For decades, Blackwoods has been the Australian supplier of choice for local, state and federal governments. Whether it’s our comprehensive range of industrial and safety equipment, workwear solutions, signage capability or range of construction, plumbing, electrical and hygiene consumables, Blackwoods has been trusted to deliver the right products for the right applications across Australia’s largest infrastructure projects.

As part of the Wesfarmers Group, Blackwoods is Australian owned and operated, and is the largest industrial and workplace safety supplier. For over 140 years we have built a unique level of expertise to help government departments manage the complex processes associated with securing supplies.

Procurement is now seen as a highly strategic element of most government organisations. Executives, policy makers and procurement managers are going to great lengths to improve processes, build the capability and competitiveness of their teams, and invest in technological platforms that streamline procurement activities and allow for more strategic decisions.

An important focus for Blackwoods is building trusted partnerships with government authorities to support their complex procurement and system requirements. Blackwoods’ National Strategic Account Manager for Government, Dariel Kolarik works alongside customers to understand their holistic requirements; a part of which is understanding the policies and contracts that drive their procurement processes and facilitating how Blackwoods can simplify access to their products and provide solutions for ease of doing business.

“We understand that Government requires a strategic partner that can create a unique and innovative approach, delivering greater value to all federal and state government organisations, local councils and their community stakeholders”, says Kolarik.

“Blackwoods has a national network of over 55 branches and eight distribution centres that provides the geographical footprint to support our customers and their communities. We are also an approved contractor across all levels of government in every state, enabling us to offer an unrivalled commercial and technical solution to meet our customers’ requirements.”

Blackwoods is a founding member of Supply Nation, and a key component of this is helping customers achieve their supplier diversity procurement targets. We offer a growing range of Indigenous sourced products that allow our customers to foster Indigenous business success, whilst meeting their own initiatives for cultural engagement and supplier diversity.

We offer a complete signage and graphics solution via Blackwoods Signage where a specialist team has the capacity to customise solutions specific to the needs of government organisations, rail and road construction projects, and other local council infrastructure and asset requirements.

Delivering critical industrial and safety equipment, but also an end-to-end clothing and uniform solution, is something that very few suppliers can effectively manage. Combined with an end-to-end ownership of the supply chain and alignment with a network of over 5,000 suppliers, Blackwoods delivers fit-for-purpose workwear and protective equipment to meet customers’ safety agendas, while providing products of choice.

Blackwoods can provide a PPE and clothing profile for individual employees that facilitates expenditure control and improves product compliance with uniform and PPE entitlement management. We offer site assessments and complete uniform fit-outs to streamline specific clothing requirements across a customer’s workforce on a national scale.

We have an extensive workwear range, which is a result of partnering with market-leading brands including Hard Yakka, King Gee, as well as creating and developing our own well-known brand, Workhorse. This provides an extensive range to customers with the latest in design and innovation by a dedicated apparel team that works closely with customers for a tailored solution.

Commitment to quality & responsible business practices

Sarnia Hobson, Head of Quality, Compliance and Sustainability for Blackwoods, talks about the governance and supplier due diligence program that is embedded within Blackwoods.

“Understanding our suppliers’ commitments and performance across multiple operational areas such as responsible business practices, quality and sustainability, allows us to better support our customer expectations and coupled with our in-house technical expertise and site visits, delivers on our customer objectives,” said Hobson.

Blackwoods is committed to continuously improving the quality, ethical & social compliance practices within their exclusive brand manufacturing facilities, to deliver sustainable solutions that protect our brands and the well-being of workers and their communities. This is also echoed in the engagement and messaging with strategic National Brands.

“Blackwoods opposes the use of modern slavery practices and are committed to the ongoing journey of reducing and eradicating the risk of modern slavery practices in our supply chains” says Hobson, who adds “As part of our governance framework, KPI’s such as audits, remediation of compliance criticalities and training deliverables are reported annually, and published via the Wesfarmers Sustainability Report which is independently audited.”

To learn more about Blackwoods’ complete solutions visit www.blackwoods.com.au or call 13 73 23.

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