A lot of me fellow authors have been writing about return on investment. In this installment, I would like to offer my unique perspective on the subject.

My first exposure to a salesman’s discussion regarding ROI (return on investment) was when I was the purchasing authority deciding on acquiring a robotic total station and Blade Pro 3D. In the early 80’s, it had to be over fifty thousand dollars if I remember correctly. That was a lot of money at that time. We were involved in doing runways for the Air Force. They like things nice and smooth. Being less than a couple miles long the ROI spread sheet came out looking pretty lame. It would take a lot of runways to save blue topping, stone and earthmoving dollars to pay that thing off.

What people were not paying attention to was what I call the “Excedrin Factor”. If they added a line item on the ROI calculations for aggravation and trouble, you would never need to worry about the rock savings in the subgrade. Get me out of here sooner while making the customer happy and getting me my rideability bonus. The sticky part of that is you need to have your ducks in a row regarding the model.

Regarding the need for high accuracy data, I need to define the split from sites to roads. On a site, you are usually able to see when things don’t look right. When you see the parking lot sloping up to a drain, you stop and do a local repair in that area and complete the rest of the job. When dealing with a highway, there is often times not as much freedom to adjust the results. Right of way limits and previous work makes it impossible to warp the changes into the design and therefore become costly mistakes. Here is what you need to do to avoid problems with complicated projects.

The best thing about these critical projects is there are talented folks surrounding them. I am not saying that the fast food restaurant site is not important. With larger projects comes more substantial involvement by all parties involved. You need to take advantage of the resources available to you. You can be assured of these points working for the bigger jobs; many times you can use these tips on smaller ones.

Get as much information as possible. Don’t stop with the paper and CAD. Are there xml or point files of existing and proposed surfaces? Have they made a surface you can use to help in areas where the plans lack detail? Get everything they will give you, someday it may come in handy.

Get a contact at the engineering firm who has a good understanding of what you are doing. In this case, I never try to work with the design engineer, we save them for the big issues. I look for a draftsperson who is working on the roads for the project.

Begin communication and feed information back and forth. We never mind sending our models to the engineer. So many people are afraid someone will find a mistake. Don’t you think it would be better to find a bust on the screen instead of the concrete?

Stay safely ahead. It does not matter that you have a bid due, if you cannot take time to build, wait then check your work, the quality will suffer. This needs to be understood by the bosses before the project begins, not as a surprise. With all our experience, we still go “radio silent” when performing critical portions of a job. The phone goes on do not disturb, cell phone is silenced and the door closed. This is detailed work, you need to pay attention.

When you approach difficult jobs as a member of a team you will find other people besides yourself motivated to produce a great product.

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