Course details

Summary

If you enjoy working with wood and want to make valuable timber products, this two-year timber manufacturing course is for you. It gives you the skills and knowledge you need to step into your first role. Skilled operators are in demand. Our graduates are job-ready on day one and many get snapped up by employers as soon as they are qualified.

You get hands-on experience in timber machining, grading and optimising, laminating, and workplace health and safety practice. You visit other solid wood manufacturing plants to see how commercial firms operate. Toi Ohomai is recognised as a centre of excellence for wood manufacturing in New Zealand. We are the only dedicated training facility in the country to operate a working sawmill, with kilns, timber machining and saw doctoring all offered onsite at our Waipa Campus.

We’re just ten minutes away from the city centre of Rotorua – one of New Zealand’s largest tourist destinations.

Upon successfully completing the requirements you'll receive the awards of:

• New Zealand Certificate in Solid Wood Manufacturing (Timber Machining) (Timber Grading and Optimising) (Level 3)
• New Zealand Certificate in Solid Wood Manufacturing (Laminating) (Level 4)
• New Zealand Certificate in Workplace Health and Safety Practice (Level 4)

CAREER OPPORTUNITIES

Roles in:

• Sawmilling
• Timber drying
• Timber grading, or
• Timber machining

TOPICS YOU'LL COVER
Year 1:

• Environmental Issues, Safety and Product Quality
• Timber Machining and Planing System
• Dressing Timber on Four Sides
• Set and Joint Straight Cutters
• Understanding timber grading
• Applying wood properties to grading outcomes
• Optimising and ripping operations

Year 2:

• Wood Manufacturing Costings
• Control Glue Systems in Wood Manufacturing
• Laminate and test Straight Timber Products
• Risk Analysis, Mitigation and Organisational Impact
• Health and Safety Leadership and Culture
• Implementation and Supervision of Health and Safety Requirements
• Managing Health and Safety in the Workplace

Entry criteria

• NCEA Level 2 with passes in English/Te Reo 毛利 or education achievement at least equivalent to NCEA Level 2.
• Evidence of ability to complete academic and any other programme requirements.

Other Considerations

• You must be physically able to undertake the practical components of this course.
• Due to health and safety factors, and space constraints which restrict the number of students who can be accommodated in the commercial facilities and on field trips, limitations may be imposed on the number of applicants accepted.

English Language requirements:

Level 4 certificate

IELTS Academic score of 5.5 with no band score lower than 5.0; TOEFL Internet-based Test (iBT) score of 46 or higher (with a writing score of 20); TOEFL Paper-based test (pBT) score of 550 (with an essay score of 5.0 TWE); FCE, FCE for schools, with a score of 162, no less than 154 in each skill; NZCEL of Level 4 with the Academic endorsement; PToE (Academic) score of 42.