Mondiale VGL is a leading Oceania-based freight forwarder and a rising force in global supply chain solutions. Ranked among the world’s top 30 logistics firms, the company continues to expand its strategic presence across New Zealand, Australia, Asia, Europe and America.
The 2021 merger of Mondiale (New Zealand) and Visa Global Logistics (Australia) created one of the region’s largest freight-forwarding firms, enhancing trade lane access and improving supply chain efficiencies. Since then, Mondiale VGL has maintained a strong growth trajectory.
Within a year of the merger, the company acquired South Australian customs and logistics provider, Customs Agency Services, followed by the 2024 acquisition of Interunion which extended its intermodal transport network across Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
Mondiale VGL has also invested in infrastructure by opening a new transport facility in Christchurch, NZ, and developing a purpose-built facility in Perth which is set to open in the second quarter of this year. With a focus on global scale and regional expertise, Mondiale VGL continues to expand its international footprint while reinforcing its presence in core domestic markets including Australia.
Growth in the stone and tile sector in this key market has led Mondiale VGL to enhance its capabilities in transporting specialised heavy containers, and the company has recently taken delivery of eight new Vawdrey Performance-Based Standards (PBS) skels to cater for this expansion. The order consisted of a quantity of quad-axle retractable skels as well as quad-axle drop deck skels featuring full-width hydraulic rear ramp platforms for safe forklift loading and unloading.
“We’ve onboarded a number of stone and tile companies recently, many of which require dock and onsite deliveries,” says Mondiale VGL Fleet and Compliance Manager ANZ, Rory Gerhardt. “As a result, our need for quad trailers has grown significantly.
“Most of our heavy containers are around the 30-tonne mark. We need equipment that can handle this weight, and quads are perfect for that.”
The units were specifically designed to maximise payloads in these applications – an objective which Rory says has successfully been achieved.
“We don’t go overboard chasing certain payloads on our skels, but we’re always working closely with Vawdrey to determine what’s achievable,” he says. “We aimed for a payload in excess of 33 tonnes on the new quad combinations and we successfully achieved just over that in their carrying capacity.”
Mondiale VGL’s new skels have been operating up and down the east coast of Australia predominantly, with some transporting out of metropolitan areas in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. They have integrated seamlessly into an existing fleet of around 300 Vawdrey trailers. Aside from a handful of B-double Titeliners and approximately 40 sideloaders, the trailers are mostly skels which account for a large portion of Mondiale VGL’s operations.
“We’ve had Vawdrey skels in our fleet for a number of years”, Rory says. “These latest ones are different because of the roller systems spec’d for smoother operations with heavier boxes.
“The rollers suit our operations better than the Teflon slide plates we used in the past because they make opening and closing the trailers a lot easier.”
By partnering with Vawdrey for the majority of its fleet, Rory says Mondiale VGL knows its vehicles will be taken care of no matter where they are.
“Limiting the number of manufacturers certainly helps,” he says. “You won’t be travelling all around the countryside to find one particular part because you’re dealing with one person for the majority of the fleet.
“At the end of the day, if you’ve got a fleet predominantly of Vawdrey trailers you know that your parts, servicing and breakdowns are going to be covered.”
These benefits are also tied together by the impeccable aftersales service which Vawdrey has built a reputation on.
“Vawdrey is always good to work with,” Rory says. “We were working at pace to meet a rapid influx of new customer needs. They slotted us in and had them turned around in under 10 weeks.
“We choose Vawdrey because the product suits what we do and the support provided is great. Vawdrey helped us with some of our first PBS applications in the early days and 95 per cent of our fleet is now PBS. We’ve kept close ties with them and they’ve really helped us along the journey.”
