How a Land Surveying Company Can Reduce Bottlenecks for Oil and Gas Projects

Oil and Gas ProjectsAs the oil and gas boom continues, projects are increasing in scope, size and complexity. Companies often find themselves unable to adjust to the new realities of their project, leading to bottlenecks that can cause extending delays and wasted resources.

In order to remove these bottlenecks and keep your oil and gas projects progressing according to plan, you need to work with an experienced land surveying company that you can trust to provide scalability, rapid access to deliverables, and open lines of communication between key project stakeholders, no matter where they are in the country.

Working With The Wrong Land Surveyor Is A Major Cause Of Bottlenecks

One of the byproducts of the oil and gas boom has been a proliferation of new land surveying companies across the country. These new companies come in many different sizes and experience levels, and choosing to work with the wrong land surveying company can have grave consequences for your oil and gas project.

Working with a land surveying company that is too small or too inexperienced can cause project bottlenecks due to:

  • Lack of scalability
  • Inability to distribute information quickly
  • Inexperience in oil and gas surveying

Working with the right land surveying partner can help you address these issues, ensuring that bottlenecks won’t occur with your project.

Ensuring Scalability

In the context of land surveying, “scalability” refers to a company’s ability to keep up with rapid changes in product scope. Scalability is frequently an issue in the oil and gas industry, as new obstacles and complexity arise frequently as these projects progress.

Oil and gas companies simply can’t afford the long turnaround times that occur when a land surveyor can’t complete field work and produce deliverables quickly. It’s also important that these companies assess a land surveying company’s ability to scale before the project begins; having to replace a land surveyor that can’t scale will only delay the project even further. It’s a better idea to do your homework beforehand, and make sure you’re working with the right land surveyor right from the start.

A land surveying company can ensure scalability by having a large team of experts and the latest technology. When change in project scope creates the need to have more surveyors in the field, a larger company that has experienced teams spread out across the country can easily make that happen, ensuring that the project can continue with no major delays.

On the other hand, smaller land surveying companies often lack the resources needed to respond quickly to changes in project scope. If they need more surveying teams in the field, it may take them weeks to get those teams lined up, if they are able to do at all.

Ensuring Distribution of Information

Today’s industries are more spread out than ever before, and oil and gas is no exception. Key stakeholders from the same project can often be stationed at different locations throughout the country, making it difficult for everyone to be on the same page. As project scope changes, this problem only gets worse. Oil and gas companies need to work with a land surveyor who can provide the ability to distribute information quickly across dispersed geographic locations.

Land surveyors with cloud-based project management offerings can help address this issue. When new information arises that changes the nature of a project, team members have one centralized portal they can upload that information to, and instantly ensure that everyone is able to see it. This removes the bottleneck involved with trying to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Land surveyors can also offer field teams the ability to access the project management system on mobile devices, so that new information can flow from job sites to offices as quickly as possible.

For more information on land surveying services from Landpoint, read our oil and gas brochure, or request a free land surveying quote.

How Tablets Are Used For Field Work on Surveying Projects

Land SurveyLand surveying teams are benefiting from sophisticated tablet technology that combines collection, real-time data access, and a plethora of other utilities in a mobile environment. Surveyors are able to interact with their data to obtain realistic, multidimensional knowledge of the survey area. Essentially, tablet technology has revolutionized how field surveyors operate, allowing them to work smarter and faster.

Here is a look at how surveyors are using tablets for field work boosts project efficiency.

Real-Time Communication

Land survey teams can coordinate efforts from disparate locations with ease as they utilize 2D and 3D views that inform their work in real-time. Data can be shared in real-time and quantitative data, including analytics, can also be accessed. Field agents can synchronize data with data technicians and surveyors in the office to get real-time support, minimizing the need for field crews to revisit the site

Mobile Workforce Management Tools

These tools enhance productivity in the field with applications that help withteam and asset management, mobile workforce routing and field service scheduling. Surveyors can review the progress of other teams, send out messages, and answer emails from individuals back at the office.

Calculation Tools

Mobile devices offer a variety of handy tools, such as calculation and productivity apps, which helps to increase onsite efficiency. Essentially, many of the tasks that would have to wait until the surveyor got back to the office (or at least back to an internet connected computer) can now be performed with a tablet in the field, greatly cutting down turnaround times on projects.

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is a potentially dynamic view of real-world information enhanced by computer resident data that includes sound, graphics, GPS data and video. This technology is becoming more widely used by surveyors since it allows them to get a clearer view of a project and make better recommendations.

In AR, targets become registration points that orient the tablet to the identical point where construction is occurring. As targets are scanned, the original design of the construction is displayed. This view updates as location changes.

Visualization is an extremely important part of augmented reality. In a proposed site development, ease of access for large installations can be determined and reviewed in 3D to foresee how any phase of project construction can be best accomplished with optimal access and best fit. Trial and error belongs to the model world when problems can be solved virtually. Tablets show exactly what a project will look like at any stage of development, provided the data is available.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a target resource utilizing AR. It provides improved visualization and information retrieval, as well as the ability to coordinate project documentation. The ability to embed and link vendor specific data, location details, and quantities required for estimation and tendering is invaluable to project efficiency.

Tablets and 3D Laser Scanners

When paired with other surveying technology, tablets can dramatically increase a surveyor’s productivity and further improve turnaround time. One good example of this is when tablets are paired with 3D laser scanners.

With 3D laser scanning, points are scanned at 2mm intervalsby the scanner’s high resolution digital image and are then colored according to the photo. Scan stations are set up in multiple areas for comprehensive data collection. When GPS is associated with data scanned, it can be tied to a local coordinate system. With the latest laser scanning techniques, it becomes possible to convert three-dimensional surfaces into highly accurate mathematical models, which can be viewed on the tablet device. This means that a surveyor can utilize 3D scans, upload the information to the project management site and then review that data on the tablet.

Overall, when tablets are used for field work, project managers can enjoy better data collection, decision making, problem solving, and accuracy. To learn more about how the latest land surveying technologies can benefit your business, please contact us.

Image Source : Martin Voltri