Truck and Track Autumn 2021

Truck and Track Autumn 2021 www.truckandtrack.com 32 FUEL MANAGEMENT For some companies and their employees, the term ‘health & safety’ is often considered boring, tedious, and pedantic. However, at Merridale it’s something they see as a major part of their pursuit of excellence. The Wolverhampton-based commercial fuelling manufacturers have recently been approved under the SafeContractor scheme for the fifth year running. The scheme, ran by Alcumus, provides a health and safety audit service for contractors who want to reassure their clients that health and safety is being handled correctly and sufficiently on their sites. SafeContractor has 28,000 accredited members and over 370 major clients. To achieve the SafeContractor Approved status, a business must prove that they are a safe and responsible company. This involves ensuring that all paperwork is compliant with current legislation and that processes are in place to ensure health and safety is handled in the best way possible. Operations Manager, Andrew Tromans, has been responsible for improving and sharpening health & safety standards at Merridale for more than five years. As well as accumulating over thirty years of experience in manufacturing, his professional background consists of more than 10 years of responsibility for H&S systems. During his development, he obtained the City & Guilds Diploma in Occupational H&S, the NEBOSH Environmental Management Certificate, and the NEBOSH general H&S certificate. Since joining the company, Andrew has been instrumental in ensuring the quality management processes are of an exceptionally high standard. This is required to maintain their ‘Safe Contractor’ accreditation and meet the preferred supplier status for local government authorities and large business enterprises who seek assurance that equipment specifications are fully compliant with current legal requirements. To carry out every aspect of the manufacturing and installation process safely and thoroughly, Merridale use a comprehensive catalogue of method statements and risk assessments that relate to each unique job. On this, Andrew said, “We issue these statements based on the actual work to be done for each job, not just as a flat statement to cover all occasions. Every job is different in some way, so our preparation must reflect that. “For our customers, this allows them to rest assured that we have considered the risks involved in their particular installation or service work and will take utmost care to carry out every job safely and thoroughly, as well as to an excellent standard.” Merridale gain SafeContractor accreditation for the 5th year running The software has been designed in-house by Merridale to be as user-friendly as possible without sacrificing any functionality. Merridale also offers unrivalled levels of support and training, with initial training being available remotely, and a helpdesk on hand to offer ongoing support. Other features include secure encrypted HTTPS connections, multiple users across multiple sites, real-time capabilities, a range of reporting features (including fuel, cost, vehicle and driver performance, and environmental impact), tank stock reconciliation and costing, stock low prediction and email alerts. On FuelWorks, Brian said, “I’ve found the software to be brilliant since I inherited it when I joined FreshDirect. It does exactly what it says on the tin and more, there are features I am yet to use. For us, the ability to have all of our depots’ data in one place saves on plenty of man-hours but more importantly it gives us useful data on our vehicles’ MPG and economic performance.” Fleet operators who wish to upgrade existing Merridale equipment to use FuelWorks need not worry about replacing existing hardware to do so. Merridale can upgrade most existing systems to make them compatible with FuelWorks, no matter how old the system is. To find out how Merridale FuelWorks could benefit your company, contact Merridale on 01902 350 700 or visit www.merridale.co.uk.