New Zealand’s Nexus Logistics has won a top safety award at the 2024 Verdantix EHS Innovation Excellence Awards in Europe.

The container logistics and transport specialist won the EHS Compliance Digitization Award category for the way it has embraced AI and digital technology to improve safety on-site.

Nexus was up against finalists Hitachi Rail and Engro Fertilizers in the award category.

Nexus chief executive Darcy Hart said the company was recognised for working with independent safety systems within the industry and leading these businesses to create a digital solution where the data populated from an AI safety system is easily integrated into EcoPortal which is a safety portal for any safety risks.

“This project was borne out of a need to address the unseen dangers of interactions between MHE (Mobile Handling Equipment) and human workers in a warehouse environment and report into a central safety portal the correct information with ease, speed and accuracy,” he said.

“While we understood that our traffic management, walkways and barrier controls provided some protection, we were curious to see whether the controls were effective and whether they worked from a practical sense. “Implementing an AI system to actively monitor rule compliance versus rule deviation helped us understand the risk was far higher than what we thought.”

The innovative aspects of the project were the use of AI to monitor deviations from expected safe practices within a warehouse environment and integrating those findings with EcoPortal, Nexus’ risk management software platform.

“Using the safety angel software (SeeO), we were able to identify multiple operational risks we weren’t aware of and then implemented physical and behavioural controls to reduce the risk of harm,” said Hart.

“This is the first-time software has been used in this way in our field and certainly having the ability to quickly log deviations as near misses or events into our risk management software meant that relevant data could be used to support business cases for improved controls at an operator level.”

This has resulted in Nexus Logistics significantly improving visibility over the risks associated with its warehousing.

Hart said the impact has been significant and interest from other companies have soared.

“We are absolutely thrilled and delighted with this win. I would like to acknowledge both Anton Tyers, our Nexus Logistics GM of safety and Dr Manuel Seidel from EcoPortal for this massive achievement. I am proud to be working alongside a group of leaders who are constantly looking at collective and cooperative ways to make people safe.”