2000×1250 min · dark, tonal, close-in detail
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Senior engineering for the plants that can't afford to wait.
01 /Why Fineline
Breadth is the point
Over a decade across discipline-specific and multi-discipline projects, on multi-national jobs, and leading a team of engineers doing the same. Most problems on a plant don't arrive neatly inside one discipline — and where something genuinely needs a specialist, we'll say so and bring one in.
Senior every time
You deal directly with a Chartered Professional Engineer on every job. The person scoping the work is the person doing it and signing it off.
Fast, because fast is value
A lean, AI-augmented operation moves quicker than a big firm without dropping rigour. Results delivered now are worth more than results delivered eventually.
Right, or not at all
Straight answers, fair pricing, nothing cut that compromises safety or integrity. Everything under Fineline's name is checked against first principles and owned by an engineer.
1700×950 min · wide, low-contrast, atmospheric
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02 /What we take off your desk
03 /Who we work with
Bay of Plenty based · South Island / Christchurch work taken at reduced travel rates
Hand the engineering to someone who'll own the whole problem.
Send a one-line email and we'll tell you straight whether we're the right fit and what it'll take.
1800×1200 min
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Most problems on a plant don't arrive inside one discipline.
Six families of work and one chartered engineer across all of them. Start with whatever's actually in front of you — sorting out which discipline it belongs to is our job, not yours.
01 /Start with what you've got
02 /The six families
Call us if
- You need a chartered engineer's design, calculation or sign-off on mechanical plant or equipment
- You've got pressure equipment or lifting gear that needs designing, modifying, assessing or certifying
- Something has failed, or is showing signs it might
- You need a project scoped, specified, tendered or managed — and you want it done owner-side
- Your drawings don't match your plant
- You're a contractor carrying design liability you'd rather hand to an engineer
Not us if
- You need primary building structure designed — that comes through a design partner. Equipment supports, non-structural building elements and non-building structures are our own work.
- You need a building consent for a building
- You need someone on site full-time for months on end — we keep capacity free for every client. A few weeks of full-time shutdown or construction-phase monitoring is very much in our wheelhouse, though.
- You want a number without a scope — happy to help you build the scope first
Not sure which one it is? Neither are most people who call.
Describe the thing in front of you in a line or two. If it's not our work we'll tell you, and point you at who it is.
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Pressure vessels & piping
Design, modification and verification of pressure equipment for Bay of Plenty industry — and a plain answer to the question that actually holds jobs up: which hazard level is this, and who's allowed to verify it?
01 /What this covers
New pressure vessels designed to the applicable standard and classified under AS 4343, delivered with the calculation set and drawings a fabricator can build from.
Pressure piping design and modification — including the supports, restraint and routing that decide whether it can actually be installed.
Changes to existing pressure systems, where the constraint is what's already there and the drawings rarely match it. Usually starts with a scan.
Verified by Chris in his own right as a Chartered Professional Engineer. No third party, no queue, no handoff.
These need an IANZ-accredited design verifier. Fineline prepares and packages the design, manages the verifier relationship, and closes out the comments.
The existing drawings if you have them, the design conditions — pressure, temperature, contents — and a photo of the nameplate. If you've got none of that, say so. Half the jobs here start with a site visit and a tape measure.
Which hazard level is my equipment, and who can verify it?
Pressure equipment in New Zealand is classified by AS 4343, which sorts it into Hazard Levels A through E. The classification comes from what the equipment holds, at what pressure and volume, and what happens if it lets go — not from what it costs or how big it looks. A is the highest hazard; E is the lowest.
Under the PECPR Regulations, the design of pressure equipment has to be verified by someone competent to do it, independently of the designer. Where that line falls is what most people are actually asking about.
For Hazard Levels A to D, design verification must be carried out by an IANZ-accredited design verifier. Fineline is not one, and won't pretend otherwise — what we do is prepare and package the design so it survives verification, manage the relationship with the verifier, and close out their comments. That's usually where the time goes anyway.
For Hazard Level E, a Chartered Professional Engineer can carry out design verification in their own right. Chris does that himself, which for a lot of plant equipment removes an entire external step from the programme.
If you don't know which level your equipment is, that's the normal starting point rather than a problem. Send the nameplate and the design conditions and we'll tell you.
Send a line or two about the job.
You'll get a straight answer on whether it's our work and what it's likely to take.
07 /Other work we do
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Cranes & lifting equipment
Design, analysis and certification of lifting equipment — including the gear already on your site that turned up years ago without a shred of paperwork.
01 /What this covers
Every site has lifting equipment with no design file, no certificate and no idea who made it. We assess what's there, work out what it can safely be rated to, and give you the documentation that should have come with it.
Design and analysis of new lifting equipment, sized to the actual lift rather than to a catalogue.
Design and compliance for equipment that puts people in the air — the category where the paperwork gets looked at hardest, and rightly.
Crane design, and management of the design-verification process where accredited verification is required.
Certification of lifting equipment that doesn't constitute a crane under the PECPR Regulations — the grey area most enquiries land in.
Photographs, any markings or plates still legible, the load you need it rated for, and how it gets used. For new design, the lift itself — what, how heavy, from where to where.
Send a line or two about the job.
You'll get a straight answer on whether it's our work and what it's likely to take.
