The PoleOS™ Company
The exponential shift from projects with 100 poles to projects with 50,000+ poles left Toth & Associates struggling to contend with traditional fielding process limitations as well as gaps and inaccuracies in collected data.
Toth & Associates achieved the scale needed to take on and successfully deliver large (50,000+) pole projects by making the IKE Device integral to their fielding process and adopting IKE Office Pro to bring the field data together.
poles per project from 100 poles per project
Toth & Associates was established in 2003 with an initial focus on electric utility engineering. It has since grown to a multidisciplinary firm providing public and private clients with a broad range of electric utility, structural, and civil engineering services. In addition, Toth offers land surveying, mapping/GIS, and related services. The company fiercely stands behind their vision of stronger communities through reliable engineering design supported by a boots-on-the-ground work ethic.
Recent years have seen Toth working with electric utilities exploring large-scale collaborations with communications companies on joint use of their poles. Where 100-pole projects used to be common, Toth is now supporting utilities on projects involving upwards of 50,000 poles.
Initial work on projects often included reviewing third-party attachments using other engineering firms’ data. Tyler Barnes, Project Manager at Toth explains “We knew our clients’ systems and we were seeing data that just didn’t match up.” Data gaps and inaccuracies were evident and make-ready solutions often didn’t adhere to NESC® strength and clearance requirements. To successfully deliver on these large-scale projects, the Toth team knew that pole data would have to be verified in person.
Solving for this involved the labor-intensive process of sending crews out into the field to validate what was really on the ground, oftentimes requiring them to trek across rough terrain with their hands full of tools. Barnes elaborates “They had a hot stick. They had an iPad. They had a rangefinder. They had a measuring tape.” The fielder process was far from efficient, and its manual nature meant a likelihood of introducing human error. More importantly, it was limited in terms of the pole data it could capture and presented safety challenges for crew members. It also meant that engineering and office teams frequently waited weeks to begin work on this manually collected data.
Project Manager at Toth & Associates
Needing to scale operations and gain efficiency and safety, Toth looked to IKE. Barnes clarifies, “We needed a single device that removed four or five devices from our fielders’ hands and the software to bring all of our field data together.”
The company empowered their team to safely collect precision pole data by putting the field-hardened, cloud-connected IKE Device into service. With the IKE Device, a solo fielder could quickly pass acquired data back to the office for measurement and management via the IKE Office Pro field-to-office solution. The duo enabled real-time collaboration between the field and the office by seamlessly uploading collected field data to a centralized location and creating a standardized collection of pole records that integrate with all of the leading third-party software platforms in the industry.
With IKE Devices in hand and IKE Office Pro in operation, Toth gained numerous advantages. Toth fielders moved from numerous imprecise and error-prone tools and equipment to one efficient device with the IKE Device. With timely and accurate data seamlessly uploaded to IKE Office Pro, the back-office team was enabled to begin work quickly after the completion of fieldwork.
With this transformation, Toth improved GIS data accuracy and has been able to correct data mismatches and discrepancies. IKE Devices have also captured a wide array of valuable data that Toth previously didn’t have access to. In addition to the previously barebones KMZ data files, KML exports with annotated pole and mid-span photos have empowered Toth to deliver added value to customers at no extra cost or extra time. The data Toth delivers also allows their customers to understand damages and failures in the field and identify unknown attachments.
One additional and unexpected benefit was the impact on onboarding new fielders. The simplicity and intuitiveness of the IKE Device have allowed Toth to decrease the time needed for training from months to days, improving time to value for the company. Toth has also appreciated IKE’s collaborative approach, knowing their feedback is valued in improving data acquisition and structural analysis tools.
With the support of the speed, efficiency, accuracy, and wealth of data that IKE solutions have delivered, Toth & Associated has successfully implemented large (50,000+) pole projects, helping it stand apart from other engineering firms.
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