Meridian Energy: Working Safe

About

Meridian Energy is a leading developer of renewable electricity retailing to customers throughout New Zealand and Australia.

They are the largest electricity generator in New Zealand and the most significant contributor working towards the NZ Government’s 2025 target of 90% renewable generation.

Meridian has developed ten wind farms in Australasia and operates the world’s first wind farm at Ross Island, Antarctica.

Meridian employs approximately 800 full-time employees (‘FTE’), with headquarters in New Zealand and offices in Australia.

Contractor management

Australasia’s largest wind generation company, Meridian Energy, needed to introduce a visitor and contractor management system to maintain the safety and well-being of employees, visitors, and contractors alike on their wind farm sites.

Ensuring the health and safety of people in our care cannot be compromised.

– Hamish Scott, Project Manager (Wind) at Meridian on site

Key challenges

Meridian were looking for a capable contractor and employee management system, to help them manage the safety and well-being of employees, visitors, and contractors at their wind farm sites and offices.

Their existing sign-in books were often forgotten when there was a rush to evacuate a site during a drill or real situation.

They needed a product to assist their Security team with compliance and induction. It had to be accessible at their semi-remote wind farm locations with the versatility to handle multiple logins quickly. Most importantly it needed to be easy to use.

Meridian specifically needed a visitor management system that would enable them to:

• Address their on-site moral and legal health and safety responsibilities easily and competently
• Access the system from anywhere (cloud based solution)
• Account for hundreds of people entering and leaving their sites everyday
• Allow multiple contractors, visitors, and employees to quickly sign-in at the same time
• Account for and manage the health and safety of people working alone
• Manage well-being checks efficiently
• Enforce worker curfews
• Send hazard notifications to people on-site

It’s not as simple as throwing a hi-viz vest at them and saying ‘watch out for trucks’ and ‘please don’t touch the 111m high, 40m long, 10 tonne rotating blades – it’ll hurt

– Hamish Scott, Project Manager (Wind) at Meridian on site

The MRI OnLocation Solution

MRI OnLocation is a cloud service that brings visitor, contractor, and employee presence management into a single solution.Using MRI OnLocation, Meridian were able to meet their obligations to protect the well-being of contractors, employees, and visitors to their sites.

Meridian scans hundreds of employees and contractors into and out of sites quickly. MRI OnLocation makes it easy.

– Hamish Scott, Project Manager (Wind) at Meridian on site

Meridian’s security teams can now:

• Make sure their health and safety responsibilities are met by monitoring who is, or was, on their sites in real-time, using the MRI OnLocation System
• Track and manage hundreds of people entering and leaving their sites, through their MRI OnLocation Dashboard
• Have people sign-in and out of remote sites using the OnLocation Mobile or on their web browser
• Let those who don’t have access to the internet sign-in by phoning their security team
• Sign multiple contractors, visitors, and employees in and out quickly at the same time using OnLocation Mobile or MRI OnLocation on-site kiosks
• Monitor contractors working alone are using OnLocation Mobile.
• Send hazard notifications using MRI OnLocation’s Acknowledgement Notices
• Manage and send notifications regarding well-being checks and worker curfews
• Ensure people on-site have been inducted, using MRI OnLocation’s Induction Management
• Check someone signing in has correct and valid qualifications using MRI OnLocation’s Qualification Manager
• Enforce curfews and site access control by automatically sending alerts when using MRI OnLocation’s Triggers