Other Construction and Engineering Managers
This unit group covers Construction and Engineering Managers not elsewhere classified. It includes Surveying Managers.
A survey day on a hot hill
You are a surveying manager overseeing three field crews, a small office team and a deadline for a map of a new road corridor. It is 6am and the forecast is hot and windy. Two crews are heading out, one instrument has been playing up and the client wants the map by Friday.
Choose what you would do. Then see what happens. There are often good reasons for each choice.
The instrument has been giving odd readings since yesterday. It might be fine, or it might not. We have a long day on the hill, and recalibrating takes most of the morning. What do you want us to do?
Tell her to carry on and check the readings against the control points as she goes
It is a sensible compromise, but the odd readings may already be affecting the data, and checking as you go is less reliable than checking before you start.
Have the instrument checked before the crew sets out, and swap it for the spare if needed
The check takes forty minutes and finds a fault. The spare keeps the crew working and the data stays clean. Trusting your equipment is the foundation of survey work.
Send them out as planned, because the deadline matters more than a small doubt
Half the day's data turns out to be unusable. The crew repeats the work next week, and the deadline slips anyway. A doubt about the tool is a doubt about every number.
It is getting really hot up here, and a few of us are feeling it. We are behind schedule, and nobody wants to be the one to slow things down. Should we push through, or stop for a proper break?
Tell them to take the break, and pace the rest of the work to the heat
The crew rests, drinks water and works the cooler hours. The schedule moves, but nobody gets sick. A survey is only as good as the people holding the instruments.
Tell them to push through for another hour, since the schedule is slipping, and then stop
One crew member begins to feel unwell, and the afternoon is lost anyway. Pushing through when people are already struggling usually costs more than it saves.
Tell them to use their own judgement, since they are the ones feeling it on the hill
They are best placed to tell, but nobody wants to be the first to stop. Leaving it to individuals puts the pressure back on them. Leaders set the expectation.
I need the map by Friday. I understand you have a data check going on, but my builders are waiting. Can you send me what you have now, and correct it later if something changes?
Send the unchecked data now, to keep the builders moving, and correct it later if anything changes
The builders start work on figures that later change. Some of the work has to be redone, and the cost lands on the client, with your name on the original data.
Send the checked sections now, mark which parts are still under review and give a firm date
The builders can start on the parts that are reliable and wait on the rest. Priyank gets something useful and honest, and your team keeps its credibility.
Refuse to send anything until the whole map is finished and checked, however long it takes
The data is protected, but the builders have nothing to do and Priyank is frustrated. Splitting the delivery would have helped both sides.
How it went
By the end of the day the instrument is fixed, the crews are safe and the client has a partial delivery with a clear date for the rest. Survey managers are trusted to get measurements right so everyone else can build on them. Do you like the idea of work where accuracy matters this much?
This is a simplified, fictional situation to help you explore. It is not professional instruction or a test of your ability.
Case study: The map that was out by a little
A fictional case set in the survey division of a fictional engineering company that maps land for roads and housing estates.
The situation
Surveying manager Caoimhe Fitzgerald oversaw the survey of a hillside for a new housing estate for Ridgeline Engineering. A week before the plans were due to be sent to the builders, a junior surveyor, Tomás, noticed that two sets of measurements from different days did not quite match. The difference was small, a few centimetres, but over the length of the road it could affect where drains and pipes were placed. Nobody else had noticed. The client was waiting and the crews had already moved to another job.
What they did
Caoimhe thanked Tomás and asked him to show her exactly where the figures differed. She sent a crew back to re-measure the disputed section, and she held the plans until the answer was clear. She rang the client's engineer herself to explain that a check was under way and to give a firm new date. A faulty reference marker was found, and the data was corrected before anyone had built on it.
How it turned out
The plans went out three days late with the corrected figures. The client's engineer said he would rather have a late map than a wrong one. Caoimhe added a rule that any mismatch between two sets of measurements must be checked before work moves on, however small.
What would you do?
- Why was Tomás's small observation so important?
- How would you feel about delaying a deadline to double-check something that might be fine?
- What do you think makes a survey trustworthy to the people building from it?