Why Modern Land Surveying Techniques Focus On Flexibility and Scalability

Modern Land SurveyingModern land surveying projects tend to be very large and complex. This can lead to issues when new information arises and organizations have to change or expand their project quickly in order to compensate. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. With the help of the latest land surveying techniques, organizations can remove bottlenecks, gain the flexibility and scalability needed to adapt to changing conditions, and ensure a more timely, effective development project. This post explores why flexibility and scalability are two of the most important fundamentals of surveying.

Encouraging Greater Flexibility

From a professional land surveying perspective, flexibility means the ability to change a project quickly to adapt to changing conditions with no loss in the quality of service. The main reason that ensuring flexibility is so difficult is that today’s development projects are frequently spread out over large geographical areas, and also tend to be very complex and multifaceted.

The size of a project is a challenge to flexibility because it makes it much more difficult for changing directives to get out to all the different employees who need to hear them, while having a complex and multifaceted project logically means that there are more changes to account for. As the complexity of a project increases, so too does the chance of delays.

One way that a professional land surveying company can help encourage greater flexibility is by providing organizations with access to a cloud-based project management platform to help oversee their project. These platforms provide a centralized location to post all information, instructions and deliverables related to a project.

They can also be accessed directly from mobile devices, meaning that reaching employees in the field is no longer an issue. Whether employees are located in a central office or spread out over a very wide area, they can still find out the instant anything changes in the project plan, just by logging in to the project management platform. In addition, since the project management platform serves as an archive of all project-related information and materials, project leaders will always have access to the paper trail of what’s been done in the past, making it easier to adapt project plans along the way.

Encouraging Greater Scalability

Scalability and flexibility are closely related fundamentals of land surveying; scalability refers specifically to the ability to increase the scope of a development project, rather than just changing the project plan. Land surveying scalability is extremely important in the modern landscape, as larger projects have become the norm. Organizations may plan ahead for a very large project, but there’s always the possibility that the project could exceed their expectations, requiring them to add on to the scope of the project quickly. Failure to exhibit scalability means that projects will take longer to finish, which in turn means that organizations won’t be able to start enjoying a return on their project as quickly as they might have hoped.

A cloud-based project management tool is also a key part of the solution when it comes to encouraging greater scalability. A bigger project requires more team members. Team members joining a project that is already in progress are bound to go through a period when they’re still learning their exact responsibilities, meaning that they won’t be able to contribute in the same manner that an experienced team member would. A cloud-based project management solution can help cut down the length of time of this training period by providing new team members easy access to project information and training materials, allowing them to get up to speed quickly.

To learn more about modern land surveying techniques and how professional land surveying services from Landpoint can help with your development project, contact us today.

Image Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

A Look Into How Landpoint Provides Engineering Support For Oil and Gas Projects

Engineering SupportFor oil and gas professionals, the need for a trustworthy engineering support partner is clear: development projects in the oil and gas industry tend to be costly, time-consuming and complex. At the same time, engineers need to be sure that their projects can be finished on time and under budget in order to meet the needs of their company. Anything that can help ease the process along and encourage better results would certainly be a plus. In this post, we’ll examine how the engineering support services provided by Landpoint can help oil and gas companies get better results from their development projects.

Our Engineering Support Can Help You Save Time

One of the primary concerns for oil and gas engineers is the length of time their project takes to complete. After all, the project can only be successful once it has been completed and starts paying a return on the considerable investment that oil and gas companies have put into it. The longer the completion of the project is delayed, the harder it is for companies to achieve these returns.

The technologies that Landpoint offers to its oil and gas partners can speed up various key processes of development projects. For instance, using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to conduct aerial mapping removes the need for surveyors to conduct their topographic work from ground level, and therefore leads to much faster surveys.

Our Engineering Support Services Provide Accurate Land Surveys

Land surveys form the basis for an entire development project. It’s no exaggeration to say that a project can’t be successful without an accurate and detailed land survey to get it off on the right foot.

Landpoint offers a number of different technologies that can contribute to very detailed and accurate land surveys. One example of such a technology is high-definition laser scanning, also known as LiDAR. High-definition laser scanning works by bouncing a series of lasers off of a targeted area and then using sensors to track the time of flight and phase shift as the laser points return. These results can then be grouped into a point cloud that provides an extremely detailed representation of the terrain, within four millimeters of accuracy.

Our Engineering Support Services Provide Better Communication

Good communication forms the basis of any successful project. However, keeping everyone on the same page can be difficult when some people are working out of an office and others are scattered in the field. The consequences of bad communication are misunderstandings, which in turn can lead to unscheduled delays, dangerous accidents, and other work site headaches.

To help address these problems, Landpoint offers a cloud-based project management platform, which makes it easy to share data and instructions with team members, no matter where in the globe they are. This solution allows project managers to upload information from their offices, with field employees being able to access that information from their mobile devices. As a result, these field employees will always have the input they need to be successful. They will also be able to upload data from the field right as they collect it, allowing office employees to access and use that data immediately.

Our Engineering Support Keeps Safety In Mind

Safety should be the number one priority of any oil and gas leader. Completing a development project quickly and efficiently simply isn’t worth it if you have to put your most important resource—your team members—at risk in order to do so.

Unsafe situations on oil and gas work sites primarily arise when workers have to venture into difficult terrain. Landpoint offers technologies that help remove the need for workers to enter these areas by automating the process of gathering data. With UAVs, data can be gathered from above, allowing surveyors to conduct all of their work from a distant and safe location.

To learn more about the key benefits that Landpoint can offer to your oil and gas development project, contact us today.

Image Source: U.S. Army Corps

How Important is Technology When It Comes to Finding An Accurate Land Surveyor?

