How ABO Energy Standardized Documentation and Processes Using Meridian

 M+M (Man and Machine) supported us in the selection and implementation of Meridian. After all, it’s not just about technology, but also about people. M+M is competent and flexible in both areas. That makes the collaboration pleasant, and the result is more than satisfactory.”

- Tobias Konrath, Team Manager Consulting Implementation Project Software

The Company

For nearly 30 years, ABO Energy (formerly ABO Wind) has been thinking green and operating sustainably. The company develops and operates renewable energy facilities in 16 countries on four continents, focusing on wind and solar farms, battery, hydrogen, and hybrid projects.

With more than 1,200 employees, the company offers every development service from a single source, including site identification and assessment, planning, permitting, construction, grid connection and – if required – operational management and service. 

The Challenge

Each ABO Energy project generates several thousand documents of all types, including:

• Emails
• Contracts, minutes and calculations
• CAD plans and models
• Visualizations
• Photos
• Videos, and much more

To maximize safety and efficiency, these documents must be easily accessible and accurately versioned. Additionally, the processes behind them need to be standardized across sites and projects. This was a challenging undertaking for ABO Energy for various reasons. For one, legal requirements differ across borders. In addition, the company has grown rapidly, and varying procedures have been established at different locations. 

The Solution

In order to standardize documentation and related processes, ABO Energy started with lighthouse projects, including a photovoltaic plant in Germany and a wind farm in Finland, to determine the optimum solution.

ABO Energy turned to Meridian to help with this process because it is a configurable, flexible EDMS that could also manage and integrate CAD data. A proof-of-concept showed that Meridian delivers the desired results, including:

• Integration of CAD plans and models
• Customization to the applicable requirements and legal regulations at the various company locations
• Standardization of processes in different countries
• High performance and configurability

The Results

Using Meridian, the experts at ABO Energy developed a standard set of document classes, which structure the documentation for each project. Document properties are used to assign documents to various processes, such as applications for building permits and the handover of documentation to the investor when energy parks are sold upon completion. This has eliminated the need to create numerous copies of documents for these processes. Finally, they used Meridian to ensure that the history of each document can be traced, and that there was clear document version control.

Overall, standardizations in documentation and processes have led to:

• Fewer costly errors and increased efficiency
• Shorter document search times
• Improved interdepartmental communication

The decisive argument in favour of Meridian was the ability to integrate so many document types - CAD plans and models were particularly important to us.” 

- Tobias Konrath, Team Manager Consulting Implementation Project Software