Addressing legacy (and current) as-built processes

Hello and welcome to Bite Size Electric, the podcast where we break down the biggest challenges and best practices shaping the future of electric networks, one bite at a time. I'm your host, Brandon Kirkin, and we are working through a five-part series on digital as-builds. My guest for this series is Matt Roberts, Director of Utility Solutions for IQGeo. In this series, we'll explore the challenges that utilities face during as-built workflows, the impact of these challenges posed to utilities, and what these utilities can do to improve their as-built workflows. For part one of this series, we'll introduce the concept of as-builds and talk about the burden of paper-based and other traditional as-built processes. My guest, of course, is Matt Roberts. So Matt, let's kick off this conversation by first defining what we mean by as-builds. I know there's a lot of terminology around this topic that can get a little bit messy. So when I say as-built to you in the context of an electrical utility, what does that mean to you? First off, thanks for having me, Brandon. So when I think about as-built, I'm thinking about it in two distinct ways. The first is there's a number of forms and data that needs to be collected based off of what asset is being installed. For instance, a transformer might have a cut-in sheet. A meter might have a meter information sheet where the construction crew needs to get the data from that, serial numbers, barcodes, some photos. And then the second bit is what I think more traditionally we think of as the redlining piece, which is the designer said the pole is going to be right here on the corner of the street. But during construction, that pole ended up being 10, 15 feet over. And these red lines being traditionally done on the construction prints. That's what I think of as the as-builds and as the red lines. Awesome. Yeah, thanks for that detail. I think that's a really good way to kind of categorize that. So maybe we can start diving into this by focusing on the redline process, since that seems to be a fairly traditional part of the as-builds. Maybe could you lead off by telling us about your conversations with utilities, how they're generally performing redlines today, and maybe any other details that you seem that is common to the industry? Yeah, of course. So thinking about the redlining process is almost take a step back and think about the construction. So typically the design is complete by an engineer in the office. There might be some site surveys, but from that, traditionally you're seeing going into the plotter's room, printing off construction prints, handing those to the construction crews. And from there, they get assigned the work. They go out to that work location. They always do a job safety briefing or a tailboard. They're performing the construction. And during that as-built process, as I mentioned earlier, they're collecting various different information that they're putting on forms. These would often be paper-based. But they're also writing up, redlining those construction prints with the goal to send those back to the posters. So once they're done with the construction, they've got those redlines ready. They're back in the truck. Once they go back to the office, they are putting those redlines in the hands of the posters for them to get inputted into the GIS and all the downstream systems to have those as-built updates. So it sounds like, in your experience, a lot of these utilities are still performing these redlines on paper. They're physically writing down these changes. They're handing them over into their field office from there. It feels like that could be a little bit of a slow process with a lot of potential for inaccuracies. What's holding back these utilities from performing these redlines digitally instead? Is it a limitation in their field tools or availability of those tools? What's been your experience in that area? So in my experience, there's two key things that hold it back. The first is the organization has been using those paper prints for longer than you and I have been alive. And as we know that the construction crews being an aging workforce, you know, when something you've used for 80 to 100% of your working life was a piece of paper, naturally, it's a challenge to adapt to something digital. And I think what holds it back even more so is that the digital tools that perhaps the utility has employed, they don't beat paper oftentimes. I've worked with utilities to where it's in essence taking that construction print, making it a PDF, and then having paint like tools to where they're drawing the X over here. They're not doing anything very intelligent with it. So those probably be the two biggest limitations on them going ahead and performing redlines digitally. Awesome. Thank you. Maybe one quick follow up in that area then. What do you see as the way forward to assuming that these utilities could benefit from having these redlines done digitally, that there is some efficiency gains there? How do we get from this kind of stuck area of doing this all with paper base to digital in a way that overcomes those limitations? Certainly. So the way forward is to delight the user throughout the construction process of not just digitizing that redline piece, but digitizing the tailboard meeting to have them completed there. Digitizing the as-built forms with simplified data entry and having the natural progression to then digitize and have that redline within the user's device and have those field crews rather than draw an arrow to say where the pole is, actually pick the pole up within the mobile tool, use their GPS, and plot that tool or plot that pole rather. Looking at the most accurate data. Well, thank you for the insights there, Matt. I think it's a really good kickoff to our five-part series on as-dults, and we look forward to seeing you on our next episode.