Diverse Pipeline Services (DPS) is a family-operated contractor serving investor-owned utilities in the natural gas distribution space. “We work for folks that bring gas to your home,” said Brad Dias, Vice President of DPS. DPS’s core services focus on in-progress construction inspection and damage prevention, two areas where teams are responsible for capturing clear, defensible records of work completed in the field.
Fulcrum keeps my folks focused. It keeps us working down the right path, and it keeps us plugged in to provide the best protection and system integrity that we can.
Brad Dias, Vice President
Diverse Pipeline Services
From the beginning, DPS knew it needed a reliable way to capture field data without taking on the
burden of building its own internal software. Dias had worked for an inspection company that used
an in-house program and understood the effort required to build and maintain it. “We needed a way to capture data without having to go through the process of building our own app,” he explained.
DPS explored several software options before choosing Fulcrum, but none of the platforms reflected the realities of utility field operations or allowed the team to adapt workflows to different clients and service lines. “We tried a few different ones, but every platform was shoving us into a very rigid box,” Dias said.
“DPS needed something that was user friendly and was simple, clear and concise. We also needed something that we could customize for each client that we’re working with and each different service that we offer without having to buy five different softwares to do that,” Dias said.
Fulcrum stood out because it gave DPS direct control over its workflows and the ability to make changes quickly without relying on an IT team. After his first demo, Dias said, “Right away, you could tell that it was extremely pliable.”
He contrasted that with his previous experience, where even small system updates could take six, eight, or even twelve months through an IT team. Dias said, “With Fulcrum, somebody can call and say, ‘Hey, can you make this adjustment to this form?’ and in seven seconds, I can make that change. And a dozen people’s forms are now updated.”
Many competitors rely on basic tools, paper forms, or client-provided systems to document work in the field. DPS took a different approach, building its own complete record of work in Fulcrum.
“We want to be able to produce a deliverable at the end of the day, at the end of the project, at the end of the year, and say we collected X amount of data and have backups for all these critical tasks,” said Dias.
The same approach carries through to every job. Even when clients require their own systems, DPS continues to document the work in Fulcrum. “We use Fulcrum no matter what,” said Dias.
DPS has also used Fulcrum to support a damage prevention program in Michigan tied to a surge in fiber construction.
Dias explained that increased telecom activity led to more work around existing gas infrastructure. This led to a rise in incidents affecting those lines. “Michigan is seeing a ton of infrastructure damage because of an influx of federal money to expand fiber optic cable throughout the state.”
DPS was brought in to evaluate work in progress and improve how crews were operating around gas facilities. The team’s role focused on assessing field practices and helping crews better understand how to work safely around existing infrastructure.
To support the work, DPS collaborated directly with the utility to define how it should be done.
As Dias explained, “There wasn’t a baseline for this. We brought Fulcrum in, sat down with the operator and the gas company, and worked through what each evaluation should look like. From there, we collaborated and developed a form.”
Fulcrum gave DPS a way to deliver a complete dataset at the end of the year. The team could quantify the work performed, track contractor performance, and break results down by region.
“We were able to show exactly how many data points we collected and how many sites we visited, along with contractor grading and regional patterns,” Dias said. “We could isolate the data geographically and show how it broke out across different areas.”
The data made it clear where problems were occurring and where additional resources were needed.
The program expanded quickly after DPS demonstrated its value in the field. Dias said, “Last year, we had three people working on the project. This year, that number is closer to 15.” DPS also moved into contract discussions with two additional clients as referrals came in.
Diverse Pipeline’s field workforce includes people with a wide range of technical experience. Fulcrum has been used consistently across that group in day-to-day fieldwork.
Form design also made the process easier in the field. Dias said documenting work only takes a couple of minutes because of how the forms are structured. “They’re standing there with their phone anyway, and it takes about two minutes to capture all the data.”
He described how the forms guide the process. “Required fields can’t be skipped, and users only see fields based on their previous answers,” he explained. “The same form can have 10 points or 50 points, but the structure keeps the work efficient and the documentation consistent across the team.”
DPS also used Fulcrum in ways that went beyond basic field reporting. Many of its utility clients had large GIS teams, so integration mattered from the start. Dias said, “It was important for us to choose software that had the potential to integrate with ArcGIS and Esri.”
He added, “There have been several times where we’ve downloaded shapefiles and sent them to the client and they’ve imported them into their GIS system so that they’ve got a capture of where our inspection happened and where our evaluations happened.”
On the management side, DPS also used workflow automation to speed up internal review. Team members sent reports to a company email. As Dias said, “We’ve implanted workflows in the background where they automatically get reports based on the way some questions are answered, and that’s been a tremendous time saver.”
Dias also pointed to the relationship with Fulcrum as part of the overall experience, not just the product. “The level of customer service that Fulcrum provides all the way through the process, from the first time I clicked to get a demo to now, has stood out,” he said.
“Every single person I’ve interacted with, I feel like they’re empowered. I feel like they communicate clearly. They pay attention to detail, and they treat their job like a verb and not a noun,” he said.
Dias said that approach matched how DPS operates. “You could have the best product in the world, but if everything around it didn’t hold up, we wouldn’t have stuck with Fulcrum.”
For DPS, the work performed and documented in the field directly impacts safety, with small mistakes carrying serious consequences.
As Dias explained, “We’ve saved lives by using Fulcrum. It has helped us tremendously to protect
the integrity of gas infrastructure. I can point you to four or five events in the last two years where folks just like you and I lost their lives because of a lack of attention to detail.”
He added, “Fulcrum keeps my folks focused. It keeps us working down the right path, and it keeps us plugged in to provide the best protection and system integrity that we can.”
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