9/21/2020

EFFICIENCY GAINS FOR ROCK DRILLING GROUP

Riggs Distler’s Rock Drilling Group is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  They are on-call to drill everything from post holes for guardrails, to signage posts, to solar sites and utility poles. Providing drilling services at a moment’s notice requires real time internal and external communication and coordination and, in order to streamline the process for accountability and efficiency, a need for an operational tool that could be utilized in the field on a cell phone was identified.

Starting with client project requirements and invoicing, Scott Zemaitatis (VP of Transmission) and Terri White (Project Manager) pinpointed key elements of the process to be captured and connected with Andrew Spurr (Operations Technology) to develop an application to meet their needs.

Andrew worked with Terri and Scott to prioritize and organize the drilling workflow and construct a digital form that captured pictures and documents for work locations. The tool needed to be able to handle invoicing & payroll components, work verification, safety set-up and pictures of the JSA, mark-outs, pre construction, construction and post construction. It also needed the ability to expand as needed for larger jobs that had more information. With these requirements and security of the information in mind Andrew set out to find a cost efficient, off-the-shelf solution that Andrew could manipulate to meet the Rock Drilling Group’s needs.

AFTER EXTENSIVE RESEARCH, SUCCESSFUL PLANNING SESSIONS AND MULTIPLE DRAFT VERSIONS OF THE DIGITAL FORM A FINAL VERSION WAS CREATED AND THE APPLICATION WAS IMPLEMENTED.

According to Terri, “Implementation was easy!   Installed the software and the Operator was able to follow the flow without questions.”

The new application now allows operators to spend less time filling out worksheets and organizing pictures. Instead, they can upload as they go, letting the pictures tell the story of their work day. Enrique Ochoa (Information Technology) worked with Randy Alger (Operator) to install the application on his phone and the rest is history.

Key Features:

• Once the operator completes the form it gets sent to the application portal and Terri can invoice the customer.
• The final document can be printed or emailed internally or externally with all supporting information in a pdf, which is ideal for claim management.