07 /Other work we do
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Mechanical engineering & design
The core discipline, and the one most work arrives through. Plant and equipment designed to be built, installed and maintained — not just to pass a calculation.
01 /What this covers
Equipment design for industrial process plant, from a single item through to a connected system.
Equipment supports, non-structural building elements and non-building structures — plus access, platforms and fall-arrest anchor design. Primary building structure comes through a design partner; this doesn't.
Modifying plant that's already running, already crowded and already documented wrong. The design constraint is the site, not the standard.
Mechanical product development for manufacturers and OEMs — concept through to a design that can actually be made.
Finite element analysis sits underneath the design work rather than beside it. We use it where the hand calculation runs out, not to decorate a report.
What the thing has to do, where it has to fit, and what's already there. Drawings if they exist and are trustworthy — say so if they aren't.
Send a line or two about the job.
You'll get a straight answer on whether it's our work and what it's likely to take.
07 /Other work we do
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Project & design management
Owner-side engineering on capital work — specified, tendered and managed by the engineer who did the design, rather than by a coordinator who didn't.
01 /What this covers
Turning “we need to fix this” into a scope a contractor can price and a plant can live with.
Documentation packaged so the prices you get back are comparable, and so the thing you receive is the thing you specified.
Review and evaluation of submissions, including the liability triage that decides which qualifications you can accept and which ones you can't.
Managing the design across disciplines — including civil/structural scope, where the design itself is partner-delivered and named as such.
ITPs and quality plans, written for the job rather than lifted off a previous one.
The problem, the rough budget if there is one, and the date it has to be working by. Documentation is a bonus, not a prerequisite.
How we take this work
Two rules, and we'd rather say them upfront than disappoint you later. We don't go full-time on a single project — capacity stays available to every client, and a consultant who's been swallowed by one job is no use to anyone else. And we take project engineering where Fineline has design involvement in the work, because an engineer who knows the design is worth considerably more than a coordinator who doesn't.
The deliberate exception: a few weeks of full-time shutdown or construction-phase monitoring, which is exactly the work that needs someone on site.
Send a line or two about the job.
You'll get a straight answer on whether it's our work and what it's likely to take.
07 /Other work we do
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Assessment & investigation
Work that starts with something already built — and often with something that's already gone wrong. Independent, documented, and written to survive being read by someone who disagrees with it.
01 /What this covers
What condition it's actually in, what that means for how long you can keep running it, and what to do first.
Assessment of equipment supports, platforms, non-building structures and the steelwork holding your plant up.
What failed, why, and whether anything else on site is about to do the same. Written knowing it may end up in front of an insurer, a regulator or another engineer.
A second senior set of eyes on someone else's design — or on your own, before it goes out.
A defensible view on whether ageing equipment can stay in service, and on what basis.
Photographs, and what happened. For a failure, don't tidy up first and don't throw the broken part away — both are more common than you'd think, and both make the job harder.
Send a line or two about the job.
You'll get a straight answer on whether it's our work and what it's likely to take.
07 /Other work we do
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Reality capture & documentation
Measure it once, properly. Everything downstream — the retrofit, the tender, the fabrication drawing — stops being a guess.
01 /What this covers
Point-cloud capture of plant, buildings and equipment. A day on site replaces a fortnight of arguing about which drawing is right.
Modelling from the scan — as-built, as-fitted, and accurate enough to design against.
Checking new equipment into existing space before it's fabricated, rather than discovering the problem with a crane on hire.
Fabrication and shop drawings, and documentation packs assembled so the next person can find things. Document control available where a project needs it.
The area or equipment you need captured, and what you're going to do with it afterwards — the end use sets the accuracy, and the accuracy sets the price.
Send a line or two about the job.
You'll get a straight answer on whether it's our work and what it's likely to take.
07 /Other work we do
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Chris Lines
Chris is a Chartered Professional Engineer with [X] years in mechanical engineering consulting across the Bay of Plenty industrial base — pulp and paper, geothermal, food and dairy processing, and heavy fabrication.
Fineline is the consultancy he always intended to build: one senior engineer, on call, taking mechanical problems end to end — without the layers a big firm puts between you and the person actually doing the work.
01 /How we work
Do it right, or don't do it at all
Straight with clients when the answer isn't what they want to hear. In a small market, reputation is the thing that compounds — the right way is also the smart way.
Value first, profits follow
We solve the client's actual problem the best way we can. When a call comes down to more margin versus more value to the client, value wins.
Be the cape, not the headache
Working with a consultant should be a relief, not a frustration. We're not here to borrow your watch to tell you the time — we turn up, we get it sorted, and you come away glad you called.
AI in the workflow; engineer on the sign-off
AI clears the overhead so the work that needs an engineer gets the attention it deserves. Everything under Fineline's name is verified against first principles and owned by an engineer.
1100×1900 min
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A tolerance is a fine line — the gap between fit and interference, pass and failure. So is the threshold between fine and genuinely good.
Engineering is drawing lines, and the discipline lives or dies on how fine they are. Fineline does precise, drawn-to-tolerance work — and runs at threshold: hard, controlled, repeatable, never past the edge.
And, honestly? The surname's Lines. The fine-line reading just earned its place.
Tell us the problem. We'll tell you straight.
Got a mechanical, pressure-equipment or industrial problem you'd rather hand to an engineer? Send a one-line email and we'll tell you straight whether we're the right fit and what it'll take.
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