieved across the industry and roofing companies have been quick to recognise the value of this exercise to review the skill level of installers.

Four modules based on the RANZ flashing handbook which features the commonly found details in roofing, have been transported to every participating manufacturing site in New Zealand for a session of competition/training.

The travel portion of this project is fully paid as an MRM initiative but support has also come from sponsors New Zealand Steel, Pacific Coilcoaters, Konnect and Edging Systems. The cost per participant has been between $130 - $150 which, when measured as a saving from one call back on each participant’s work in the future, is viewed as hugely economical.
 
Some installers signing up for the Roofing Games have been reluctant to work in front of an audience but have then settled into the one-hour test on the module without further issues. The installers work individually on the module and their work is judged on three sets of criteria – health and safety, trade practice and quality of installation.
 
For skilled fixers the prize is $5,000 worth of travel vouchers and for intermediate-level fixers $2,500 of travel vouchers. Bringing this roadshow event to the North and South Islands, Max Brough and Noel Sands say installers have all enjoyed the learning experience, especially the competitive element of the project. 

The reception at each location has seen factory staff, other roofers and office staff attending which has been encouraging given what MRM has set out to achieve. The team building element for each participating roofing company has been significant and is a positive movement towards the new competition in 2019.

Roofers and roofing Companies are encouraged to begin preparations for the Roofing Games to be held in 2019