9 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Featured Article Back in the day...that was when surveyors could not do research online...it was a pleasant work day when the boss gave me a pile of maps and stuff to put a folder together and get everything ready for the survey crew. It was all there and the field crew was going to like this job because it was all set up. I took pride in having all the maps and data ready to go and organized for the survey crew. My boss taught me to look at all the deeds, maps, and comer records to be sure they did not reference another document that we did not have. He wanted three or four benchmark records in case one or two were gone. The precalcs did not always work perfectly, but at least the crew had looking ties to get started. The plot was made and a second copy put in the folder with the coordinate printout for the crew to split up if they needed to. The coordinate file was in the right format to upload and we were ready for field work. The folder even had the job number and a copy of the contract! Remember: Me, asserting a little control to gain quality. Contrast that to the other boss who gave us the deed, the neighbor’s deed, the tract map, and one benchmark record. Well, I guess that was better than the survey crew who got the assessor map with the parcel highlighted and they were stopping by the city on the way to the project to pick up a tract map and a benchmark. Which boss would you rather work for? Which process would “guarantee your success” as the field crew? Is this really a quality control issue? The boss is exerting a little control as to how they would like to have the process work. Even today, with each survey crew having a laptop with internet access so they can look up the city and county records online, the office prep is a big time saver for the field crew. The real kicker is when the crew unexpectedly finds a couple of the boss’s tags. Quality control for sure! Chainman says, “We must have done some surveying here before.” “No kidding, Sherlock!” says the party chief. Phone call to office. Survey tech is asking questions like: “Who did we do the work for?” “What was the project name?” “What was the project number?” “Can you ask them if they have a copy of the survey?” If this happens in your firm, you now have something you can improve so that in the future, the field crew will have the previous data when they show up at the site. This will actually give you an advantage over the competition, so you might as well set yourself up to use this advantage. Of course, we can’t forget the time that the crew had to lay out the drill holes for a project we already did the boundary and topo for. Geotech provides a hardcopy of where the soil tests will be drilled. Office tech adds those locations to our design drawing, assigns the point numbers, plots and prints out the coordinates, and makes a data collector file. Away we go to stake them out using the same GPS as before. Oops. Some of you know where this one is going... Plot does not include control points. Files do not include control points. Field crew knows what to do, sets up base on control, and uses previous control file. Goes to stakeout drill holes. First one falls in house on adjoining subdivision. Crew is checking things out. Can’t find anything wrong with what they did. Goes for second drill hole. Falls in a driveway. Blankety- blank blank-blank! Call to office. Get tech on phone. Ask them to tum on the control points. Right. No match. Oh, who rotated the drawing so that it fit better on the sheet? Who knows? The tech learns to always unfreeze and plot the control points on the precalc plots! Quality control lesson. Crew returns to office and gets new point files, drives back to project and finishes up. I am sure you have plenty of the little things that happen that drive everyone crazy and steal away our efficiency. To say nothing about something getting surveyed wrong in the field or plotted wrong on the maps that we prepare. Recap: • Gather appropriate maps and data. • Precalc Project. • Plot & Upload for Survey Crew. • Set crew up to be successful. Remember: • Me, asserting a little control to gain quality. Luke out. Research
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Nzc3ODM=