PF Olsen is a leading provider of independent professional forestry services in New Zealand and Australia. 

They manage significant plantation forest estates, and many woodlots and forests across New Zealand and Australia, annually harvesting and marketing millions of cubic metres of logs. 

PF Olsen pride themselves on their reputation for delivering a wide range of professional forestry services to a diverse range of clients.  They assist forest owners to manage investment risks, establish, grow, and protect high quality forests and finally maximise the recovery of value from forest harvest operations. 

 Assura worked with PF Olsen to deliver a Health & Safety system able to cater to their remote and challenging workplaces and have seen its use expand beyond this initial scope. 

Solving the challenge

The Health & Safety solution that PF Olsen were looking for needed to cater to their diverse range of ‘offices’ that could be in an actual office, but was just as likely to be in a working forest. 

PF Olsen were also looking for a solution that provided more than just ‘Health & Safety’ and could fill a number of other business requirements that they have.  Plus, it needed to provide for a workforce in remote geographic locations and give them a solution that was simple to use that made their life easier. 

As Tim Williamson, a Harvest Manager at PF Olsen, says about using Assura in the field – “It’s really easy. Being able to get people to sign is really awesome and that’s a really important thing for us for our compliance. And the voice dictation, it’s just a matter of pushing a button and speaking and what you’ve said comes up in the textbox, real easy.” 

“With the app I can just hit ‘take a photo’ and straightaway it’s attached to that record of management or that audit – that’s so important, particularly with environmental compliance to show we’re doing everything properly.  In the past we would have been having to store them against a folder and then going back to the office and entering that information, being able to speed up those photos is really, really helpful.” says Tim.

“Being able to use the app has been a massive time saver. I could be hitting final save out on site and then my boss could be seeing ‘in the South Island, Tim Williamson has done a record of management’.” 

“The terrain we’re planting is often steep and coverage for mobile coverage is very poor. The mobile syncing model is so robust that if they’re in and out of coverage it will continue to synch until it’s fully up.” says Peter Riddell the Information Services Manager at PF Olsen. 

“You can take the app offline and still use the functionality. All the information is stored in there, even offline, so you’re not having to wait to be able to finish off your form or your audit.” says Tim 

Results

Assura worked with PF Olsen to configure their automated workflow platform to deliver PF Olsen’s Health & Safety needs.  PF Olsen have continued to leverage the configurable platform to cover other business needs from environmental audits, to their records of management and beyond. 

The key results for PF Olsen have been; 

  • Reduced paper and increased integrity of information 
  • Increased efficiency and cost savings 
  • Rapid adoption  
  • Providing multiple solutions that support the way they do business 

“Before Assura there was a lot of paper and the bad thing about paper is obviously it can be lost. Some of our documents are really important, so having it centrally recorded digitally – It’s a game changer because it’s easier. You’re more inclined to be recording more details, saving time and integrity of information.” says Tim. 

When asked about how Assura has helped with productivity Peter says “Efficiencies gained from the notification process in being able to capture the data once and not have to touch it again. So they’re not having to come back into the office and rekey stuff.” 

“A key component of Assura that I like, is the ability to build functionality that supports the way we do business. We’ve got the health and safety, which is a component of the mix, but the other side of it for our business is users ability to capture data on mobile devices while in the field. It’s automatically synced back into the core system so they don’t have to double handle that data. Therefore, there’s no lead time or lag behind.” says Peter. 

“From a cost saving point of view Assura has been a real benefit to us. Assura has reduced those costs drastically and reduced the amount of administrative work that our staff have to do. It’s just so simple to use.”  

“The adoption was very quick across our business. In fact it’s the fastest adoption engagement of a solution that I’ve seen of anything I’ve implemented.” says Peter. 

Assura has made a material difference to how PF Olsen operate their business and ensures they are in a strong position to continue to deliver professional forestry management services. 

Why wouldn’t you contact Assura? 

”“From a cost saving point of view Assura has been a real benefit to us, Assura has reduced those costs drastically and reduced the amount of administrative work that our staff have to do. It's just so simple to use.”

Peter RiddellInformation Services Manager, PF Olsen

”“The adoption was very quick across our business. In fact, it's the fastest adoption engagement of a solution that I've seen of anything I've implemented.”

Peter RiddellInformation Services Manager, PF Olsen