Axiom Utility Solutions: A Case Study

How Axiom Utility Solutions leverages Katapult Pro to execute large scale engineering projects without relying on a large team. The difference is how the platform is utilized: automating repetitive tasks, integrating layered QA/QC, and maximizing productivity through API integration and custom built tools.

While a 30,000 line mile project with a tight six week turnaround may seem intimidating to most, for Matt Acker, P.E., it brings excitement. For Axiom Utility Solutions, it represents the exact kind of opportunity the team was built to pursue using Katapult Pro’s software & custom workflows.

Matt is a program manager at Axiom Utility Solutions, a new firm he helped stand up that grew from two people to a dozen in a matter of months due to a clear vision:

“We want to build an engineering company that clients see as a partner they can rely on, not just another contractor, known to deliver on committed timelines and deliverables that can be trusted to be accurate without requiring QA/QC review.”

- Matthew Acker, P.E., Program Manager, Axiom Utility Solutions

That standard shapes every decision, and it pre-dates Matt's use of Katapult Pro. It started early in his career, when Matt was handed a stick and a vest and was sent to Florida to collect his own pole measurements. When he missed data, he was the one who had to go back and re-collect it, which meant long weekend drives away from his family. He hand collected data that way for more than two years, and by the end he knew exactly what good field data required, because he had paid for every pickup himself.

He carried that standard through the rest of his career, and along the way he watched Katapult Pro go from barely known to nearly everywhere. Today he sees his competitors' deliverables built around the same system he’s used for years. That triggered a strategic shift: once everyone runs on the same platform, the platform itself stops being the advantage.

“Now it's not whether or not you use Katapult, it's how you use Katapult. How well do you use technology? That's the difference.”

What that looks like in practice is a team that never stops building. When a project landed with an unusually heavy NJUNS load and a tight clock, his team built an automated NJUNS tool on our API instead of grinding the tickets out by hand. In his words, they “were able to build an automated NJUNS API tool that more than tripled our NJUNS ticket creation speed, while improving quality due to automated data inputs.”

When Target Detection became available for photo processing, they adopted it and measured the result: a “41.6% increase in our productivity on photo processing once we integrated the AI calibration assist.”

And when a client needed an unusual anchor analysis, his team asked us for a small tool that reads line angle from two clicked spans. As Matt puts it, “something that took fifteen seconds it reduces to three seconds, and in the game we play, every second matters.”

The proof shows up in the field. On one project, his team went head to head with a strong incumbent running the same software, and within a few months the client was pointing to the difference in the data itself, down to how his crews held the stick and placed each measurement. It was the same platform on both sides, producing an entirely different result. “Exceptional field data leads to exceptional engineering deliverable quality.”

If you are standing up an engineering firm right now, Matt would advise you to start small:

“Don't start by hiring too many people. Start by building a highly efficient, bulletproof operating system.”

Axiom built that operating system on Katapult Pro to meet his team’s high standard for quality, efficiency, and scalability. We’re proud to be one of the tools helping to power that operation, and prouder still to see Axiom using our platform to solve complex engineering challenges and help strengthen the utility infrastructure in the communities they serve.