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Ground Penetrating Radar Systems recently released a mobile app for SiteMap, its cloud platform that can bring GIS and BIM project data together in one workflow. It’s already in use by field personnel who need updates on all the digging activities at a $389-million hospital expansion in northern Illinois.
Power Construction is the general contractor on the 290,000-sq-ft expansion of a Northwestern Medicine hospital. Having the project data in hand is helping the project, says Bryant Drechsel, site safety coordinator for Power.
“You’re able to be out in the field, bring up drawings, bring up everything you need right then and there,” he explains. “Being able to click on a line and say ‘How far down is this comm line? It’s 3 to 4 ft.’ The guys might say ‘Oh, yeah, 3 to 4 ft, so it’s probably 2 ft down.’ Then they dig down and it is exactly 3 ft, 6 in.”
Available via the Apple App Store for iOS or the Google Play Store for Android devices, SiteMap has both a GIS viewer to display project data on a map and a digital plan room where 2D plans, 3D model information and other construction information can be uploaded. As in the desktop version of the app, design information can be referenced from geolocated points on SiteMap’s GIS viewer. Users can view the files in a directory or as lines and dots on a map.
When scanning the site, the GPRS crew had to figure out the locations of old and abandoned utility lines on the 160-acre property in Chicago’s suburbs. GPRS is able to handle all of the location updates as trades complete their work.
“We draw a geofence boundary basically around the area and any subcontractors that do work in that area, we update that for them, and then everything that their subcontractors and self-perform have done gets updated into the system immediately,” says Michael Trumph, business development manger for Illinois and Wisconsin for GPRS.
Drechsel said Power has been able to reference past scans that GPRS performed for the contractor, and the firm has been able to utilize those maps. SiteMap has become a planning tool as well.
“We actually take our drawings that we have for work planned and GPRS can overlay that with their locates,” Drechsel says. “We’re able to see ahead of time where this is going with the locate that they found with our drawings.”
Drechsel cites how Power had to divert the site’s sanitary line because it was going to be directly in line with a natural gas line, and they were able to act on the information from the app. “It’s not just that ‘these are the [locations].’ You can use them for the project,” Drechsel says.
