Resolving Growing Pains for National Portable Building Company

The Background

Portacom is a leading provider of modular, relocatable, portable and transportable buildings in New Zealand, with strong capabilities in safety, design, engineering and construction. To help support Portacom’s growth plans, Clarksons formed a partnership with their team.

We were tasked with forming an overview of the electrical side of the business and applying our expertise in the industry to help streamline their operations and find some efficiencies in their processes at a national level.

Portacom needed bespoke and innovative electrical solutions for their new builds, better and highly scalable fit-outs in their existing buildings, and assistance in servicing and maintaining buildings out in the field or on their return from being hired.

As part of Portacom’s growth, one of the main issues was the current state of the supply chain and how to overcome those barriers to acquire the products and equipment necessary to strengthen their output.

Given Portacom’s national coverage there was also a need for these processes to be highly scalable and easy to implement throughout Portacom’s divisions across the country.

On top of this, there was also the need to establish an efficient and open workflow between our teams.

The Solution

Clarksons sat down with Portacom and looked at what they were doing currently, how they were doing it, where they wanted to be and how we could increase output together.

The first thing we did was develop open and honest lines of communication between the teams at Clarksons and Portacom. Both teams were transparent across all operations throughout the process, openly discussing costs and margins and finding a fair and reasonable solution for everyone.

Through this process, we were able to keep Portacom up to date with our daily electrical operations, which allowed them to communicate each stage to their clients in a timely manner.

With that in mind, the next focus was the new Portacom builds. Clarksons provided the full scope of electrical services for the new builds; this included the planning and installation of lighting and power circuits, fixed and portable appliances and fire systems.

We worked with Portacom to find efficiencies in their processes and ensure the products and equipment necessary to complete jobs and increase output were delivered promptly. We worked together, rather than in individual silos, to erect and complete builds and communicated our learnings and knowledge to Portacom’s divisions throughout the country.

The Outcome

Due to our open communication and streamlined operations for Portacom, we know what projects are coming up and when. That means we are able to have all products and equipment arranged and delivered ahead of time and aren’t holding up any processes, avoiding costly downtime. We were able to instigate these operational efficiencies nationwide, from Northland to Southland, allowing consistent results across the country.