4M Analytics

As-builts...

👉 Inaccurate
👉 Out-dated
👉 Difficult to retrieve

To name just a few of the many challenges associated

BUT... we've got good news,

As headaches have pain relievers, so do as-builts!

The name? Digital utility mapping 👋

We can't handle the truth.

And the truth is, the average pizza delivery app has a better digital map infrastructure than the utilities we trust on for the Internet or water.

We've waited too long.

Changes are coming.

Imagine starting to hike up a mountain
with only knowing 60% of the trail mapped out.

That feeling is precisely what General Contractors experience during the process on new projects.

General Contractors on projects cannot quickly understand the utility landscape before bidding on a project.

What are the implications for the stakeholders?

1. High contingency costs needed to be included in the project’s budget.
2. General contractors take on nearly all responsibility for utility coordination and risk.

We can minimize

potential delays,

project ,

unexpected relocations

By giving General Contractors an early, accurate, and comprehensive understanding of the landscape.

UTILITIES DESERVE MORE FLATTERING DEPICTIONS

The best time to document ? Before it's buried.

The next best time? That's a bit more complicated.

Let's get the obvious out of the way:

The are unreliable, out-of-date, a mash-up of as-planned fictions and digitized distortions.

Now, One-Call is obviously essential before any around .

But the One-Call marks just don't come early enough, or in a precise, convenient, and digitally recorded format, to support utility conflict avoidance in the planning and design phases.

We need another option to show our utilities in the clearest, most reliable, most useful light.

Think of as helping our underground infrastructure put its best foot forward.

The service lines may be covered in dirt and asphalt, but we need to do them justice:

Mapping based on visual evidence and combined in a digital, accessible, and unified depiction.

SHOCKED...BUT NOT SURPRISED

Imagine if every profession treated their work like 99% of projects treat .

🥼 Surgeons making "last-minute" discoveries during operations.

🚀 Astronauts striking unexpected asteroids or moons in their path.

🗺 Navigation apps giving directions based on 100-year-old maps.

If it's unacceptable in other fields, why is it accepted in and ?

The truth is, not knowing where utilities are during and design phases is costing us.

Whether it's the taxpayer or the utility customer, we're paying too much for the avoidable conflicts caused by lack of information.

Time for a change... is coming.

AS-BUILT...MORE LIKE "AS IF"

The first step is admitting there's a problem.

You just can't trust an when you need to find the in your area of interest.

So why are you still spending months to find unverified, out-of-date, and non-GIS documents that you know are unreliable?

There's gotta be another way...

It just doesn't make sense to use incorrect data for planning, engineering, and bidding, and only discover utility conflicts when you're about to break ground.

To avoid damages and last-minute changes, you simply need a map that does your site justice.

Try instead.

We have the technology...why not use it?

This is what a state-wide map of subsurface utilities looks like

Utility conflicts are great for lawyers (and not much else)

Unfortunately, the typical project delivery system encourages stakeholders to kick the can down the road in terms of utility coordination.

Sure, it’s convenient to lay all the blame on the contractor when they discover utility conflicts at the start of construction.

But does that actually save money if we look at the bigger picture?

A “cost-effective” design scheme often turns into the most expensive and longest overdue project.

LOOK OUT

Some buried leave clues above the surface...

But not all of them.

A quick site visit, early in the planning stage or preliminary design phase, can identify some of the most obvious indications of subsurface .

Some utilities, however, can only be tracked down by the most determined analysts or seasoned experts.

And some clues are harder to see in person, on the ground, with so much visual noise around you.

That's where , , and can play a role.

At least 20% of all utilities are undocumented, and 10% of utilities may not be discoverable by any of today's methods.

The clues are a sign: more investigation needed.

UTILITIES ARE STUCK IN THE DARK AGES OF DATA

Here’s a scenario. Walk to any point in your area of interest and ask yourself:

📍 What are buried under my feet?

📍 What depth are they located?

📍 What is the encasement material?

📍 What contents do they convey?

📍 When were they installed?

📍 Which nearby facilities are they connected to?

📍 Are they in use, inactive, or abandoned?

📍 How many people will lose service if they are cut?

📍 What is the predicted risk of working in their vicinity?

📍 What is the financial penalty of disrupting their service?

📍 Who owns these utilities?

📍 What are their contact details?

We can't plan, design, and build without good data, but in most cases this kind of information is incomplete, unreliable, and incompatible—if it was ever collected in the first place.

In a survey of state DOTs, 103 respondents from 34 states reported what kinds of data they keep track of for utilities in the public right-of-way.

The results show the shortage of necessary information in black and white.

Location data is only one part of a utility strategy.

We need to have many more kinds of interlinked data to meaningfully compare different and decisions that affect our infrastructure.

Our utility data standards are a modern tragedy.

We're taking a new approach through .

More to come soon ⏱