WHAT’S AT STAKE

What happens on site depends on what happens before it

Excavation is rarely just a matter of turning up and starting to dig.

Before work begins, teams need to understand what underground infrastructure may be present, what information has been provided by utilities and what requirements need to be met for that particular job.

Depending on the project, that can mean Before You Dig or 811 responses, utility plans, permits and other supporting documentation.

When that information is incomplete, difficult to find or disconnected from the job, uncertainty follows crews into the field.

A missing plan might mean work has to stop while someone tracks it down. Outdated or inaccessible documentation can create questions at the point when people need answers.

A required permit or response that hasn’t been accounted for can create delays.

And if the people carrying out the excavation don’t have the information provided for that job, they may be making decisions without the full picture.

The consequences can be much more significant than an inconvenient delay.

Underground water, gas, electricity and telecommunications infrastructure can be damaged during excavation, putting people at risk, disrupting essential services and creating repair costs, investigations and project disruption.

Safer excavation doesn’t start with the excavator.

It starts with making sure the work is properly prepared before the crew gets there.

THE PRESSURE

The information exists. Getting it together is the hard part.

For organizations managing excavation across multiple jobs, requesting utility information isn’t a one-off task.

Every new project can mean another set of inquiries. Another group of responses. More plans to collect. More documents to check. More information that needs to be connected to the right job and made available to the people carrying out the work.

At a small scale, teams may be able to manage that manually. As project volumes grow, the administrative load grows with them.

People spend time submitting Before You Dig or 811 inquiries, monitoring responses and downloading utility plans. Documents arrive at different times and need to be matched to the right project. Teams need to know when the required information has arrived, where it’s stored and whether the job has what it needs to move forward.

When those processes sit outside your existing work management system, there’s another gap to manage.

The project may exist in one system while the information needed for safe excavation is being requested, collected and stored somewhere else.

That creates work for your people, but it also creates a more fundamental problem.

How do you know each excavation is ready to move from planning into the field?

THE OPPORTUNITY

Make safe-digging preparation part of the project

What if requesting and collecting utility information wasn’t a separate administrative process?

The project already exists. Your team knows where the work is planned. They know what needs to happen and when the job is expected to move into the field.

That creates an opportunity to make safe-digging preparation part of the workflow from the beginning.

Required Before You Dig or 811 inquiries can be triggered for the project. Utility responses can be collected and matched back to the job they belong to.

Plans, permits and supporting information can be brought together rather than left scattered across inboxes, folders and separate processes.

As responses arrive, the project record becomes more complete.

Teams can see the information associated with the work. The people responsible for compliance have a clearer view of the documentation. And when the job moves into the field, the information collected during planning can move with it.

Create a reliable path from planned work to excavation-ready work, with the information needed for that project brought together before the team arrives on site.

Prepare once. Keep the information with the job. Take it into the field.

A BETTER WAY

Build safer excavation into the workflow

Better preparation comes from connecting the information needed for excavation with the project itself.

REQUEST

Start the process earlier

Trigger the required utility plan inquiries as part of project preparation instead of relying on separate manual processes.

COLLATE

Bring the information together

Collect utility responses, plans, permits and supporting documentation against the job they belong to.

CHECK

Know what the project has

Make it easier to see the information available for the work and support your organization’s excavation and permit processes.

DELIVER

Take the information to site

Keep the project information accessible to the people carrying out the work when they need it.

THE OUTCOME

Send teams to site better prepared

Instead of people repeatedly submitting inquiries, chasing responses and assembling documentation by hand, more of that process can happen around the project itself. Utility information is connected to the right job. Plans and permits are easier to find. Teams have greater visibility of the information that has been collected.

That matters at scale.

When an organization is managing many excavation projects, a repeatable process can reduce the administrative effort behind each one while making it easier to maintain a consistent approach to safe-work preparation.

And for the person arriving on site, the benefit is much simpler.

They have the information collected for the job in front of them before they start digging.

HOW PELICANCORP HELPS

Connect planning with the safe-digging process

The Safe Digging Lifecycle begins before an excavation inquiry is submitted.

It starts when work is being planned and the organization has an opportunity to understand what information will be needed, request it and connect it with the project.

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

That industry knowledge informs technology designed to improve the way information moves between the organizations planning work, the services providing underground asset information and the teams carrying out excavation.

Explore the PelicanCorp Platform

OneCallAccess

Connect projects with Before You Dig inquiries

OneCallAccess supports the request stage of the Safe Digging Lifecycle, helping One Call and Before You Dig services capture excavation inquiries and connect them with the relevant asset owners.

Explore OneCallAccess
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

Planning safer excavation work

What information should be available before excavation begins?

The exact requirements depend on the project and local processes, but teams may need Before You Dig or 811 responses, utility plans, permits and other project documentation. Bringing that information together before work reaches the field gives teams a clearer picture of the information provided for the job.

Utility plan inquiries can be connected to the project workflow rather than submitted and tracked individually. PlanAccess360 can automate inquiries and collate utility responses against individual jobs, reducing the manual effort involved in preparing excavation documentation.

PlanAccess360 is designed to integrate with works management and construction management systems, allowing utility information and excavation documentation to become part of an organization’s existing project workflow.

Planning creates an opportunity to gather utility information, permits and project documentation before people begin digging. Keeping that information connected to the job helps field teams access the information collected for the work when they need it.

PlanAccess360 is PelicanCorp’s excavation planning and documentation platform. It automates utility plan inquiries and collates plans, permits and project information into individual job packs for organizations managing excavation at scale.

THE NEXT STEP

Make every field visit more valuable

If incomplete records, inconsistent field evidence or disconnected information are making it harder to see what happened on site, improving the way data is captured is a useful place to start.

Our team can help you explore how connected field workflows could give your crews an easier way to capture useful information and give your organization a record it can rely on.

Talk to our team

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