Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG) gained real-time visibility of its workforce with Avetta One, enabling Health & Safety and Commercial teams to quickly identify risks, action opportunities for improvement, and boost compliance levels.
Leading with a safety philosophy of caring every day
Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group (NCIG) has four core values, two of which are “We care, every day” and “Together we are NCIG”. As operators of a major terminal and industrial site, NCIG recognises people are at the heart of its business, and the prevention and active management of any injuries to workers are a top priority.
Gareth Ernst, Health & Safety Lead at NCIG, explains, “Our values reflect how important safety is to our business, which is tightly linked to how we work with our suppliers and contractors. We aim to be a proactive company, adopting agile approaches to effectively prevent and manage risks on-site.”
NCIG has approximately 117 employees, and almost 200 suppliers in the Avetta system. NCIG is supported by an extensive range of contractors as well as rail providers, marine surveyors, government agencies, and more, it is increasingly important for NCIG to have regular and accurate visibility of each contractor’s compliance levels in order to monitor and manage risk.
Gaining real-time visibility to rapidly boost compliance
Adopting the Avetta One platform enabled NCIG to transform visibility of its contractors. Rather than relying on manual audit processes every three years, NCIG can now monitor contractor compliance in real-time. Pre-qualification status is no longer confined to the health and safety team. They can be viewed by anyone with access to Avetta’s centralised system.
Ernst said, “Avetta gives us visibility over contractors to ensure they have the systems in place to manage risks when they come on site. Previously, our teams would have had to proactively search for a company’s pre-qualification status, and that information was isolated in the safety department. Now, the platform provides real time visibility of company compliance.”
"The biggest benefit of an automated system is the clear and reliable record keeping without needing to use paper. It's having a process that you don't have to design and continuously helps us work towards making sure each company that works with us is compliant."
NCIG currently uses Avetta One for:
- Custom forms and data collection: NCIG leveraged Avetta’s flexibility to focus on the most relevant compliance and risk data, including the ability to add custom questions relevant to the business.
- Role-based access and permissions: The solution was configured to provide different access levels for commercial, procurement, and operational teams, ensuring the right stakeholders could access or manage supplier data as needed.
- Automated alerts and notifications: NCIG set up automated reports for key risk events (e.g. safety manual audits that are incomplete or approaching expiry), addressing the need for proactive risk management without regular manual system checks.
- Change management and internal communication: The implementation included strong internal communication and change management, with Avetta supporting NCIG in onboarding and training users across business units.
Avetta equips NCIG with the tools and data to take a proactive approach to safety management. Instead of pre-qualification reports sitting idly in a siloed filing system, the real-time visibility and updates keep safety and compliance front of mind.
Ernst added, “Recently, we reviewed the various compliance flags identified in the system, and by taking some simple actions, we were able to achieve a 11% improvement in compliance levels in just a few hours.”
Lifting standards and committing to continuous improvement together
Another of NCIG’s values is “Great today, better tomorrow”. The organisation prides itself on being agile, and systemising processes and policies to maintain the highest safety and compliance standards. With Avetta, NCIG’s teams can take proactive and preventative steps to continuously sustain and improve its safety outcomes.
To date, NCIG has already worked closely with Avetta’s experts to customise a solution that meets the business’ needs. In the future, NCIG is looking forward to continuing to collaborate with the Avetta team to explore more features in the platform.
Ernst added, “We had a strong working relationship with the Avetta implementation team. Avetta hosted a demo on-site for our leaders across a range of functions where a team of Avetta experts ran us through each module so we could develop a solution that specifically suited the business. They also helped us deliver an extensive communications strategy around the system through internal and external town halls to prepare our people and our contractors for the transition.”
