WHAT’S AT STAKE

A locate needs to be both efficient and reliable

Every Before You Dig or 811 request that needs a field locate starts a chain of work.

Someone needs to understand the request. It needs to be prioritized, scheduled and assigned. The locator needs the right ticket and asset information when they arrive on site.

They need to complete the work, record what they found and return a reliable record of the locate.

And all of that needs to happen within the required timeframe.

For a team managing a handful of requests, keeping those pieces together may be relatively straightforward.

At hundreds or thousands of requests, it becomes an operational challenge.

There’s pressure to keep work moving.

To complete more locates. To make the best use of field resources and reduce the administrative work surrounding every job.

But speed can’t come at the expense of reliability.

The locate is there to help someone understand what’s beneath the ground before they excavate. Missing information, incomplete records or uncertainty about what happened in the field can have consequences for the people relying on that work later.

The challenge is to move more work through your operation while maintaining confidence in every completed locate.

THE PRESSURE

As locate volumes and frequency grow, so does the work around the work

The locate itself is only one part of the operation.

Before a locator reaches the field, incoming requests need to be sorted. Priorities and deadlines need to be understood. Work needs to be distributed across territories, teams and individual locators. Routes need to make sense, workloads need to be manageable and supervisors need to respond when priorities change.

Then there is the information.

Tickets, maps, asset information and job details need to reach the field. Updates need to come back. Photographs, sketches and evidence need to stay connected to the correct request. Completed work needs to be visible to the people managing the operation.

When those stages rely on separate systems, spreadsheets, documents or manual handovers, your people end up doing much of the connecting themselves.

Information gets entered more than once. Documents are copied from one place to another. Supervisors spend time checking workloads and chasing updates. Locators may need to call the office for information. Field evidence has to be matched back to the correct ticket later.

The process still works. It just takes more effort to make it work.

And as request volumes increase, those extra steps don’t disappear. They multiply.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Let the job and its information move together

A locate request already contains much of the information needed to start organizing the work.

Its location, timing and priority can help determine where it belongs in the workload. Instead of that information being repeatedly transferred between people and systems, it can stay connected to the request as the job moves through the operation.

Work can be organized around territories, routes, deadlines or priorities and dispatched to the appropriate locator. When circumstances change, supervisors can see the workload and adjust it without having to reconstruct what’s happening from separate records.

The same principle applies in the field.

The locator can take the job information with them, access maps and location details, complete the work and capture photographs or sketches while they’re still on site. GPS coordinates, timestamps, addresses and ticket details can add context automatically, creating a clearer record without asking the locator to manually recreate it later.

Even poor connectivity doesn’t have to break the process. Work can continue offline and synchronize when a network becomes available.

Enter the information once. Add to it as the work progresses.

A BETTER WAY

Keep the work moving without losing the detail

A better locate operation connects the people, information and field activity involved in completing every request.

PRIORITIZE

Know what needs attention

Organize requests by time, location, urgency and other operational priorities so teams can focus on the work that needs to happen next.

DISPATCH

Make better use of field resources

Allocate work across territories and locators, with the flexibility to adjust workloads as priorities and conditions change.

LOCATE

Give teams the information they need

Keep ticket, mapping and location information accessible in the field, including when network coverage is limited.

CAPTURE

Complete the record on site

Capture photographs, GPS information, timestamps and sketches as part of the locate, keeping the evidence connected to the original request.

THE OUTCOME

Complete more work with greater confidence in what’s been done

A streamlined locate operation doesn’t mean asking locators to rush through more jobs. It means reducing the unnecessary work surrounding each one.

Supervisors have a clearer view of workloads, backlogs and activity in the field. Jobs can be organized and dispatched without recreating the same information at every stage. Locators have the ticket and mapping information they need with them, while updates and evidence become part of the same record.

That gives people more time to focus on the work they’re actually there to do.

It also creates greater confidence when the work is complete. Instead of photographs sitting separately from tickets, updates waiting to be entered or supervisors piecing together what happened, the organization has a clearer record from request through to field completion.

For the people relying on that locate before excavation, reliability matters. For the organization delivering hundreds or thousands of them, efficiency matters too.

A better locate operation gives you both.

HOW PELICANCORP HELPS

Connect the locate with the wider safe-digging process

A locate isn’t an isolated field task.

It begins with an excavation request and the decisions that determine whether a field locate is required. Information then moves into the field, where the asset is located and evidence is captured before excavation takes place.

PelicanCorp has more than 40 years of experience working with utilities, One Call and Before You Dig operations and local authorities.

That understanding of the wider safe-digging process informs technology designed to connect the people, information and workflows involved.

Explore the PelicanCorp Platform
THE TECHNOLOGY

Manage locate work from request to completion

PelicanCorp technology helps locate teams coordinate workloads, support people in the field and keep the information generated by each locate connected to the work.

LocateAccess

Bring your locate operation into one workflow

Sort, schedule and dispatch locate requests using time, location and priority to help organize workloads. Supervisors can manage territories and assignments, while real-time GPS tracking provides visibility of locators and vehicles in the field.

Explore LocateAccess

Geolantis

Connect field activity and information

Support mobile field workflows with technology designed to help teams manage work and capture useful information where the job happens.

Explore Geolantis
CASE STUDY

PelicanCorp Charts a Successful Journey to Cloud

From digging in the backyard to reconstructing roads and highways, the stakes can be high when deeper sods of dirt are turned. Without the right information, a digger or shovel could hit highvoltage wires. Game over […]

View case study
COMMON QUESTIONS

Improving utility locate operations

How can utilities manage increasing locate request volumes?

A connected workflow can reduce the administrative work surrounding each locate. LocateAccess helps teams prioritise, schedule and dispatch requests while keeping ticket information connected from assignment through to field completion.

Keeping the original request and its information connected throughout the workflow reduces the need to recreate records as work moves between office and field teams. Evidence captured during the locate can also remain attached to the relevant ticket.

LocateAccess supports workload allocation, territory-based dispatching, mapping and live GPS tracking of locators and vehicles, helping supervisors see how work is distributed and what’s happening in the field.

Yes. LocateAccess includes a disconnected mode so teams can continue working where Wi-Fi or mobile coverage is limited. Updates synchronize with the ticket database when network connectivity becomes available.

Focus on reducing the manual work around the locate rather than reducing the attention given to the locate itself. Connected scheduling, dispatch, field information and evidence capture can save time while creating a clearer record of the work completed.

THE NEXT STEP

Get more value from every hour in the field

If increasing locate volumes are creating more scheduling, administration, duplicated information and coordination for your team, there may be a better way to manage the work.

Our team can help you explore how connected locate workflows could save time, improve visibility and maintain the reliable field information safer excavation depends on.

Talk to our team

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