Read Fulcrum blog posts for the utilities industry, covering field data collection, inspections, and operational workflows.
In a recent study conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), 95% of executives across several industries in the United States, UK, Singapore and India said that mapping and GIS location intelligence are important to achieving desired business results.
Discover how to leverage location-based data for asset management to prevent losses and boost profits.
Leveraging the lessons of 2020 for success in 2021, published Jan. 21, 2021.
Use this checklist to document the condition and maintenance records of your transformers.
Conduct regular generator maintenance to ensure it operates safely and reliably.
Ensure your wash station is accessible and fully functional to prevent permanent eye damage to your employees.
Track the location and maintenance schedules of your portable restrooms with this free checklist.
Watch this on-demand webcast to learn how to leverage checklists for process optimization.
Organizations that continually increase efficiency, safety, and customer satisfaction all have this in common: They embrace Field process improvement.
Download this free PDF to conduct routine building sanitary sewer inspections or locate and remediate problems.
Minimizing human error and maximizing productivity, published Nov. 24, 2020.
Download this free PDF checklist to conduct a thorough drone inspection before taking flight.
Download this checklist to document the condition of cars as they are dropped off at your business and document any prior damage.
Download this mileage tracker to ensure accurate record-keeping for your vehicles and tax purposes.
Download this form to keep transmission lines protected from hazardous trees and prevent power service interruptions.
Download this checklist to conduct a thorough visual inspection of a storm drainage system.
Download this checklist to conduct thorough HVAC inspections to ensure proper function and good air quality.
Track the wherabouts and condition of your company’s assets with this equipment inventory form.
Businesses are embracing no-code development for its many benefits: It costs less than traditional software development, it increases their agility and productivity, and it takes strain off of their IT departments by enabling non-developers to create and quickly modify custom apps.
Learn how to leverage mobile technology to improve the speed, accuracy, and value of field operations – and achieve buy-in from your teams.
Your health, safety, and environment (HSE) inspections require you to collect a lot of data. But if you’re using paper-based checklists, you’re only getting a fraction of the benefits you could receive, without the kind of productivity that you need. Read on to learn why digitized HSE inspections are the best for data collection processes.
Providing expert advice and services to governments, development partners, and private sector organizations across Sierra Leone.
Northpower, a leading multi-utility contractor in New Zealand, needed a better system for electrical infrastructure inspections. Its outdated Windows Mobile devices and paper maps caused inefficiencies and missed inspections, creating safety concerns and data inaccuracies. With 85,000 pillars to inspect over a three-year cycle, the existing system couldn’t keep up with its growing needs.
Protecting homes and infrastructure from wildfire with real-time data.
Conducting hydrant inventories to aid in civil engineering municipal works.
For engineering projects, field asset inventories are essential to maintain infrastructure, track assets, and reduce costs. This case study shows how SMEC, a major global engineering firm, achieved these goals. Using Fulcrum’s mobile data platform, SMEC transformed its approach to inventories across diverse projects.
Conducting telecom, cellular, and pre-fiber inspections across the United States with Fulcrum.
Building, integrating, and deploying bespoke technology tools to help businesses solve complex challenges.
Inventorying water distribution systems, installing new meters and automating billing processes.
The Problem
Tilson had recently been awarded a statewide fiber construction project for the state of Kentucky to provide broadband access across the state. The project was to survey 10,000 utility poles—including attachments, spans, and specific attributes—and provide an MRE solution for each pole in order to apply for an attachment license for the fiber cable. Tilson had been utilizing several other data collection apps, with mixed results. Prior to Fulcrum, Tilson was primarily tackling projects that had 50 to 500 poles for a given project, primarily small cell nodes. The collection process often involved taking photos with a camera and a GPS unit, writing records in Excel, then joining them back up in the office. Tilson needed a solution where data was only keyed in once, could be monitored remotely, and exported in a variety of methods easily.
The Challenge
After a series of deadly explosions, including two high-profile events in 2014-2015, the Public Service Commission (PSC) announced expanded mandated natural gas meter inspection requirements. To establish a baseline, gas companies must prove to the PSC that they have physically inspected all of their residential and commercial meters by April of 2020.
Field asset inventory with Fulcrum
The Philadelphia Water Department is in the process of removing their high pressure fire hydrants, left in place after the HPFS system was decommissioned in the mid-1990’s. Rodriguez was brought into the project to provide a final inventory of the hydrants and to document any potential construction impacts to surrounding street features (i.e. ADA ramps, paving, poles, etc.). The assumption was that the inventory would be performed using paper maps and digital cameras.
Before Fulcrum
Northpower performs 85,000 pillar inspections over a cycle of 3 years. Until recently, Windows Mobile-based phones with 2.8” displays were used with a forms solution to capture inspection results. Paper-based maps were used to log and navigate to each pillar to conduct inspections.
Guma Valley Water Corporation
For our first assignment using Fulcrum, we were contracted by the World Bank and Guma Valley Water Corporation (GVWC) – the Government owned utility responsible for providing clean water to the inhabitants of Freetown, Sierra Leone.
The Problem
In 2019, the State of Michigan required water providers to complete a water distribution system material inventory. This inventory needed to include water service line material information and be complete by January 1, 2025. For the City of Wyoming, a community of approximately 75,000 residents with over 20,000 water service lines, this information needed to be better organized and aligned.
Find out how to choose a solution that improves your workflows today and can also adapt to the changing needs of your field organization.
Field inspections play a crucial role in maintaining safety, efficiency, and compliance, but outdated processes often get in the way. Paper-based systems, slow data sharing, and manual errors can cause delays, frustrations, and even compliance risks for field teams. It’s time to embrace a better way of working. This guide is designed to help you modernize inspections with practical, actionable steps. By identifying pain points and adopting modern tools, you can transform inspection workflows into efficient, streamlined processes that save time, reduce errors, and boost productivity.
Fourth of July in Southern California was different this year. I’m sure most were prepared to enjoy family, friends and traditional fireworks. They most likely had made their last grocery store runs and mapped out their entertainment plan, when out of nowhere the plans were literally shook up. An earthquake measuring 6.4 in magnitude shook at 10:33 a.m., causing a swift change to the Independence Day celebrations in Searles Valley and surrounding areas. In classic Cali fashion, some felt the shaking happening and kept moving afterward thinking it’s normal California stuff since they have become accustomed to experiencing these tremors.
The systems that provide our world with power and electricity require enormous amounts of utility data and compliance monitoring to function effectively. Energy and utility companies must constantly monitor, analyze, and respond to events that affect these complex networks to ensure their customers have electricity. What’s more, the production and distribution of energy are subject to numerous regulations, making utility data and compliance requirements crucial for operations to be documented in meticulous detail. The ability to streamline and integrate data coming in from multiple sites is critical to staying ahead of these demands.
At our core, Spatial Networks is a geography company. From building geospatial technology products to collecting, organizing, and analyzing geodata, we eat, drink, and breathe geography. It’s sobering to learn that, for many of our customers, Fulcrum often provides their first exposure to the wonderful world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
I had the opportunity to represent Fulcrum at the inaugural DroneDeploy Conference in San Francisco, CA last week. One of the goals of the conference was to “focus on real-world drone deployments across industries driven by people”. The conference had people in attendance from an array of industries including end users, software providers, and developers interested in folding aerial survey data into applications.
