InfoTown™
Stevie's journey · Engineering · Lesson 6

The readings nobody read

Before you start

In the story

The monitors saw it on Tuesday. The people who could do something saw it eight days later.

Back to the story

The right way

Before digging

The designer's trigger levels go into a plan: green, amber and red, who is told at each, and how fast. Readings go into one shared place the same morning, for the site manager and the designer.

Tuesday, amber

Stevie rings the site manager and the designer before lunch. Digging pauses, the designer checks, and extra props go in.

Wednesday

The readings settle. No crack, and a short note on the record says what happened and why.

Friday's PDFA trigger seen by nobody for eight days, and a crack in the old Precinct.
A phone call before lunchTriggers with names and deadlines, and a pause before the crack.
Think like Stevie

Information someone has to act on needs a deadline as well as an address. Who needs to see this reading, how quickly, and what do they do when it's amber? If the answer is "it's in Friday's PDF", it's already late.

Continue Stevie's journey

Story 7: Drawn versus built

Forty design drawings, one afternoon, one rubber stamp that says AS BUILT.
The right way, explained

The right way, explained

The town has a gauge on the river. Writing the level in a diary and posting it on Fridays is no use to anyone. When the water rises, somebody rings the bell.

If you're the designer

If you're the designer

Set trigger levels that mean something, and say who you need to hear from, and how fast, when one is reached. Then make sure you're on the phone list, not just the email list.

In the town See it in the town: the monitors saw it on Tuesday. So who saw it next?

Stevie's view: the user's line starts with a need. Here the need has a deadline, and the line has to be fast.

Need, find, trust, use, prove A transit line with five stops. At Need, Dave asks which drain goes in Area 2. At Find, a tablet search finds Drawing 042 in the Site Office. At Trust, its label shows revision C02, published. At Use, a trench is dug with the pipe in it. At Prove, a photo records that it was built to C02. A dashed line carries the proof back to the Site Office for the next person. Which drain goesin Area 2? Area 2 drainage 042 · C02 · A5 Drawing 042 Rev C02 Area 2 drainage A5 ✓ Built to C02 NEEDFINDTRUSTUSEPROVE Why do I need it?Where is it?Is it the right one?Do the jobCan I show it later? The proof goes back to the Site Office, ready for the next person who needs it
Pick a stopDave's morning

Need

On site
IM calls it
Watch out for

This is Monitoring Information!

Readings with a purpose: who needs them, how fast, and what happens when one crosses the line.

Sam's Heads Up Sensors don't read their own texts

InfoTown good practice: Monitoring data is shared, acted on and kept.

On your job: Automatic sensors can text people when a trigger trips. Check who's actually on the list, and test it before the dig starts.

For the audit What the auditor will ask
  • Show me the trigger levels, and who is told when one is reached.
  • Show me what happened the last time a reading went amber.
For the audit What good evidence looks like
  • A monitoring plan with trigger levels, actions and named contacts.
  • Readings shared the same day they're taken.
  • A record of each trigger and the response to it.
From the standard
ISO 19650 Monitoring data

ISO 19650 doesn't set trigger levels or alert times; those come from the designer and your project. What it adds is that monitoring data is project information like any other: planned, shared through the CDE and kept.

Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 is © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.