LOGGING ON: Ted Dickie is using his background in transport management to get the best returns for forestry owners. PHOTO/ SUPPLIED
There's a wall of wood on the horizon and a Waverley man is positioning his business to keep in front of it.
Ted Dickie is using his skills in transport management with his company Harvest Logistics (HLL), creating a single point of contact for forestry owners and harvesters.
The wall of wood he refers to is the maturing forests which are starting to be harvested across the Whanganui region.
His father, Roger Dickie, has been a leader in setting up syndicated forest lots around the country, particularly on the East Coast and Hawke's Bay. Now, after a career in transport logistics for Toll and Mainfreight and running fleets of trucks for them, he's branched out on his own.
At the moment Mr Dickie's contracts focus on Taranaki, Whanganui and Manawatu but his plans include expanding across to the other side of the North Island.
"After spending some time looking at how forestry industry was working I saw that huge efficiencies could be made that benefited the forest owners," he said.
"At the moment, forest owners harvesting their trees will generally just contract one trucking company to cart their logs. I see huge inefficiencies in this and by running a centralised despatch system, and utilising multiple carriers in multiple forests, the forest owners can see some significant savings in their transport costs," he said.
His company has been set up as a single point of contact for forest managers, managing all log movements from the skid site to the primary destination.
"Our primary objective is to protect the forest owners asset including land, roads and infrastructure, maximise the return, and ensure all trucks operating in the forest are compliant and meeting the health and safety standards," he said.
These goals were achieved through three key strategies - competitive pricing, health and safety, and service
Mr Dickie said log harvesters had massive capital investment and needed to be looked after in times of low prices to ensure their survival.
"HLL has adopted a hard-nosed attitude to minimise cost while providing full supervision of all matters relating to log trucking," he said.
Using several contractors gave access to more trucks letting HLL meet fluctuating daily load counts coming out of the forest. Competition and continuity of work ensured his company got the most cost-effective price to move logs.
"Ultimately the optimisation of load percentages reduces the cartage cost to the forest owner."
Mr Dickie said HLL charged a set despatch and administration fee for every loaded route a log truck operates, ensuring that the lower costs were passed on directly to the forest owners.
"And we work alongside Hawke's Bay company, Safe On Site NZ, to ensure our health and safety policy is consistently up to date with the latest health and safety requirements and law changes. We monitor all trucks operating in the forest to ensure they're fully compliant and consistently meeting all health and safety requirements," he said. "Working alongside the contractors and forest owners to identify and control significant hazards is essential to preventing injury but a proactive approach ensures the effectiveness of our hazard register."
Mr Dickie said all drivers contracted to work in forests controlled by HLL would be inducted to ensure they and the vehicles were compliant. Contractors were also made aware of all on-site procedures.
The company carries out random audits each month on some of the trucks and any trucks or drivers not meeting these standards will be stood down until such time as they are compliant.
"We have a zero tolerance drug and alcohol policy for any contractors operating for HLL, and this is enforced by through pre-employment drug tests, random drug testing, probable cause drug testing and post-incident drug tests."
HLL also provides "real time" GPS tracking of all contractors operating within the forest, giving the owners up-to-date tracking of logs to their destination.
"We're offering forest owners a cost-effective means to move logs from their forest to their destination. The forest owner will see reduced haulage rates by increasing loaded percentages and can also be assured that all trucking operations within the forest are carried out to the highest standard," he said.
-Contact HLL on 027 275 0025.