Wihuri provides services on land, at sea and in the air – the multi-industry group carries out diverse quality and safety work

Images: ©Wihuri Oy

Wihuri is an international group that serves customers in more than 30 countries and employs around 5,500 people. The group places great emphasis on quality and safety issues, which is why its subsidiary Wihuri Ltd also deployed the Rego HSEQ system in 2022. The goal was to improve occupational safety, modernise tools and develop knowledge-based management.

On land, at sea and in the air

The Wihuri group serves its customers on land, at sea and in the air. Its business covers four different areas: packaging, daily goods wholesale, technical trade and aviation. Wihuri’s operations involve manufacturing, importing, sales and services.

As part of Wihuri’s continuous quality and safety work, the Rego HSEQ system was introduced at Wihuri Ltd at the end of 2022. The system is now used throughout the group, with the exception of Wihuri Technical Trade’s Estonian business and Wihuri Aviation.

The system has been executed as an integrated SaaS solution for Wihuri Ltd, and it covers risk, quality and competence management as well as incident reporting, all of which were implemented simultaneously. The main objectives with the system implementation were to improve safety at work, modernise tools and improve knowledge-based management.

”Our aim is to emphasise HSEQ on the strategy level. It is important for us to invest in proactive safety.”

Marko Ihalainen, HSEQ and Sustainability Manager at Wihuri Ltd Technical Trade

HSEQ and Sustainability Manager at Wihuri Ltd Technical Trade Marko Ihalainen and Quality and Sustainability Manager at Wihuri Ltd Metro-tukku Petri Laurila say that the subsidiaries operate quite independently in their own distinct sectors. Since there are significant differences between the sectors, the focus areas of quality and safety also differ.

Wihuri Technical Trade’s product groups include agricultural machinery and supplies, machines and equipment for the concrete industry, repair workshop equipment, lift trucks and intralogistics as well as different tools. After-sales services are also an important part of the business – Wihuri’s repair shops are located all over Finland and operate around the clock.

“In HSEQ, we find it important to be able to respond quickly and carefully to customer queries and requests, for example. Municipalities and cities, on the other hand, place emphasis on quality and environmental systems. Responsibility has also become a strong focus in machinery and sales,” Ihalainen says.

Metro-tukku, on the other hand, is a wholesale operator specialising in daily goods and operating locally through a network of 14 Metro Cash-and-Carry Outlets, in addition to nationwide wholesale and delivery sales. Metro-tukku offers a range of 20,000 products in fresh and frozen foods, food products and non-food items. A major factor in the quality of its business is fast deliveries to customers throughout Finland.

”Rego has made everything easier. – One important improvement is that we can now look for causality”.

Petri Laurila, Quality and Sustainability Manager at Wihuri Ltd Metro-tukku

“Important quality factors for our customers include reliable deliveries, availability and customer service. Safety at work, on the other hand, is mainly an internal matter in our industry and something our management also significantly focuses on,” Laurila states.

A common requirement in both Wihuri Ltd’s divisions is that identified quality and safety issues are addressed with determination, following a consistent process and within a reasonable timeframe.

“Everything has become easier”

The implementation of the Rego HSEQ system at the end of 2022 is described at Wihuri Ltd as similar to learning a new culture. In the context of a large group, implementation naturally involved a lot of work, details, new terminology, and also challenges – while also resulting in a number of benefits. The focus has not only been on learning the system but also on remembering to input all relevant entries and supervisors taking enough time and energy to analyse the data received.

“Rego has made everything easier. There is far less manual, memory-based processing, and our internal data analysis has increased with the system. We have built automation and connections with different systems. One important improvement is that we can now look for causality,” Laurila says.

For Wihuri Technical Trade, one insight along the way has been the fact that not all potential users of the system use a computer or a smartphone on a daily basis. Quality and safety issues are considered important, however, which means that there is a desire to expand system use.

“Our aim is to emphasise HSEQ on the strategy level. It is important for us to invest in aspects such as proactive safety. I’ve been pleased that report data can now be exported to Power BI via an API, without us having to update it once a month. The data is also available to everyone on the intranet, with dashboard views running on info screens. This is the perfect lazy man’s solution,” Ihalainen notes with a grin.

Laurila and Ihalainen both agree that a shift in thinking has mattered even more than new system implementation.

“With the system, everything is now recorded and can be traced. As a result, the system supports our work, of course, but even more importantly, it has changed our mindset. The main focus is on the issues at hand, not the system,” Laurila concludes.