Land Surveying CompanyIf you’re in the later phases of planning your development project, then perhaps you’ve already heard about the potential benefits that working with a land surveying company can offer. But just what are those benefits and where do they come from? In this post, we’ll examine how working with an accurate land surveyor that offers the latest land surveying technologies can benefit your surveying project from start to finish.

While the benefits of advanced surveying technology are diverse and many, they can essentially be broken down into four main points:

  • Faster surveys
  • More accurate surveys
  • Less expensive surveys
  • Safer surveys
Faster Surveys

The more time you spend conducting land surveys, the further you delay the process of actually completing your development project. As a result, generating surveys as quickly as possible is a worthy goal, one that new land surveying technologies can help oil and gas companies achieve.

One example of a technology that supports faster surveys is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which are commonly known as drones. UAVs are able to help with mapping and scanning from above, allowing them to cover large areas in a relatively short period of time. In addition, since they do not have to travel over land like traditional land surveyors, they are generally not slowed down by difficult terrain. Finally, the data gathered by UAVs can be sent to a cloud project management platform, so that engineers can instantly begin putting that data into action.

More Accurate Surveys

Completing accurate surveys is important because land surveys form the foundation for everything else that comes later in the design and construction phases. If the foundation is not sound, it can lead to inconvenient surprises and unexpected costs later on.

An accurate land surveyor will know will almost always use 3D laser scanning technology. By bouncing millions of points of light off of a building or terrain, 3D laser scanners can quickly put together a data point cloud that can then be used to build a very detailed model of the building or terrain that was scanned. Today’s high-definition laser scanning technology has developed to the point where it can create models to within four millimeters of accuracy.

Less Expensive Surveys

High costs for land surveying can usually be traced back to time-consuming manual processes. As mentioned before, when land surveyors have to cross terrain overland to conduct their work, it is very time consuming, which in turn leads to higher costs.

An accurate land surveyor that utilizes the latest technologies can cut down on the costs of surveying. UAVs are helpful because they allow surveys to be completed quicker with less manual work for surveyors to do. In addition, 3D modeling can be used to create construction plans quickly, which also helps keep costs down.

Safer Surveys

Last but certainly not least, advanced surveying technologies can help keep surveyors and other employees safe, which should be the single most important goal of any construction project. With surveying, the biggest risk comes from rugged terrain, which is not easy to traverse and requires much more caution on the surveyor’s part. Because more caution is needed, the survey can take longer to produce.

Technologies such as UAVs remove the need for land surveyors to physically travel over difficult terrain. This eliminates the risk of harm coming to the surveyor while at the same time producing a detailed survey.

To learn more about the benefits of advanced surveying technology for land surveying projects, contact Landpoint today.

Image Source: U.S. Army Corps

How HD Laser Scanning Helps the Pipeline Construction Process At All Levels

pipeline-surveying,-HD-Laser-ScanningWhen a pipeline project experiences any type of delay or isn’t running as efficiently as possible, it has a huge impact on the bottom line. Every aspect of the pipeline construction process, including planning, design, layout, and management, is highly time dependent. The sooner your company is able to get a pipeline functional, the sooner you start seeing ROI. Proper pipeline surveying can help reduce delays and assist with project planning, especially when HD laser scanning is used.

The laser scanning system speeds up the surveying function across all aspects of the pipeline pipeline construction process, from planning to production. Put more simply, it supports multiple stages of pipeline development, from concept to completion.

Pipeline Pre-Design Phase

Aerial imagery and LiDAR data provides an accurate picture of the terrain and existing on-site structures prior to beginning any work. This allows everyone involved to see the “as is state,” before moving to the planning phase. With this pre-existing information, engineers can make better informed decisions throughout the full life cycle of the project.

Getting scans and imagery in the pre-design phase helps with services such as topographic surveys. It is the easiest and most accurate way to get a complete look at the area to be developed and ensures that engineers get their project off to a good start.

Scans may also be completed using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s) where surveys of very large areas can be completed much more quickly and for far less money than previous methods.

Pipeline Design Phase

Once engineers have an accurate understanding of the site that is going to be developed, the next step is to plan for how the pipeline fits into the current environment.  UAV data collection provides an excellent way for engineers to visualize a project during the planning phase of pipeline surveying.

Using the laser scanning results, engineers can confidently predict and avoid any potential issues before beginning the construction phase. Scans can be used to create digital elevation models, which in turn can be used to help identify potential issues as well as assist with the overall planning. The result: your project experiences less setbacks and ends up costing less.

Pipeline Construction Phase

Because the design phase normally requires multiple views of the project as it evolves, laser scanning adds value to the pipeline surveying process in multiple ways. Every time someone needs a fresh look at the project, the scan data can deliver the results.

When it’s time to actually begin construction, the LiDAR data is extremely beneficial. Engineers can very quickly complete as-built surveys showing how the project is evolving and redefining the look of the terrain and existing environment.

Because there are so many interested parties involved in a pipeline surveying project, it is important to complete these “on demand” surveys quickly and easily. UAV scans are perfect for these ad hoc, on demand kinds of surveys.

In the past, projects would grind to a halt waiting for accurate work in process scans. Now, HD scans provide one of the quickest and easiest ways to create as-built surveys during pipeline construction.

Experience is everything in Scanning Surveys

There are many things that can go wrong in a pipeline project one of which being outdated information that can lead to poor decision making. Project managers should carefully consider the company behind the services and work with someone who has several years of practical, field experience who is also capable of providing you with the most up-to-date data.

To learn how Landpoint can help your oil and gas company with pipeline surveying, download our free brochure today.

Image by – cinto2

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle