Custom app for excavation data in the trench
The cable and pipe location data should be available at the excavation site itself, and that is not the same as being in the site cabin or in an inbox. It belongs with the operator in the trench at the moment work begins. Where it is not, experience takes its place, and experience is precisely what fails when a pipe is not where it should be.
Why the trench is the decision point
Mechanical excavation requires a notification, and the notification has a short shelf life: at the earliest twenty working days, and at the latest three working days before work starts. Network operators supply their location data for it, and that information must be available at the excavation site.
In practice, a printout hangs in the site cabin or a PDF sits on the site manager's phone. Once the work is rescheduled or a second crew arrives, it is no longer clear which version applies. And at the first scoop of soil, nobody checks it any more.
There is a second obligation on top: if you encounter an unexpected location, you must report it. That is a task performed in a wet trench, in gloves, while the machine stands idle and someone is waiting. Anything that asks for more than a photo and a place simply does not get done.
How we build this
The moment before the first scoop is the unit here. If that is where the notification's validity and the correct map are checked, the rest is administration.
We look at how things work now: where the map is, who has seen it, and what happens when the work has been pushed back. That determines the design.
The supplied data becomes available offline at the place where digging takes place, with its validity date shown.
One action before the machine runs: is the location right, is the notification still valid, is this the correct version. Green or red, not a list.
Photo, place, brief description, send. Anything beyond that does not happen in a trench, and then the obligation goes unmet.
What the app does in practice
The app does little, and that little must work out in the field. Which components you need depends on how many locations you have open at once.
Maps offline at the excavation site
The supplied location data is stored on the device, even without signal. Outside built-up areas that is the normal situation, not the edge case.
Validity before the first scoop
The app shows whether the notification for this location is still valid. Rescheduled work is the most common cause of digging on outdated data, and here it takes one glance to check.
Reporting an unexpected location from the trench
Photo, place and a short description, passed on to the party that manages the notification. The obligation thus becomes an action of seconds instead of a task for later.
Images with time and place
What was found and how it lay. In the case of damage to underground services, that is the most convincing piece of evidence and the one thing that cannot be recreated later.
Recognising the location without searching
The machine operator does not choose from a list but is given the location where they stand. That prevents errors at companies with dozens of open notifications at once.
Connection to the notification register
What happens in the field reaches the file for each location via integrations. That side runs on WIBON software.
Who we build for
The number of locations and the type of work determine the design. Four situations.
Civil, road and hydraulic engineering
Large projects with several trenches and crews at once. Here the question is which map belongs to which section, and that is impossible to keep up with on paper.
Connections and service connections
Short jobs at many addresses in one day. The check has to take seconds, otherwise it gets skipped at the third address.
Groundworks on commission
You dig for someone else and are yourself the excavator. What you record in the field is your position in the event of damage, even if the notification was made by the client.
Municipalities and managers
Your own crews on your own site, often with your own pipes underneath. The app then serves as both a check and a source for your own records, and data exchange runs via the Kadaster integration.
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The app is the field side of your notification register and keeps no archive of its own. Whatever it records ends up in the file for each excavation location.
Why Appfront
The decision is made in the skip, not the site cabin
We bring the data and the validity check to the spot where someone is about to dig. A printout in a site cabin is available but not present.
There's no signal out there
Offline is the starting point. An app that stops working in those conditions gets bypassed, and then people dig from memory.
Reporting has to fit in seconds
The obligation to report a deviating position falls down over effort. We design around the number of steps required, not around completeness of the form.
One file, no second archive
The app writes to the same register as the office side, via integrations. In the event of damage, one coherent file counts.
Security and privacy
Location data for cables and pipes is not public. It is supplied for a single excavation work and not to be kept or passed on, and on a device that moves around a construction site that is a real risk. We limit what is held offline to the locations where this crew works, link the data to the notification it was supplied for, and ensure that a lost device can be disconnected remotely.
On the retention side lies the tension that makes this subject particularly delicate. In the event of excavation damage you need the data from that day to show what you relied on, so deleting it immediately would be unwise. At the same time, it must not serve as a current source for a subsequent job, because then someone digs based on outdated information. We therefore retain the supplied data linked to its notification and with an end date, and render it unusable as a reference once that date has passed. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside go through our vulnerability disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about digging with an app
The information on the position of the networks that you received with your notification. In practice, available means viewable by the person doing the digging, which is not the same as a printout in the site cabin or a PDF in a mailbox nobody can reach.
Yes, that's the starting point. The maps and data are stored locally on the device, and reports sync as soon as there's a connection. For excavation work outside built-up areas or in a basement, that's the normal situation.
The app shows this before work starts, based on the date the notification was made and the period that follows it. Shifted work is the most common cause of digging on outdated data, and here it takes one glance rather than a call to the office.
You are then obliged to report it. In the app that means a photo, the place and a short description, sent on to the person managing the notification. Anything requiring more than that does not happen in a wet trench, and then the obligation remains on paper.
That needs to be possible, as coordinates can be off and a trench is rarely exactly where the drawing places it. Without that option, someone has to search or picks the wrong location from a list, and the latter is the most dangerous.
No, and that's more than a formality. The data was supplied for a single excavation and becomes outdated afterwards. We therefore link it to their report and make it unusable as a reference once the work is finished, while retaining it as evidence in the event of damage.
This app is the field side: the map in the trench and the notification from the work. The WIBON software is the register with validity monitoring against your schedule and the file per location. They share a single data source.
That depends on the number of simultaneous locations, whether map display is needed and which system it needs to integrate with. The validity check with the deviating location report is usually quick to deliver; map display takes more effort. We'll give you a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase.
Getting the map to the machine operator?
Ride along to a location and ask where the location data is. If the answer is the site cabin, then that is the job. We build this as a standalone app and as part of a broader custom app or custom software project.