‘Industry-first' platform highlights risk areas

Otago Daily Times

06-07-2025

The new map-based technology by Christchurch agritech company Onside, called PCBU Enterprise, plots out risk areas on farms and other workplaces for large agri-businesses wanting to keep their workers safe. Photos: Onside
Christchurch agritech company Onside has unravelled a complex problem to come up with a map-based tool highlighting risk areas and increasing worker safety at many agriculture workplaces.
The "industry-first" PCBU Enterprise platform has potential hazards laid out on a map so drivers, contractors and other workers entering a farm get an alert identifying them via an app on their mobile devices.
Hazards are tailored to large agri-businesses and organisations legally bound to manage workplace risks.
The software technology can also plot out other risk areas such as depots, machinery yards and processing facilities.
In a partnership with meat processor Anzco Foods, the company has just rolled out the risk management tool over the past few weeks after a year of development and further testing.
Trials are being carried out in other countries.
Onside was co-founded by chief executive Ryan Higgs, Michael Falconer and Juliet Maclean in 2015 when they began working together initially in a large dairy farming venture in Canterbury.
The online platform combines Onside's mobile app, which has already mapped more than 21,000 Australasian rural properties and logged millions of contractor and visitor check-ins, as well as machinery and plant movements.
Onside said the data helped users easily manage health and safety, compliance and biosecurity risks.
Mr Higgs said the PCBU Enterprise solution for large-scale agri-businesses was the company's most ambitious risk and safety product yet.
The challenge was to make simple, easy-to-use software for operators from complex data flows, he said.
"Ultimately, it was a problem that Anzco came to us to solve and it was around large-scale organisations like them which have a responsibility to ensure everyone part of the organisation understands the risks so they can be managed and stay safe. It's complex because of the scale of these operations so Anzco has thousands of farms and hundreds of truck drivers going to farms in all hours of the day and night."
High-profile accidents, including significant fines against senior executives for breaching worker safety and health legislation, had reinforced the need for co-ordinated safety management across the agricultural sector, he said.
The company's chief executive, Ryan Higgs, is excited about the new platform.
Onside's initial idea resulted from the founders trying to track the movements of hundreds of workers, contractors and other visitors coming and going on 13 dairy farms.
A first version was created to manage who was on the properties and keep everyone safe and informed.
Nearly two years ago, Onside began working with Anzco to tackle the difficulty of managing safety duties in a supply chain and this has been extended to other companies and organisations.
Risk areas such as loading yards, accessways, trucks, plants, paddocks, runways and irrigation trenches are marked out on the farm maps.
Mr Higgs said likely users would be any organisation providing services to farms, orchards and vineyards.
"They would be anyone who sends their team or third-party contractors out to farms and has an obligation under the law to manage the risk. Typically, we find these businesses really care about their people and actually want to ensure they are safe — so they could be ... another meat or dairy processor, freight companies, lines companies, insurers or banks."
He said the platform followed workplace health and safety regulator WorkSafe's consult, co-operate and co-ordinate safety rules for duties overlapping in a shared workplace.
This ensured everyone knew who was managing a risk to create a safer and more efficient supply chain.
"Anzco took the initiative, deciding it wasn't good enough to wait for someone else to figure it out. The result is we've created what we believe is a world-first agri-enterprise solution that will improve safety outcomes across the sector."
Among those involved during the testing was the National Livestock and Transport Safety Council (NLTSC).
NLTSC president Derek Foley said it was a giant step forward for drivers' on-site safety.
Mr Higgs said offshore trials included large poultry firms in the United States using the software to map out feed manufacturing sites, processing facilities and farms.
"We have a big operation right across Australia and we've just started to make some progress in North America and we have trials running with companies in Mexico and the US."
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