After Range Resources Switches to Avetta, TRIR Declines and Number of Flagged Contractors Is Cut in Half

Range Resources Corporation (NYSE: RRC) is a leading independent oil and natural gas producer with operations focused in Appalachia and the Midcontinent region of the United States. The Company pursues an organic growth strategy targeting high return, low-cost projects within its large inventory of low risk, development drilling opportunities. The Company is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Range Resources is committed to maintaining a healthy, safe, and sustainable work environment for everyone connected to the company. The company relies heavily on its suppliers, vendors, and contractors to provide necessary materials and perform critical jobs, with contractors performing 90% of the at-risk work within the industry. Safety is of utmost importance at Range Resources, and the company works tirelessly to ensure that standards are met and regulations are followed, recognizing that health and safety are in everyone’s best interest.

It’s safe to say that every enterprise is concerned about maintaining a healthy, safe, and sustainable work environment—for everyone connected to the company. Large businesses rely on their suppliers, vendors and contractors to provide needed materials and perform critical jobs. This is especially true for Range Resources, a leading independent producer of oil and natural gas. According to Bill Burket, EHS Compliance Coordinator at Range Resources, contractors perform 90% of the at-risk work within the industry. Range takes the health and safety of its contractors very seriously and understands the consequences of an accident—for both the contractor and Range as an organization. Safety is of the utmost importance at the jobsite, and the burden of ensuring safety is shared across the enterprise. Companies like Range understand that contractors represent them out in the field, and they see the value of sourcing contractors who have the experience and qualifications to perform a given job. Range works tirelessly to ensure standards are met and regulations are followed—recognizing that health and safety are in everyone’s best interest. Needless to say, qualifying, monitoring, and managing hundreds or thousands of contractors is a complex task—one that few companies are prepared to handle on their own. Range, like many global organizations, uses Avetta to help manage the entire process, from establishing contractor criteria, to tracking performance on the jobsite and taking corrective action in the event of an incident. Before Avetta Prior to partnering with Avetta, however, Range had been working with another vendor whose products and service were not meeting Range’s expectations. “The software system was difficult to work with and customer service was poor,” Burket recalls. For example, when a contractor was flagged by the system, it was difficult to determine what the issues were, making it challenging to evaluate the risk or remediate the situation. He says contractors expressed similar frustrations. Furthermore, the system was expensive, and Burket felt he could find better performance and ease of use at a lower cost. In 2012 Burket decided to make a change and investigated a number of vendors before selecting Avetta. According to Jesse Cota, VP of Operations at Avetta, “Range Resources approached Avetta to handle contractor management services for the company because of our high level of safety expertise.”

When Burket was considering vendors for contractor prequalification and management, he was impressed by Avetta’s level of service. “They are very, very customer driven,” Burket says. Because response time had been a concern with the previous vendor, he wanted to be sure the next vendor would reply to questions and concerns quickly. Single Point of Contact, Rapid Response Time Avetta meets this requirement by assigning a single client representative to Burket, ensuring that his one point of contact knows him well and can respond quickly in the event of a question or problem. As a result, Burket says customer service with Avetta has been stellar: “Our rep has been very, very good in responding back to me—within an hour or two if not immediately.” Burket recalls that, before switching to Avetta, the typical response time for a question or request was 24 to 48 hours. Today Avetta will reply to an email from Burket right away, sometimes in the morning before the rep has even left for the office. 130 Internal Users But great customer service is a small part of the value Avetta delivers to Burket and his team. Ultimately, the benefit for Range is its ability to reduce risk across the enterprise. Burket says he offers the Avetta solution to his Range colleagues, and so far 130 Range users have done so to easily qualify, monitor and manage contractors; track environment, health, and safety concerns; and ensure compliance among contractors. Asked how internal Range employees like working with Avetta, Burket says they indicate their approval by actually using the tool, which was not always the case with the previous vendor. Qualifying and Auditing 850 Contractors For Range, using Avetta means immediate access to a database of prequalified contractors that work in the oil and gas industry, which represents a significant time savings for Burket and coworkers. Range currently works with approximately 850 contractors. To reduce liability, a hiring company like Range needs to understand which qualifications need to be met, and then verify compliance with each and every contractor. Clearly, vetting all contractors would be a laborious and time-consuming process.

• Avetta manages the prequalification process with each contractor in its database, allowing Range personnel to log into the Avetta platform, find contractors within the approved vendor list, and review each contractor’s profile. This provides a continuously updated performance history and notes any incidents or violations, such as an OSHA citation. This information is available within one or two clicks, making it easy to use and a significant improvement over the previous system.
• Avetta provides ongoing auditing, both manually and in the field, eliminating the need for Range to reach out individually to each contractor for paperwork and verification. If a contractor-caused incident occurs, it triggers a flag in the Avetta system and sends an automated notification to the appropriate hiring manager. These messages allow Burket and other Range personnel to immediately follow up with the contractor or look into the notification for more information.
• Burket appreciates the ability to customize the application to streamline contractor evaluation. Avetta uses a set of criteria, such as total recordable incident rate (TRIR), for evaluating contractors and sets flags accordingly—red, yellow, or green. This customization allows Range personnel to note problems in the field and change the flag status themselves, or reduce the rating and change the flag from red to yellow if a remediation plan has been created with the contractor.
• Avetta provides hiring companies with three-year averages for all of their suppliers and contractors, which Burket finds particularly helpful for reporting to executives and spotting trends among contractors. This strategy benefits the hiring company as well as the contractor by reducing the cost and risk of incidents, minimizing liability, and avoiding regulatory problems.

• Since switching to Avetta, Range Resources has seen a lower TRIR for its contractors.
• The number of flagged contractors was cut in half after switching to Avetta.
• Range Resources demonstrated more than 30% improvement in just one year for the health and safety performance of its contractors.