Methods and apparatus for analyzing locate and marking operations with respect to historical information
First Claim
1. An apparatus for automatically assessing a quality of a first locate and marking operation performed by a field technician using locating equipment to identify a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility at a work site of proposed excavation so as to facilitate mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during subsequent excavation activities performed at the work site, the first locate and marking operations being performed by the field technician in response to a locate request ticket that specifies the work site of the proposed excavation, the apparatus comprising:
- at least one piece of locating equipment;
a memory storing processor-executable instructions;
at least one I/O interface;
at least one display device;
a processor communicatively coupled to the at least one piece of locating equipment, the memory, the at least one display device, and the at least one I/O interface, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions, the processor;
A) performs electronic comparisons;
A1) current facility type information relating to an underground facility identified during a first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility type information related to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a first discrepancy between the current facility type information and the historical facility type information;
A2) current facility location information related to an underground facility identified during a first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility location information relating to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a second discrepancy between the current facility location information and the historical facility location information;
B) automatically generates, based on the comparison in A1) and A2), at least one quality assessment indication for a quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation, adjusting the quality assessment more negatively for the first discrepancy relating to facility type information than on the second discrepancy relating to facility location information;
C) electronically stores in the memory, and/or electronically transmits to at least one entity associated with the locate and marking operation or the excavation activities, via the at least one I/O interface, the at least one quality assessment indication to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation so as to facilitate the mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during the excavation activities performed at the work site; and
D) displays the at least one quality assessment indication on the at least one display device.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Methods, apparatus and systems including a computer comprising at least one hardware processor, at least one tangible storage medium (memory), and at least one input/output (I/O) interface for evaluating a quality of a first locate and/or marking operation to identify a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility. First information relating to the first locate and/or marking operation is compared to second information relating to at least one second locate and/or marking operation different from the first locate and/or marking operation. One or more indications of a quality assessment of the locate and/or marking operation is automatically generated based on such a comparison, and the one or more indications of the quality assessment are electronically stored on the at least one tangible storage medium, and/or electronically transmitted via the at least one I/O interface, so as to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment.
279 Citations
27 Claims
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1. An apparatus for automatically assessing a quality of a first locate and marking operation performed by a field technician using locating equipment to identify a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility at a work site of proposed excavation so as to facilitate mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during subsequent excavation activities performed at the work site, the first locate and marking operations being performed by the field technician in response to a locate request ticket that specifies the work site of the proposed excavation, the apparatus comprising:
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at least one piece of locating equipment; a memory storing processor-executable instructions; at least one I/O interface; at least one display device; a processor communicatively coupled to the at least one piece of locating equipment, the memory, the at least one display device, and the at least one I/O interface, wherein upon execution of the processor-executable instructions, the processor; A) performs electronic comparisons; A1) current facility type information relating to an underground facility identified during a first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility type information related to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a first discrepancy between the current facility type information and the historical facility type information; A2) current facility location information related to an underground facility identified during a first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility location information relating to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a second discrepancy between the current facility location information and the historical facility location information; B) automatically generates, based on the comparison in A1) and A2), at least one quality assessment indication for a quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation, adjusting the quality assessment more negatively for the first discrepancy relating to facility type information than on the second discrepancy relating to facility location information; C) electronically stores in the memory, and/or electronically transmits to at least one entity associated with the locate and marking operation or the excavation activities, via the at least one I/O interface, the at least one quality assessment indication to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation so as to facilitate the mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during the excavation activities performed at the work site; and D) displays the at least one quality assessment indication on the at least one display device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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26. In a computer comprising a memory, at least one I/O interface, a processor communicatively coupled to a piece of locating equipment, and at least one display device, a method for automatically assessing a quality of a first locate and marking operation, performed by a field technician using the locating equipment to identify a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility at a work site of proposed excavation so as to facilitate mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during subsequent excavation activities performed at the work site, the first locate and marking operation being performed by the field technician in response to a locate request ticket that specifies the work site of the proposed excavation, the method comprising:
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A) performing electronic comparisons, via the processor, of; A1) current facility type information relating to an underground facility identified during a first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility type information related to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a first discrepancy between the current facility type information and the historical facility type information; A2) current facility location information related to an underground facility identified during a first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility location information relating to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a second discrepancy between the current facility location information and the historical facility location information; B) automatically generating, based on the comparison in A1) and A2), at least one quality assessment indication for a quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation, adjusting the quality assessment more negatively for the first discrepancy relating to facility type information than on the second discrepancy relating to facility location information; C) electronically storing in the memory, and/or electronically transmitting to at least one entity associated with the locate and marking operation or the excavation activities, via the at least one I/O interface, the at least one quality assessment indication to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation so as to facilitate the mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during the excavation activities performed at the work site; and D) displaying the at least one quality assessment indication on the at least one display device.
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27. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with computer-executable instructions which, when executed by at least one processor, perform a method for automatically assessing a quality of a first locate and marking operation, performed automatically by a field technician using locating equipment, communicatively coupled to the at least one processor, to identify a presence or an absence of at least one underground facility at a work site of proposed excavation so as to facilitate mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during subsequent excavation activities performed at the work site, the first locate and marking operation being performed by the field technician in response to a locate request ticket that specifies the work site of the proposed excavation, the method comprising:
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A) electronically comparing; A1) current facility type information relating to the at least one underground facility identified during the first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility type information relating to at least one previously-performed historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a first discrepancy between the current facility type information and the historical facility type information; and A2) current facility location information relating to the at least one underground facility identified during the first locate and marking operation and generated by the locating equipment, and historical facility location information relating to the at least one historical locate and marking operation, so as to identify a second discrepancy between the current facility location information and the historical facility location information; B) automatically generating, based on the comparing in A), at least one quality assessment indication of the first locate and marking operation, wherein the at least one indication of the quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation is adjusted more negatively based on the first discrepancy relating to facility type information than on the second discrepancy relating to facility location information; C) electronically storing in a memory, and/or electronically transmitting to at least one entity associated with the locate and marking operation or the excavation activities, via at least one I/O interface, the at least one quality assessment indication to provide an electronic record of the quality assessment of the first locate and marking operation so as to facilitate the mitigation of damage to the at least one underground facility during the excavation activities performed at the work site; and D) displaying the at least one quality assessment indication on at least one display device.
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Specification