Business View Oceania | Volume 4, Issue 3

43 44 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 Go to www.bridon-bekaert.com/en-au and get in touch with your local Bluestrand ® expert. Bridon-Bekaert The Ropes Group are the world’s leading supplier of steel wire ropes. Our facility in Newcastle NSW is Australia’s only manufacturer of steel wire ropes and has been supplying ropes for almost a century. We are also the company behind the majority of flexible road safety barrier rope in Australia having supplied over 20,000 km over the last 10 years. BlueStrand barrier rope is 100% manufactured in Australia. Galvanized barrier rope for safer roads AUSTRAL I AN CONSTRUCT ION PRODUCTS (ACP) meet the new standards of testing. This has led to significant safety improvements, particularly as vehicles have become a lot heavier and larger than they were when the previous standards were created. The new MASH testing has instigated a raft of new product development as part of an ongoing process.” This ongoing process is aided by the deployment of the latest technology whenever ACP is pursuing the development of new products. “More of our internal systems are immersed in online platforms, through ERP and CRM systems,” adds Will Truong, state Sales Manager for Queensland and the Northern Territory. “Our support and supply chain teams are more efficient in performing functions and retrieving data – we’re able to adopt an almost just-in-time process to keep our stock lean and maintain our customer service. Our sales teams are more market-aware when facing customers, and have more meaningful conversations on the back of been involved in research and development with other companies – both in Australia and overseas.” ACP is continuously working to come up with better and safer products, with regulatory shifts often guiding this process. One such shift came in 2015 when the Australian and New Zealand Standard for Safety Barriers and Associated Devices was developed to incorporate the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) standard. General Manager, Zalman Paris, shares, “It’s a real privilege running a business like ACP, as we are at the forefront of making roads and the general built infrastructure environment safer. For the team that have worked or are working at ACP over the last few years, we have had the fortunate luck to herald a new standard into place, that being MASH 2016. This new Standard was adopted in Australia and New Zealand around the end of 2018 and there has been a progressive roll out of new barriers over the last four years with various sunset clauses on old standard products coming to an end and the new ones commencing from a design and construct perspective .” Paris indicates that this has been a real disrupt to the industry and it has seen these new tested items come in and replace the old and, in some cases, non tested items. Ultimately resulting in a lower cost and safer roads. He notes, “We talk about the triple bottom line and in this case the MASH standard has made the roads safer for the community. It has generally come at a lower cost to the asset owners or they have got more barrier for their money and its simplified the manufacturing process in many cases for ACP. Its been a Win Win Win for all concerned.” From 2018 onwards, road authorities around Australia started to mandate and adopt MASH- tested products. Refahi explains, “That forced the market to retest or upgrade its product range to