Henry Brophy (Damage Prevention Solutions): "Bill, thanks for joining the Damage Prevention Solutions booth. How’s the show been going for you so far?"
Bill Kiger (Pennsylvania 811): "Show's doing great. "
Henry: "Awesome."
Bill: "We had the education part of it, too, and the meetings have been very useful and very engaging."
Henry: "Awesome. That's great to hear, and before we get into the conversation, do you mind just introducing yourself, role, name, and organization you're with."
Bill: "I’m Bill Kiger. I'm the President and CEO of 811 Pennsylvania, and I've been doing this for 52 years."
Henry: "Oh, wow. Well, thank you for being here. The theme of our booth this year is “Preventing Damages by Design”, bringing, you know, engineering and design teams closer to damage prevention. Do you mind just kind of telling you what that means to you and Pennsylvania 811?"
Bill: "Well, again, as I mentioned, I've been around for a long time and one of the nice things about Pennsylvania law is it started out with the design requirement. So, our designers have known about it for many decades and, you know, they still don't do it as often as I'd like them to, but they're getting the hang of it. And, you know, what I'm wanting them to do is to plan safely, to dig safely, and if you don't have a plan, you're not going to get a safe project out of the other end, and you're probably going to cost you a lot more, and change orders cost way more than the actual work that you're doing, because you've got to start over essentially each time."
Henry: "Yeah, and so, kind of where, where do you think that relationship is that disconnect between like, you know, engineering and damage prevention is right now?"
Bill: "I think you see a mighty attempt to cut the costs."
Henry: "Okay. "
Bill: "Everybody wants to do it for the least dollar and you can't design without costing something, and our law also requires a subset of utility engineering if the project is greater than $400,000, so, you have to use the appropriate level of subsurface utility engineering right out of the chute. So having that you have a better plan. You have more accurate information to work from. You know, everybody wants to dump the work on the contractor’s shoulders."
Henry: "That's what I've heard."
Bill: "And, you know, they even have something they refer to now as “design build” and the contractor is responsible for all of it. Well, how can you design? When I look at it as you’re seating of the pants-ing of the thing, and it's not working, and if you design it properly, the work's going to be safer. It's going to get done on time and it's going to get done on budget or less. So, we developed something we call Coordinate PA that allows them to do that, and they can start in the pre-design, what we call the “concept phase”, and take it all the way through the completion stage and have the entire project documented, so if there is an issue, you have total documentation end-to-end."
Henry: "And who are the stakeholders in this program?"
Bill: "Well, it's the project owner, the designer, the contractor, the utilities, and the call center."
Henry: "Okay, and damage prevention sits at the utilities, the damage prevention teams within the utilities play in there where."
Bill: "Understand the utilities are the one call center because that's who owns us. You know, we're nonprofits typically across the country, and the whole purpose of this is to get together, do everything once, not multiple times, and that's again what our Coordinate PA allows them to collaborate."
Henry: "I want to hear about this collaboration piece."
Bill: "Department of Transportation has their 12-year let schedule in the system. So, if you're going to do work at a certain area and you know that there's going to be road work done there, do it ahead of time. You don't have to pay for all the refinishing of everything when you're done, because the state's going to do that for you, or you're going to be a part of that."
Henry: "Right. Right, and on this [Coordinate] PA is this is Pennsylvania kind of leading this or are their other?"
Bill: "We’re the only ones that have it, everybody else is trying to get there."
Henry: "What advice would you give to the other states that are looking to have this kind of collaborative piece?"
Bill: "Happy to talk to you. Happy to tell you about our mistakes. We are also willing to partner so other states can join us. Simply an API within the system to marry it to whatever system you're using, and the way you go."
Henry: "Awesome, and just as we kind of wrap up here, if you could give one piece of advice to engineering teams and damage prevention teams about closing this collaboration gap and, it seems like you guys are already kind of leading this in PA, but what's one piece of advice you would give to those teams about collaboration?"
Bill: "Well, again, one of the most important components of this is saving money. We have a case study that show 50% reduction in cost where the rest of the world across the board and in case of a municipal situation where municipalities paving their roads, working together with them, they got not only the roads they were going to pave at half off, but all the rest of the projects, since the contractor’s there, already mobilized to do the paving they gave, they got the same price as the municipality. So, everybody wins."
Henry: "Win, win. Love to hear that, and I just want to I'm letting all 811 centers on this on this video series. You want to plug anything to."
Bill: "Yes"
Henry: "Please plug away."
Bill: "We have our five safety days coming up, and I can give you a little card that has it."
Henry: "I'll attach it."
Bill: "Okay, and that starts the 21st of May in Erie, Pennsylvania, and the whole process is a one-day class. Essentially talking about damage prevention, and it always starts with a plan."
Henry: "Awesome. Well, Bill thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the show."
Bill: "Thank you."
