2024 Wrap-up
December 2024 Newsletter
A word from Tim Prestidge
Hello everyone
This time last year, we were reflecting on a year of change and opportunity. As I’m sure you’ll also feel, 2024 has given us ever-changing pressures that keep us from being complacent. While it’s been challenging, it has helped us, as a team, to dig deep and hone in on improvements, and chase efficiencies – and I am sure we have had some fun along the way too.
Those challenges have also given us the opportunity to reflect on not just where and how we want to succeed, but also on the people who make our work possible.
While the market may be a little depressed at present, we’re seeing some impressive green (and Monkeytoe blue) shoots appearing, which will bring new opportunities in 2025. We have weathered storms before. Covid made us more resilient and showed us how to knuckle down and beat the odds. We can do it again.
This year, we are proud to have once again set new standards for the industry and worked on some exceptional projects (a few appear in this update) and with excellent clients and industry peers who have made the year one of our best.
Our team, who make everything at Monkeytoe possible, has gone from strength to strength. With a mindset of continual improvement, this can only get better. With the implementation of our ‘Growth by sharing’ initiative, we all become an integral cog in the machine, which will in turn drive value down to each member of our team.
Our successes remind us that, with the right mindset and strategy, obstacles can become stepping stones for growth. This update celebrates some of those moments as we wrap up the year.
Thank you again for being part of the Monkeytoe team, your commitment and effort through 2024. Together, we’ve built momentum for a strong and resilient 2025. Here’s to continuing that journey.
Regards,
Our longest XBEAM – so far…
In the pursuit of the longest, tallest, and furthest, we keep pushing ourselves and our products. That’s how we developed the aluminium-composite XBEAM [linked], and it’s why we continue innovating to make the XBEAM even better.
In fact, we’ve just started working with a new extrusion of the famous XB550, the formidable 165x550mm beam that’s supported some serious projects. Today we’re able to share that we’re manufacturing the new XB550 in impressive 11.9m extrusions (as long as the containers that transport them!).
Why is this important? Well, it means fewer welds on big jobs, which means faster dispatch and installation – and projects overall. And because it’s around 22kg/m – a quarter of the weight of steel – it’s easy to manoeuvre too, despite its size.
It’s already seeing action in Australia on a 40×11.6m platform, installed 100m in the air, where the components need to be fed up the elevator shaft and handled by teams of installers. You can’t do that with steel!
The length of the country
At Monkeytoe, we’re not just about building bridges. We’re also about crossing them!
To keep our team healthy and active, we set up an internal challenge: to cover the length of the country – all 1,600km – through running, biking, swimming and walking.
It would be a tall task for any one person to do all that. Instead, we split into five teams, with each vying to be the first to reach the goal. We used a QR code to log our distances, and watched the competition heat up. Live results were shared every Monday, keeping us all on our toes!
By the end of November, we’ve smashed our goal – and set our team up for some healthy habits to take us into the new year.
The longest stair of 2024: 100m at the Waimea Dam spillway
We reported on it for the first time back in 2022 – and now we’re pleased to see that the Waimea Community Dam in Lee Valley, around 1.5 hours from Nelson, is busy in action. The project started in 2012, with a view to secure the region’s water supply for the next century. For this early phase, we provided a number of solutions, including walkways over the dam face, platforms, stairs over the underground pipes, and access around the pumphouse.
This year, we were able to come to the party again with some access solutions to the spillway, the channel for controlled water release from the dam. Spanning over 100 metres with a 45-metre elevation, the spillway has important inspection ports along the channel that provide automatic updates on the performance and condition of the spillway. Normally these would be accessed remotely and maintained on occasion by specialist teams, but wintery conditions make the concrete slope difficult to work along, even for abseiling teams.
Our goal was to create an access solution that lasts a lifetime, based on our tried-and-trusted aluminium and XBEAM solutions. And not just because aluminium handles wet conditions better, either. The unique geography and remoteness of the project meant that a modular, lightweight solution would be easier to handle on site and install via HIABs and cranes. Plus we could design around some unusual limitations, including the extremely long stair span, and some tricky curves.
This is a multi-stage project for us. These pictures show some of the stage one components – the bulk of the stairs. (Spot the black sensors jutting out of the concrete barrier.) Stages two and three will add steps and a walkway to the top, and ladders to every inspection point. And it’s been a special project too, taking advantage of the recent window of great weather to smash out this work in a beautiful part of the country.
The tallest flight of stairs: Cardinal Logistics Stage 2
This year has seen some impressive projects, but none stand taller – literally – than the second stage of Cardinal Logistics led by Haydn Rollet and architect Woodhams Miekle Zhan Architects WMZA.
The ambitious $250 million project in Drury promises to reshape the region, and we’ve been proud to play a part in this by delivering a colossal 27-metre XBEAM stair design and install. As practical as it is impressive, this new stair provides safe and reliable access to the 10-story structure – and a record-breaking size for Monkeytoe.
Special credit to Bertus Smit and PM Bradwill Johnson for their incredible work leading this project.
And now for something completely different
As if it were ever in doubt, here’s proof that great things come in all sizes here at Monkeytoe. In an update of extremes, here’s the tallest and shortest Prestidges. Thanks Jamieson (Proactive Specifications Consultant) and Levi (Reseller & Wholesale Division Manager) for being great sports, and bringing the best of the Prestidge family name to the Monkeytoe team!
Finally, just a few Monkeytoers who’ve made 2024 possible
Errol guards the door of his special area
Our beams and bolts get the Joe-Marie tick of approval
Vim earning a well-deserved break, apparently from our green screen studio
In the upcoming Top Gun threequel, one brave pilot – callsign “Monkeytoe” – pushes the limits of what’s possible in the air. The sky isn’t the limit. It’s just the beginning.
We’re committed to teamwork on every project – including, it seems, salting our WeetBix
Holiday dates
Monkeytoe will be wrapping up for the year on December 20th, so be sure to send through any questions or queries you have before then – and then enjoy a well-deserved break!
Our team will be back in action from January 7th, refreshed and ready to take on 2025.
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