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Spark helped Cardrona Alpine Resorts automate Health & Safety compliance.

Cardrona Alpine Resorts is one of New Zealand’s most popular ski areas. At peak season, about 600 staff are kept busy looking after up to 5,000 people each day – most of whom will enjoy a break at Cardrona’s cafés and restaurants. Ensuring everyone’s Health & Safety is an important priority for the business.

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Customer problem

Cardrona needed to find a more efficient way to manage food storage and water infrastructure on the remote ski field. Complying with food safety regulation meant manually checking fridge and freezer temperatures. The system wasn’t reliable, and kept staff away from other duties.

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In the early season 2016 a freezer fault that wasn’t picked up meant $30,000 worth of food had to be dumped in the middle of a busy season.

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Staff also had to regularly check water tank levels were sufficient to comply with stringent Fire Safety regulations.

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IoT solution

Spark worked with Cardrona to design and build an IoT Backbone via a Private Iot Network utilising Spark’s CatM1 Network.

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Spark advised on a selection of IoT hardware devices from Waterwatch and Direct Control. IoT sensors were fitted to fridge/freezers and water storage tanks.

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Data from the sensors can be viewed on a dashboard by maintenance and Health & Safety teams, in real time.

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Results

The Cardrona IoT network has allowed resort maintenance and Food and Beverage teams to proactively manage food and water storage infrastructure. They have met Health and Safety requirements, and no food has been lost due to unnoticed malfunctions.Staff are able to spend more time on other key operational tasks.

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“Spark have not only provided solutions for our current requirement,  but by designing and building us our own network they have enabled us to expand our IoT in the future”.

- Marcus Highsted