Customer Case Study
A Global Energy Producer
When Every Second of Access Downtime Has Consequences
Access at Industrial Scale: Sustaining Continuous Energy Production Under Extreme Workforce Volumes
Customer Overview
A global integrated energy and chemical producer operates one of the world’s most complex industrial energy production environments. Its primary processing facilities support continuous, 24/7 operations where production uptime, workforce safety, and regulatory compliance are inseparable from business performance.
The organization manages a vast, highly controlled industrial site supporting tens of thousands of workers per shift, with strict safety, labor, and operational mandates governing who can enter the site, when, and under what conditions.
Industry:
Utilities, Power & Energy
Workforce:
130,000+
Access Points:
100+
Uptime
99.9%
The Situation
Operational Reality: Throughput, Volatility, and Zero Margin for Error
At the organization’s main energy processing complex, physical access is not a background security function. It’s a mission-critical operational system.
Twice each day, large-scale shift changes require:
- 30,000+ workers enter or exit the site
- Processing times that are measured in seconds, not minutes
- More than 100 turnstiles operating concurrently
- Immediate enforcement of safety, competency, and labor requirements tied directly to payroll and site accountability
Workers queue in advance of shift changes, and access timing is directly linked to compensation. Any delay, congestion, or system failure can escalate quickly into operational disruption, safety exposure, or workforce unrest.
In addition to daily operations, the organization conducts biannual maintenance shutdowns to preserve long-term production integrity. These shutdowns require rapid onboarding, credentialing, and access governance for up to 100,000 temporary contractors, often within days, while maintaining the same safety and compliance standards enforced during normal operations.
The Challenge
Compliance at the Gate: Safety and Labor Controls Enforced in Real Time
As a regulated industrial energy operator, the organization must enforce strict safety and labor controls across its workforce at all times. These requirements are not administrative or retrospective; they are mandated and enforced at the point of access.
Access decisions must account for:
- Valid safety certifications and competencies
- Drug and alcohol testing requirements
- Fatigue management policies
- Contractor authorization and permit conditions
Access denials are common and expected. Hundreds of workers may be denied entry during a single shift change due to expired credentials or non-compliance. The system must process these decisions instantly and accurately, without slowing throughput or creating unsafe congestion at entry points.
Why Change Was Required
The organization’s legacy access environment relied on aging, heavily customized systems that were increasingly unable to withstand peak operational loads.
During high-volume periods, the system:
- Crashed frequently under concurrency pressure
- Required extensive onsite engineering support
- Introduced congestion and safety risk at gates
- Resulted in lost productivity and payroll inaccuracies
Custom logic embedded over years of operation made upgrades slow, costly, and operationally risky. As workforce volumes grew and shutdown demands intensified, the existing model was no longer sustainable.
The organization needed an access governance platform designed for industrial-scale energy operations, not incremental security use cases.
The Solution
Policy-Driven Access for Energy Production at Scale
The organization implemented RightCrowd SmartAccess to centralize and govern physical access across its energy production operations.
Rather than relying on fragile customizations, the platform introduced a policy-driven access model capable of enforcing complex, mandated safety and labor rules at speed even under extreme concurrency.
Key capabilities included:
- High-throughput access processing across 100+ turnstiles
- Real-time enforcement of mandated safety, fatigue, and compliance controls
- Rapid onboarding and credentialing for large contractor populations during shutdowns
- Centralized visibility into throughput, denials, and access anomalies
- Stable performance during peak events without system degradation
Out-of-the-box configuration replaced months of custom development, reducing operational complexity while improving reliability.
The Results
Continuous Production Without Compromise
Today, the organization relies on RightCrowd SmartAccess to support some of the most demanding access conditions in industrial energy production.
The enterprise’s go-live marked the beginning of a broader transformation across its physical security ecosystem.
Measured outcomes include:
- 30,000+ workers processed in under two minutes during daily shift changes
- Up to 100,000 contractors onboarded and governed during shutdown events
- 99.9% uptime across more than 100 access points
- Elimination of peak-time system crashes and gate congestion
- Consistent, real-time enforcement of safety and labor compliance without slowing operations
By stabilizing access during both routine and exceptional events, the organization has protected production uptime, maintained workforce safety, and reduced operational risk tied to access failures.
Ongoing Value in a Demanding Energy Environment
The organization continues to expand its use of RightCrowd SmartAccess due to its scalability, configurability, and ability to support evolving operational demands. Site teams that once depended on large onsite engineering groups now manage access governance with significantly fewer resources.
In energy production environments where downtime is unacceptable and compliance is enforced in real time, modern physical access governance is much more than a security system. It has become a foundational operational capability.
This case demonstrates how policy-driven access can sustain continuous energy production, even under extreme workforce volatility and regulatory pressure.
Transforming access control at your workspace is easier than you think.
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