Nexus Logistics: Safely Moving The Country Forward
Piecing the puzzle together for heavy hitters across New Zealand
Nexus Logistics offers its customers a comprehensive container logistics solution. Managing the supply chain for clients that include household names such as Farmers, Toyota, Tegel, and The Warehouse Group, Nexus Logistics simplifies complex freight tasks.
Darcy Hart, Chief Executive Officer of Nexus, describes a key role of the company as taking the pain of fragmented port logistics ‘away from importers, exporters, and manufacturers as specialists in that market, and making sure that we're getting containers to our customers on time and getting them to ships for the global market on time.’
Using a control tower approach, Nexus offers its clients a single point of contact for an elaborate set of operations. The team wrangles these large organisations’ transport needs into systems that are not only cost- and time- efficient but also more environmentally sound, through utilising the rail network and reducing the amount of movement of empty containers.
Keeping track of all the moving parts, keeping safety top-of-mind
The logistic industry carries with it a lot of moving parts, and with that a number of high risks. ‘We work in a very dangerous industry’, GM Operations Claudia Raui notes, ‘You've got container stacks, you've got heavy machinery, you've got forklifts, and then you've got people.’
Consequently, safety is a priority for the Nexus team. ‘We're very big on telling people that they don't work for Nexus; they work for the people who are at home waiting for them, and that underpins everything that we do within this organisation’, according to GM Safety and People Anton Tyers.
Every team at Nexus leads with safety in mind. Twice a day, every department across the business stops for a 15-minutes safety check-in, to ensure that everyone is on the same page about health and safety.
‘The last thing I want to do is go and visit one of my people’s family, friends, and tell them that they're not coming home tonight’, Lee Silvester, GM Transport, says. ‘… my main thrust of what I do is making sure we keep our people safe at all times.'
Before partnering with ecoPortal two years ago, Nexus’s safety system was an awkward combination of paper and digital systems. Now, the Nexus team can stay in total control of their safety, wherever they are.
Fast-track to safety success
Nexus’s ecoPortal health and safety software for logistics is accessible on PC, mobile, and tablet devices, and made available in all Nexus trucks, offices, computers, reach stackers, and portacoms. No matter where a Nexus team member is, they have easy access to the crucial information that supports them to do their job safely.
The Nexus team’s use of ecoPortal is wide-ranging, from risk and incident management through to training recordings, pre-qualification, inductions, and contractor management, making ecoPortal ‘the centre of the ecosystem of safety within our business’, according to HUB Manager Ann Tongatoutai.
At all levels of the business, everyone at Nexus has access to ecoPortal, supporting all members of the team to actively contribute to health and safety initiatives. Board members also use it for to-the-minute information that directly informs their decisions around resourcing to support safety.
‘Everything is very straightforward’, H&S Coordinator Nicolet Kruger says of ecoPortal’s simple safety system. ‘You log in, it literally asks you question by question what to fill in next’, she says, referring to ecoPortal’s online forms, which are configured to feature only the fields relevant to the situation at hand.
One of Hart’s favourite features is the ability to ‘stop on the spot when we see something that we want to report and upload it within minutes on our phones.’ This feature, popular with many ecoPortal clients, sidesteps the delays or omissions that can occur without multi-platform functionality.
Contractor management that’s smooth sailing
Contractor management needs to be flawless for a transport logistics organisation as large as Nexus, ensuring liabilities are covered and that subcontractors are using correct, well-serviced, and NZTA-compliant equipment on the job. ecoPortal makes it easy.
‘We use ecoPortal for all of our pre-qualification, we use it for our annual reviews of our contractors’, Tongatoutai shares. ‘We use it for the management of our contractors while they are working within our business. It allows us to very easily provide induction material out to our contractors, get them pre-qualified before they come onto site.’
‘You send them a link, and they've got access to the whole list of questions and all the documents that they need, and then they basically just need to submit it back to us,’ Kruger adds.
With the support of great software, the numbers add up
‘It is just such a simple system to use, whether it's inputting an event, grabbing data out of it, looking to assess trends, looking at upcoming risks’, says Tongatoutai. ‘For me, it's the simplicity that makes ecoPortal such a successful platform.’
This success is reflected in the numbers—with ecoPortal at the team’s side, Nexus Logistics has seen a 400% increase, year-on-year, in incident reports.
‘It makes the whole process easier’, says Raui. ‘That's the bottom line. It makes the process of managing safety and wellbeing in the business a lot easier.’
When you’re ready to plan the right health and safety software for your business, you can try a demo or get in touch with the team at ecoPortal.
