Make Ready Engineering Made Easier

Make ready is an integral part of our industry. Not only does it help get faster internet and cable to customers across the country, but it's also the way we protect utility poles and the people around them.

Calling make ready isn't for everyone. It typically requires a unique combination of creativity, experience, and industry knowledge--not to mention a good memory of NESC and other clearance requirements.

We're a relatively small shop here at 54 Old York Road, but we have plenty of make ready work to do. Instead of hiring 25-year industry veterans to help us churn through the work, we decided to think outside the box.

Our rock star coders built a new tool that would flag make ready violations in our software using a list of MR rules that meet all regulations for the region.

Once these rules have been set, any violation will be flagged red in Katapult Pro, as well as display which MR rule has been violated. The goal was two-fold: speed up the process by having our software check for violations, and highlight violations for our users so they can make the MR call necessary and move on.

As you can see in the example above, someone calling make ready could take a very quick glance at the screen and know where their attention is needed. After making the necessary MR moves (click and drag to the desired heights), the colors turn yellow to indicate that the pole will now be in accordance with make ready requirements.

We also built visual indicators into our mapper so you can get an idea of the kind of make ready the job requires. Poles with no violations are displayed in green, while poles with violations are orange. Once the violations have been resolved, the color changes to yellow.

While this tool drastically lowers the barriers for entry in the world of calling make ready, it still requires a creative mind and some basic understanding of the industry and which types of MR moves are easiest.

Have a backlog of make ready engineering on your hands? Katapult Pro might be the answer you're looking for! Call us at 717-432-0716 or email me at aschmehl@katapultengineering.com to set up a demo.