Hick Bros goes digital for better management

Hick Bros needed to take their IT team to the next level. Their involvement in major infrastructure projects across NZ meant they needed the technology to better manage people, facilities and common industry concerns.

Meet Hick Bros

INDUSTRY

Construction

COMPANY SIZE

Up to 500 Employees

LOCATION

Silverdale, Auckland

Hick Bros Civil Construction Ltd has been in the earthmoving industry since 1986, and was first formed by four brothers – Bob, Wayne, Bill and Steve. Today, they work on the development of land and the construction of roads, and are focused on providing safe, sustainable and ethical practices with every project they undertake.

THE CHALLENGE

Hick Bros have a small internal IT team, but needed to scale quickly in order to digitise their company and build proprietary applications that set them apart from the competition.

THE OUTCOME

Hick Bros scaled up two offshore squads through Double Yolk, so they could build two digital solutions that would each solve a unique problem and streamline operations.

Comprehensive, fast resource management

One of the products we developed for Hick Bros was HB Civil, a resource management app. When working on huge infrastructure projects (including Auckland Airport, Taupo Bypass, Te Uku Wind Farm and Christchurch Rebuild – to name a few) having access to information across the board is critical to keeping projects on track.

HB Civil is a mobile system designed to manage Hick Bros’ plant, staff and subcontractors. The app enables the Hick team to know exactly where all people, assets and issues are across their sites, so they can move quickly whenever action is needed.

The app also lets the team actively track their resources, to ensure they’re always being used efficiently, minimising waste and potentially creating big savings.

Double Yolk helped Hick Bros transform our business and build the best resource & environment management system in the civil industry.

– TONY GADDUM, CONTRACT MANAGER @ HICK BROS

Keeping water supplies clean & clear

Silt is a common pollutant on construction sites, which is generated from the erosion of exposed soils by surface runoff. There’s a widespread concern that silt will seep into the water supply, and Hick Bros needed a way to manage this. So, we built AutoFloc, a silt control management app.

In the industry, silt traps are created to capture the pollutant in a controllable area. Silt control companies visit construction sites to pour a chloride chemical into the traps, so any silt can rise to the top and be removed. However, there can be hundreds – even thousands – of sites with silt traps, so managing them all is a logistical nightmare. How can companies keep track of which sites need to be tended to and when?

Hick Bros, supported by Double Yolk resources, worked to develop the digital solution that would help silt control companies manage their staff, track their sites and operate more efficiently overall. Hick Bros built an offshore team to work on AutoFloc, a responsive application that lets companies monitor thousands of ponds from a single device, clarifying the sites that need to be tended to.

The Yolkers for the job

2 REMOTE TEAMS

Hick Bros built out two remote teams in India through Double Yolk, who would work on each app. Our Yolkers were able to bring their tech specialisations together to build responsive apps that were truly innovative in the industry.

Here are the following skill sets we brought to each team:

HB CIVIL

BUSINESS ANALYST

DESIGNER

REACT NATIVE DEVELOPER

PHP DEVELOPER

PROJECT MANAGER

AUTOFLOC