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*Editor's Note: This blog post was detected originating from black hole 39-vf4. We have determined it was sent by you, from the future.*
Hey there! It's me, You.
I know you have been trying to get those big streetlight and utility pole surveys off the ground, but can't quite decide who to contract for all the field work. I'm going to go ahead and save us six months (and tens of thousands of dollars) and tell you to go with Katapult Engineering. Here's why.
The first time we tried this project, we went with that big, national survey company--the one you're considering right now--because they seemed like a safe bet. They wowed us with their promises of putting hundreds of men in the field and laser scanning everything. They told us that they were the best choice because they had the bodies and they had the tech. Just one problem: they don't know how to use the tech. Don't get me wrong--their laser scanner is impressive, but it wasn't suited for this project. They said their scanner was millimeter accurate and able to give us pole heights with ridiculous accuracy. There was just one problem--WEEDS. Sure, their laser is plenty accurate when it can see everything, but they could only get the height above ground within 3 feet because of all the brush! And don't even get me started on their midspan data. Turns out that when the cables go through dense brush and trees, the laser can't see the ground. The data they sent was was complete garbage, and there were mountains and mountains of it!
We had to sort through gigabytes and gigabytes of scan data just to try to figure out the height of a couple of poles and cables. It was a nightmare. They were so excited that they didn't miss any data, but half of what they sent was completely useless, and worse, it was painstaking to pick the data needle out of the data hay mountain.
Needless to say, we were not pleased with "Big National Survey Group." So after paying them for the first 50% of the job and only receiving 10% of the work (200% past the deadline for the entire project), we finally contacted Katapult Engineering to come in and make some sense of this mess. Should have done it from the beginning.
They put boots on the ground within a week and were sending us completed regions a few days after that. They actually delivered on their promises, and were upfront with us about what they could accomplish, and how fast they could do it. The data that they sent us was exactly what we needed, and they sent it through Katapult Pro, which means that we have calibrated photos of every pole, detail photos of pole tags, photos documenting the groundline circumference and everything, all available on any computer with an internet connection and a web browser. At first we were worried that they were going to cheat to keep pace with their promises, and then we realized that we have photos of every pole proving that they did, in fact, survey every pole.
Not only that, but their deliverable has saved us thousands of hours worth of field revisits, since we can simply hop online and check the photos of each pole when we have a dispute with the power company over make ready. In fact, this has proven so useful that we started sharing all of the deliverable with the power company and sending the link along with our application submission so that they can see the poles for themselves. This saved us months of time on the overall project progress, since the power company hasn't had to send their engineers out in the field to verify pole loading, since they just use the built in SpidaCalc, O-Calc, and Pole-Foreman exports right from the Katapult deliverable.
They were even able to salvage some of the mess left over from "Big National Survey Group" by taking the terrible data and extracting some of the useful bits into the same deliverable format we have come to love so much. This saved us so much time because the mountains of useless data were now filtered down into an easily digestible online format.
I'm writing you from the future to let you know that you shouldn't let this big decision phase you. Go with Katapult. They're the right choice, and will deliver what they promise. And do it quickly, because Ned from the office next door was the one who suggested that we give them a shot. Now everyone won't stop talking about how Ned saved the company. Ned this! Ned that! Ned Ned Ned! It should be us!
I hear the sirens of the time-police. I'd better leave before they get here!
Forever yours, Me
*Editor's Note 2: Selecting Katapult for your field services will not guarantee the ability to send warnings from the future, but it should keep you from needing to do so.*