As buildings become more technically complex, connected and automated, the skillsets needed to maintain them become more demanding. An increasing reliance on a network of skilled external suppliers comes with challenges: a single underinsured vendor or unsafe workplace incident can lead to devastating legal liabilities, project delays, and damage to a corporate brand.
A qualified contractor has undergone safety, compliance, and risk assessments before arriving on-site. But for many facilities, the question being asked is simply, “Did the supplier show up?” The question they should be asking is, “Are they qualified to be here?”
Without systems in place to ensure complete visibility, risk stays hidden. Suppliers may be working with expired insurance, inconsistent or nonexistent safety practices, or lack the qualifications and training required to operate specialized systems. To protect highly connected infrastructure, facility leaders must make contractor vetting a strategic, front-line decision. This means validating real experience, ensuring certifications are current — and that they stay that way — and verifying performance consistency.
During the construction phase of a facility, specialized engineers and builders are subject to rigorous scrutiny due to the project’s high exposure and the direct involvement of a leadership team. However, once the keys are handed over, the specialists who maintain these systems — often for decades — frequently operate in an oversight vacuum. The hardest trades to verify are often tied to today’s technologically rich systems: the more specialized a trade, the more critical verified qualification becomes.
Urgency and Excellence: Eliminating the Tradeoff
Yet for organizations where the supplier’s onboarding process is overly cumbersome, internal teams may feel forced to prioritize speed over quality when it comes to urgent work. In these cases, facility teams regularly default to contractors already in their system — not because they’re necessarily the best fit — but because they’re a quick, easily accessible option.
This means that high-quality suppliers with strong safety records and proven performance are often overlooked simply because the vetting process needed to qualify them seems too onerous. This is where intelligent work readiness matters.
By leveraging a pre-qualified network and utilizing an automated and visual validation system, facility teams no longer need to choose between urgency and excellence. Instead of focusing on the threat of potential downtime or production and profitability losses, facilities choosing prequalified suppliers can streamline their onboarding process.
Avetta One is an all-in-one risk management system that helps organizations find, qualify, and mobilize safe, ready-to-work partners for every job. Through an extensive network of pre-qualified suppliers, standardized compliance requirements, and automated validation workflows, the Avetta One cloud-based platform allows a facility to pinpoint proven and pre-qualified contractors, who are directly suited to their project’s needs.
Streamlining the process of prequalification allows for a quicker RFP process, saving time on project start-ups and overall cost. As well, Avetta provides the essential tools, insight, and expertise to give Environmental Health & Safety, Procurement, and Risk teams a single, intelligent view of supplier readiness along with ongoing compliance and audited risk performance based on their own policies.
Working with both mature safety and procurement cultures as well as developmental, Avetta is fully customizable; allowing flexibility to be specifically tailored to each company’s policies and/or needs.
“Avetta believes you shouldn’t have to choose between fast and qualified,” explains Aaron Gerrets, Industry Solutions – Construction, Oil & Gas, with Avetta. “Facility teams shouldn’t have to choose between speed and confidence. Supplier qualification isn’t a gate; it’s a guardrail, and with Avetta enabling your process, your team can identify contractors who are ready to work before urgency turns into risk.”
Accountability in Action
Facilities using the Avetta One platform champion accountability by hiring professional, trustworthy, and safe suppliers to work with their teams.
“While many companies place focus on the impact a repair or production failure may have in relation to volume and profits, they must also consider the collateral effects of mechanical failure or human catastrophe,” urges Kendall Stanley, Manufacturing Industry Solutions expert for Avetta. “Allowing a non-verified contractor to conduct any type of repair or installation puts the business and the area employees at risk,” he suggests.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, 5,070 workers died in workplace related incidents during 2024. Avetta is committed to helping ensure that at the end of each day, every worker makes it home safely.
“When a supplier is maintaining a critical system — particularly as those systems grow more complex — you need to know they are ready to work. Readiness isn’t just a one-time approval; certifications, insurance, qualifications and contractor performance all change over time. Therefore, organizations need ongoing visibility. You can’t manage a dynamic workforce with static tools,” Gerrets emphasizes.
Avetta has also been actively involved with the development of updated standard ASTM E2920-26, which shifts the focus of safety metrics away from frequency rates to level of severity and preventative data.
By using a global Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) network like Avetta One, organizations can automate compliance verification such as pre-screen safety performance, Total Recordable Incident Rates (TRIR), and insurance coverage, as well as proactively gather craft safety certifications, site specific training completion and other data before the worker arrives on site. Avetta One clients also have access to our Safety Maturity Index & Culture Maturity Index which look to leading indicators. This slashes onboarding administrative times from weeks to days, enabling facilities to choose the best and safest supplier every time without sacrificing speed. It also frees organizations from the administrative burden of handling the prequalification process manually, allowing them time for more value-adding activities.
When the available contractor services your business counts on aren’t ready, people and projects are put at risk. Avetta is building the largest global community of businesses, contractors, and suppliers who are qualified, compliant, and ready to work.
Avetta works with 360,000 + suppliers in over 120 countries. Protect your facility by shifting to a strategic, front-line vetting system for contractor readiness. Learn more at www.avetta.com
