Welcome to Bitesize Electric, the podcast where we break down the biggest challenges and best practices shaping the future of electric networks, one bite at a time.
In this final episode of our as-built series, Brandon Curkan, Customer Success Manager is joined by Matt Roberts, Utilities Director, discuss how the digital as-built workflow can evolve and help utility field teams become more efficient than ever.
Let’s dive in…
Brandon Curkan:
Hello and welcome to Bitesize 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 Curkan, and we are working through a five-part series on digital as-builts. 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 pose to utilities, and what these utilities can do to improve their as-built workflows.
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Brandon Curkan Customer Success Manager, IQGeo |
Matt Roberts Director of Utility Solutions, IQGeo |
Brandon Curkan:
We've arrived at episode five of our five part series on digital as-builts. In our previous episodes, we've discussed various issues with the as-built process, including paper based documentation, the over-reliance on GIS, dependence on multiple field apps, and a lack of strong scanning and barcoding tools.
For our last episode, we'll bring these ideas together and discuss how modern solutions like IQGeo can address these issues, and what we believe is the optimal path forward. Joined again by Matt Roberts, who has had countless conversations with electric utilities about improving their as-built processes. Matt, lots of directions we can go with this, but maybe the best way to kick off our final episode is simply to discuss how you believe the end to end as-built process should work?
Matt Roberts:
Oh, that's a big question, Brandon, but I'll preface it with here is the process that most of the utilities I speak with resonate with the most. And it is all about digitizing the entire process, the entire lifecycle from design, to getting posted, to the GIS and the other enterprise systems. So if we think about it, and I'm going to talk about it from the perspective of somebody in the field, is I log into my app, I see under my assigned work, I've got to go do a service connection request over at your house, Brandon. I grab that, I go in my app, say that I'm in route. I get to your house, say that I'm on site, and I'm immediately prompted with any forms that I need to fill in. Those forms could be a job safety briefing, enclosed space entry, any of the safety, call 'em tailboard type forms that the crews fill out before they ever even pick up a tool or do their job whatsoever. From there, I go on, I perform the construction, we get up on the bucket truck, put a transformer up there, and take some secondary over into your house.
All throughout that process where I need it, in terms of the device, I have it. So if I'm up there and I need to capture a photo of the barcode on that transformer, I'm able to do it with very low interaction with the software itself. The software is not an inhibitor, it's an enabler. So I'm taking photos, capturing barcodes, what I mentioned in episode four, maybe I'm even taking a photo of the pole and letting AI do some sort of analysis that's going to help out somebody else in the field. But again, it's just a photo for me to take.
From there I'm finished with construction. I complete any of the other forms that my utility requires me to complete with simple dropdowns. If I start typing in one, two, three, go ahead and try to guess the rest of my answer. Maybe even let me use my on board microphone and just do voice to text. So using the software in a very low touch point of view. And then from that I close the job and I'm on to the next job and I rinse and repeat that process.
Matt Roberts
It's a great question, Brandon. I think a lot of it has to do with leaning into more and more AI of what can I get a photo or video to interpret that the user then does not need to document. They're simply checking it. Beyond AI I'm seeing more and more devices, especially I think the latest iPhones maybe it's for a while, have had LiDAR capabilities. So imagine trying to get a length of an underground conductor, turning on your app, using the onboard LiDAR, and going from point A to point B and getting the calculated length of that and not having to pull out the measuring tape. In sum it's a two-pronged approach. It's taking advantage of AI and really taking advantage of the veteran workers, and veteran crews, to help teach that AI model. Combined with using some of the more and more advanced capabilities that are making it into smaller and smaller devices.
A couple years ago, I don't think anybody would have thought having LiDAR available at your fingertips in your iPhone, on your iPad, would be there. That always seemed like something you contracted out to somebody else and got a huge file, huge gigabit file with all the LiDAR imagery that somebody went and analyzed.
Brandon Curkan
Yeah, that makes absolute sense. It does seem like the future in so many different places is AI, and why not utilize it here to make everyone's life a lot easier. Matt, thank you very much for your time. That concludes our five-part series on digital as-builting. We'll see you next time on Bitesize Electric.
If you’re struggling with an as-built backlog at your utility, download our best practice guide that outlines the processes that IQGeo has developed in partnership with major utilities to streamline the as-built process.