Auckland construction in process thanks to the upkeep of the supply chain.
Auckland construction in process thanks to the upkeep of the supply chain.
Ben Suckling says Powerpac's construction taxis helped keep Auckland's construction industry supply chain ticking over during last year's lockdowns. Suckling is a key account manager with the company.
Unlike other companies supplying the construction sector, Powerpac runs its own in-house logistics which it describes as construction taxis. This is a fleet of vehicles that can handle multiple drops of tools, machinery and consumables at sites around the city every working day.
Because they work from a central facility in Wiri, they are able to combine deliveries of unrelated items into a single drop-off. An advantage of this approach is that there is less need to keep stock onsite and that enables just-in-time construction. Timely delivery also means fewer vehicle movements which reduces traffic and simplifies site management.
Suckling says Powerpac already has a contactless system for handling receipts, delivery notes and proof of delivery well before these became essential.
As with the rest of the economy, the Covid-19 pandemic was a major disruption for the construction companies. While administration staff were able to work from home during the lockdown, almost every project was temporarily halted.
"They had to shut during the level four lockdown and didn't know when they would be able to get back on site," Suckling says. "We kept near to our customers that whole period. We talked to them regularly to find out what they would need when they returned. They knew their processes would change and they realised they would need to add things like handwash stations, walkways and plenty of extra signage, so we made sure we were ready."
Suckling says when the lockdown eased Powerpac took a normal month's worth of orders in four days. "We had pretty much the whole company, from sales to admin and logistics working 24-7 to meet the demand. That was just the order inbox backlog and customer requests. It was madness, but the whole company was behind us."
Social distancing during the pandemic meant it wasn't always possible to have to as many people working closely together on construction sites. In some cases, this meant cutting the number of people employed and slowing construction. They couldn't work at full speed.
One of the Powerpac vans keeping supply chains moving.
Meanwhile the construction company admin staff continued to work from home, not onsite, so that meant new ways of working for everyone involved.
Powerpac imports most of the products it supplies to the industry from overseas.
Construction industry supply chains are complex compared to other industries. They pull together a wide range of products from different disciplines. There is a high number of suppliers and each has its own set of inputs.
A potential challenge was in maintaining the flow of products from manufacturers at a time the pandemic has disrupted normal shipping services. This not only affects the products Powerpac brings to New Zealand, but there were similar upstream disruptions.
Says Suckling: "We can sell until the cows come home, but unless something is in our warehouse, that sale is worthless.
"This means we always keep large stocks of everything a construction site might need. We import a lot of products out of the UK, from Europe, Vietnam or India. At any one time we might have 100 containers on the water coming to us.
"If we stopped selling, we'd quickly be overstocked. But we're not worried about that. We don't see New Zealand's infrastructure construction coming to a halt any time soon. There is City Rail. There are roading projects around Auckland. Then there's maintenance. We're going to see growth."
In the last year Powerpac has increased the amount of stock it holds locally. There have been problems sourcing equipment from further afield and what does arrive here can now take longer to come through the ports. Suckling says the company now holds roughly twice as much in its warehouse as before.
He says during the last year it's become noticeable that international logistics is more fragile than it looked before Covid. And Powerpac has learned to be wary of shipping company promises. "This has been more of an issue over time. It's not affected us much because of the way we operate, but we have made changes."
Powerpac had already reduced the amount of business it does with China before the pandemic hit. Suckling said it was becoming less reliable. "We started looking at alternative countries to supply us. We had our sales guys in Turkey looking at new products and in India. The idea is to diversify our supply chain so we don't have all our eggs in one basket."
While there hasn't been a noticeable change in the mix of products Powerpac offers, the company prides itself on bringing new innovative hardware to New Zealand. Suckling says this means staying ahead of customers and anticipating their needs in advance.
An example of this is the Gecko truck loader system. It's used for excavating deep shafts like those found on the City Rail Link.
It makes getting the muck out of the ground easier and more efficient, especially in places where there is limited space.
"We're a solutions-driven business. We don't just give our customers the products they ask for, we find out what they are doing, understand how they work and what their needs are then we look for ways they can do things better, faster or more affordable so we can then offer them."
Powerpac has a significant business producing signs for the construction sector. It operates its own in-house sign print factory. This has been running hot in the last year. Covid created a completely new need for signs.
There are clean-up stations and at the entrance of a construction site signs now have to guide visitors to specific routes and warn about social distancing. Sites have to display this information clearly.
