Thermosash Group

For over 50 years, Thermosash Group has shaped New Zealand’s skyline with beautiful building facades. They manage the end-to-end process of bespoke building envelopes, from design and engineering to manufacturing, transportation, and installation, and have consistently raised standards across the country.

With precision and prevention at the heart of their operations and training strategy, Thermosash uses SafetyCulture as its centralized Improvement Operating System (IMOS). So they can be confident that their operations and training are the best in the business.

Precision, prevention, and uncovering new ways to improve

Even with a strong reputation and decades of experience, Thermosash knew that there was room to improve. In a business where every millimeter counts, small mistakes can add up quickly and end up costing a lot of time and money.

With around 660 employees spread across a multitude of manufacturing and construction sites, Thermosash was juggling a variety of systems and relying on many paper-based processes to manage compliance for health, safety, environment, and quality (HSEQ). They needed better visibility across every process, project, and site, so they could identify recurring issues, track performance, and increase accountability across the business.

Here’s how Thermosash not only increased visibility across the business using SafetyCulture as their centralized, digital hub, but also used it to create a culture of integrated improvement and achieve ISO certification in just 6 months.

Reducing costly errors with a streamlined QA process

Even as a leading end-to-end building envelope specialist, dedicated to high-quality work, Thermosash didn’t have optimal visibility over its quality assurance (QA) process. Before SafetyCulture, their QA inspectors had no efficient way of attaching photo evidence to their paper checklists. This made it difficult for supervisors and managers to confirm that checks had been completed correctly or to identify where in the process a quality issue may have occurred.

“If we don’t send out a quality product, it’s going to cost us three times as much to bring it back into the factory to fix,” explains Graham Berry, Thermosash Group General Manager – HSEQ Assurance.

Now, Thermosash has a stronger trail of accountability so they can easily trace any product back and take action faster. On the floor, their QA inspectors can upload photos alongside their QA checks in Inspections, as well as raise an Action to automatically alert factory managers of any defects. They can also flag recurring problems in Issues, building a feedback loop from the factory floor up.

Thermosash also added an extra layer of accountability on key stages of production through in-platform manager Approvals. With every QA check captured and centralized in SafetyCulture, Thermosash now has full visibility of their QA process in their custom Analytics dashboard. So they have peace of mind that every product meets their high standards, before it leaves the factory floor.

“The visibility over our data is brilliant. I can easily pull the data, show it to directors, and tie problems to real costs, risks, and time. That’s how we make incremental improvements every day,” says Graham.

Managing the environment and product quality proactively with Sensors

Another way Thermosash makes incremental improvements every day is by using SafetyCulture Sensors to track asset performance and identify preventative maintenance.

In the factory, they installed vibration sensors on key equipment, like their precision CNC machines, to give them an early warning signal to schedule maintenance before a small fix becomes a costly repair. They also installed air quality and noise sensors in their factory to better protect their staff’s health and well-being.

“We used to spend a lot on hearing tests. Now, we can confirm we’re not exceeding the safe limits, and we could intervene early if something didn’t look right,” says Graham.

Off-site visibility has also improved. Thermosash has started using GPS sensors linked to the SafetyCulture platform on vehicles and support equipment enabling site teams to plan for precise delivery windows and avoid last-minute scrambles during high-pressure install days.

“If a vehicle is 10 minutes away, we’ll know it. That level of detail makes a huge difference when you’re coordinating cranes and traffic shutdowns,” explains Graham. “Our next step is to use Bluetooth devices linked to the SafetyCulture platform to better manage our inventory of tools across various sites. This will be another game changer for us.”

Keeping teams safe, skilled, and compliant with Training

Along with SafetyCulture’s centralized operations platform, Thermasash also uses its built-in Training platform to make sure every worker has the training and information they need to be safe, technically competent, and compliant.

Training at Thermosash once relied on paper-based Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that were easy to misplace, quick to go out of date, and hard to understand for a workforce made up of 17 nationalities, speaking multiple languages. This meant that documents would sometimes be shuffled through and signed without the certainty that every worker fully understood the content.

“It wasn’t fair to them,” says Graham. “They weren’t presented with the information in a way they could easily understand.”

Now, Thermosash uses Training’s AI-powered document converter to turn SOPs and new regulations into bite-sized courses in minutes. They can then easily turn that SOP training into their employees’ native languages using its Creator Tool’s built-in translation feature. So their teams easily understand and retain essential safety and compliance information.

Plus, workers can now easily reference Thermosash’s policies and procedures on the spot with our new Ask AI feature in Documents. Instead of searching for a specific document, teams can now ask a question to get reliable answers pulled from the most up-to-date version of relevant documentation. So they get the answers they need, quickly.

Thermosash also uses Training for on-the-job training. QR codes are placed around the factory floor to take workers directly to role-relevant training on their devices. Plus, with in-lesson file storage, course versioning records, and built-in analytics, they can now easily see who completed what training, when, and with whom.

“It’s made it easier than ever to keep our people safe and well trained, it’s just so simple,” says Melanie Rose, HSEQ Assurance Coordinator.

Creating an integrated improvement culture

With all of their operations and training centralized in SafetyCulture’s Improvement Operating System (IMOS), every worker now has a voice, a clear trail of accountability, and the ability to see the impact they have across the wider organization. Instead of filing paperwork that often gets lost in the shuffle, workers are now empowered to take action in the moment – whether that’s flagging an issue, sharing ideas, or fixing a problem.

“We tell them: report everything – and they do. We get hundreds of reports because they know their voice matters,” says Graham. Since 2023, Thermosash’s teams have unlocked waves of small, incremental improvements and helped uncover a huge range of potential blind spots.

Achieving ISO Certification in 6 months with SafetyCulture IMOS

This level of centralization and integrated improvement was one of the reasons why Thermosash was able to achieve ISO Certification across their Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality (HSEQ) management system in just six months.

For many construction companies, getting it is a “nightmare” of a process. It can take years and a lot of paperwork. But, with all their systems and documentation in one place, SafetyCulture IMOS saved them months of admin time.

“We built our ISO system around SafetyCulture,” explains Graham. “Using templates, documentation, and support from the SafetyCulture team, we were able to fast-track the process.”

The platform gave auditors instant access to everything they needed, and staff could speak confidently about how the system worked.

Now, Thermosash can prove that they have robust systems to their clients with their ISO certification, so they have peace of mind that Thermosash will deliver a quality job every time – all while keeping people and contractors safe.

With the certification in place and a strong IMOS underpinning it, Thermosash can confidently continue delivering world-class building envelope solutions and stay at the forefront of innovation in the Construction industry.