Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety (WIS) is Australia and New Zealand’s leading supplier of industrial and safety consumables. We provide engineering products and industrial consumables, safety, packaging, materials handling and lifting products and services to industry and government. We operate a multi-channel distribution model that includes a network of branches, sales representatives, eBusiness, websites and telesales.

With more than 240 outlets, we trade in Australia as Blackwoods (incorporating Atkins Electrical and Bakers Construction and Industrial), Bullivants, Motion Industries*, Total Fasteners, and Protector Alsafe. In New Zealand we trade as Blackwoods Paykels, Packaging House, NZ Safety, Safety Source and Protector Safety. As at 30 June 2010 we employed 3,244 people.

* Motion Industries was sold in September 2010.

The pursuit of sustainable outcomes that are socially and environmentally responsible, while being economically viable, continues to be a focus for our business. In 2010 sustainable outcomes of note are the:

• Improved safety performance in 2010 with the total number of injuries decreasing by 20 per cent to 244 from 304 in 2009. The decrease in injuries was reflected in the decreases in both LTIFR, which was 1.6 compared to 2.4 in 2009, and AIFR to 43.6 from 52.7 in 2009.
• Development and launch of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategy.
• Continued focus on the development of our people through in-house programs.
• Reduced paper use in Australia by eight per cent.

Health and Safety

Safety continued to be a focus for the business with the:

• Completion of a comprehensive review of the GetSAFE safety management system resulting in simplified communication of principles and policies to assist the business improve compliance to safety standards and prevent workplace injuries.
• Number of safety self audits undertaken increased by 81 per cent to 653 from 361 in 2009.
• Implementation of traffic management initiatives at a number of sites across the business where vehicle movement was identified as a high risk.

Training and employee engagement

Training and development initiatives during the year included:

• 767 staff participated in instructor led classes which included WIS Sales Academy courses, customer relationship management and presentation training to give employees skills required in the market place.
• 573 staff completed online development courses during the year and the ‘ilearn’ online training platform for WIS employees was launched.
• 12 high potential employees are participating in an internal development program to further develop their business skills of project management and commercial acumen, which is applied to a business related project.
• Employee participation in the internal ‘Fit-4-Future’ survey was 86 per cent, up from 83 per cent last year. The survey seeks feedback from all employees on the direction of the business.
• 47 managers participated in a five day residential Regional and Branch Manager Development Program designed to improve individual and business performance.
• Enrolment of 204 employees in Certificate III and IV Warehousing and Logistics training programs.

The major environmental initiatives undertaken during the year were:

• Establishing a monthly reporting framework for environmental indicators that compares each branch and business stream on key environment impact categories.
• Reducing paper use across WIS Australia by eight per cent as a result of internal initiatives that included the implementation of wireless warehousing, switching large reports to electronic format and increasing the percentage of electronic transactions.
• Developing a framework in Packaging House, New Zealand, to verify and promote sustainable aspects of our products to help our customers become more sustainable.

Greenhouse emissions

Our total greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 30,014 tonnes of CO₂e in Australia and New Zealand.

Energy

During the year WIS implemented the following energy efficiency initiatives that also reduced greenhouse gas emissions:

• Including energy saving fixtures, such as timers and maximising natural light, in the new Blackwoods distribution centre in Canning Vale, WA and in the new Blackwoods Paykels Protector Safety distribution centre in Auckland, New Zealand.
• Lighting timers were installed at the Macquarie Park, NSW office, which helped reduce the energy consumption by eight per cent in 2010 compared to 2009.
• Increasing the number of dual fuel vehicles in the fleet by 27 per cent.
• Purchase of 608 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) computer monitors to replace Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors during the year.
• Introducing energy efficiency content into the health, safety and environment management system.

We remain committed to ensuring that WIS and our suppliers (products and services) are compliant with appropriate legislation and WIS values. Focus areas for 2010 included:

• Continuing to educate relevant employees and freight companies on chain of responsibility legislative requirements in Australia and the ongoing audit of transport operators for requisite compliance and business standards.
• WIS continued to work with suppliers to improve the sustainability of sourced product by auditing major Asian suppliers of globally sourced products during 2010.
• Sustainability was also included as a category in the WIS ‘Supplier of the Year 2009’ awards to recognise suppliers’ efforts in the area of sustainability.

During the year some of our major community contributions included:

• Protector Alsafe supported the KIDS Foundation in Australia, which promotes childhood injury prevention and injury recovery, by being a charity partner at the ‘Turning Scars Into Stars’ annual ball and directly contributing over $25,000.
• The New Zealand businesses have continued their support of a breeding program for the endangered Hihi bird with contributions of over NZ$25,000, while also helping to raise funds for St John New Zealand, an emergency ambulance and first aid training service, and the Cancer Society.
• WIS branches work with their local communities by supporting organisations from charities to sporting clubs. One notable example is Bakers Construction & Industrial in Blacktown, NSW who have been working in partnership with Commonwealth Rehabilitation Services since 2003 to provide work opportunities to people with an injury, disability or health condition to help them enter or return to the workforce.
• The total contribution from WIS to our community partners in Australia and New Zealand was over A$170,000.

Indigenous

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Strategy was launched during the year. An internal steering committee met once a month to progress the strategy. Significant activities resulting from the strategy included:

• Direct financial support of over $20,000 to The Fred Hollows Foundation’s ‘Surgery Champions’ program, where Aboriginal people who have already undergone cataract surgery travel to remote areas of Australia to share the life-changing benefits of the surgery with potential beneficiaries and encourage participation. Additional funds were generated through the ‘Blackwoods Foresight Range’ of products where some of Blackwoods own brands and participating suppliers have agreed to contribute a percentage of each sale to the Foundation. Additionally, employee contributions to the Foundation were matched dollar for dollar by WIS.
• The annual employee Fit-4-Future survey incorporated dedicated questions around diversity of our employees to better understand the cultural backgrounds of our workforce.
• Engaged an indigenous elder from the local community to conduct a welcome to country at the opening of the Canning Vale distribution centre, WA.

Our sales revenue in Australia and New Zealand was $1,311.3 million for 2010. Total capital expenditure in 2010 was $25 million. WIS continued to invest in the development of our branch network and people during the year with investments in:

• The distribution centre for Blackwood Paykels Protector Alsafe in Auckland, New Zealand, that was officially opened in August 2009.
• The distribution centre for Blackwoods in Canning Vale, WA that was officially opened in March 2010.
• Our sales force by providing them with improved systems and tools (including laptops).
• Other plant and equipment including branch relocations and refurbishments.