Rigging

Taking things to new heights

ISS Rigging has undertaken some of the most complex and challenging projects in New Zealand and around the world. Our experience varies from salvaging containers off the reef-stricken Rena to rebuilding the recovery boiler at the Tasman Mill in Kawerau. Our team of experts have experience in both mechanical and structural steel rigging, and many of them have been honing these skills since the day they left school (yep, ages ago!).

A comprehensive approach

Our riggers handle jobs of any size or difficulty, boasting qualifications ranging from basic to advanced certificates. With extensive experience, including contributions to major projects like the Christchurch rebuild and Auckland’s underground infrastructure program, our team is ready for any challenge. We've earned numerous awards for excellence and carry the largest range of rigging equipment in New Zealand. Our fleet of heavy vehicles, trucks, hi-abs add efficiency and flexibility in terms of our logistical offerings.

Work on ropes rather than cranes has its own page: Rope Access.

What we do

• Mechanical rigging: plant and machinery moved, set and aligned, from milk powder blenders to boiler sections.
• Structural steel erection: steel up, plumbed and bolted, including temporary works steel that comes out again later.
• Craneage: we plan the lift and manage the crane, from a hi-ab to the biggest road-going hydraulic crane in New Zealand.
• Deconstruction: stacks, towers and plant brought down in sections, as with the three 80 m flare stacks at Channel NZ.
• Salvage and recovery: containers off the reef-stricken Rena, and anything else that has ended up where it shouldn't be.
• Lift and shift: equipment through openings and onto floors a crane can't reach, with our own hoists, gantries and lift shafts where we have to build them.
• Skating and winching: loads of 120 tonnes moved sideways and set down on their foundations with skates, air winches and hydraulic jacks.

Where you'll have seen it

• Channel NZ flare stacks, Northland (2022). Three 80 m stacks lowered in four 15 tonne sections each, the heaviest lift 45 tonnes, and a nine-week programme done in four. We put them up in the first place.
• Tasman No 2 recovery boiler, Kawerau (2018). Boiler sections to 20 tonnes rigged out with air winches and a temporary gantry crane; the 120 tonne lower section skated in and jacked onto its foundation, on 24-hour shifts.
• Danone Nutricia (2018). Two 8 tonne milk powder blenders, the largest installation of its kind in New Zealand, lifted through an opening 12.5 m up using a hoist and lift shaft we built for the job. Zero damage, zero incidents, and ongoing work since.
• City Rail Link tunnel ventilation, Auckland (2023 on). 12 fans of 10 tonnes each, 24 attenuators, 28 motorised dampers and 288 plate and volume control dampers rigged into the new tunnels.
• Weir gate, Mighty River Power hydro station (2018). A 12 tonne, 30 m gate lifted for the first time by anything other than its own hydraulics, with load cells on both ends so it couldn't twist. Won the "Together Safe" award.

How a rigging job runs

1. Send us the drawings, the weights and the site. We come back with a lift plan and a method: crew, gear, crane if the job needs one, transport and supervision.
2. We bring the lot. Riggers, rigging gear from our own stock, hi-abs and trucks from our fleet, and 24-hour shift cover where the shutdown needs it, as at Tasman. All of it under our ISO 45001:2018 health and safety system; certificates are on the Health & Safety page.
3. We lift it, land it and hand it over. If the job needs a scaffold, a rope technician or a fabricated bracket, those crews are ours too.

What we don't do

Wind turbine erection has its own crews and its own page: Renewables. Work on ropes rather than cranes is on the Rope Access page. We rig, erect and move steel; we aren't a structural engineering consultancy, so a lift that needs an engineer's producer statement gets that from your consultant or one we work alongside.