The Central Valley Chapter of the California Land Surveyors Association set up a Construction Committee at its March 28, 2012 meeting. I'll be getting the committee organized to start work.
I'm very interested in hearing from land surveyors in other states that have done work on standards or legislation related to machine control and the use of digital design files during construction. Our committee doesn't want to re-invent the wheel. We'd like to build upon an incorporate existing work on these issues by other land surveying organizations. Please contact me if you can help with knowledge of existing work in this area.
I'm also interested in working with contractors, surveying equipment vendors, or civil engineers on the documents and guidelines that will be developed by the committee.
I'd like to release all of the documents produced by the committee under a Creative Commons license. Hopefully this will increase feedback and adoption.
Please let me know if you are interested. You can contact me via e-mail. (sunburned.surveyor@gmail.com or lblake@ksninc.com).
Thanks!
The Sunburned Surveyor
P.S. - Here is a description of the committee:
The primary goal of the Construction Committee is to prepare land surveyors and civil engineers for changes caused by machine control technology and the use of digital design files during construction. In its initial work the committee to strive to reach this goal by completing the following tasks:
1)Research current surveying and civil engineering practices related to the use of machine control and digital design files during construction.
2)Prepare standard scope of professional service language related to machine control and digital design files for surveying services provided during BOTH design and construction.
3)Prepare standard license agreements that can be used to release digital engineering or surveying files to third parties. The license agreements will address liability, warranty, error reporting, and the role of the design/surveying firm during construction.
4)Prepare standard construction specification language related to the use of machine control and digital design files during construction.
5)Discuss issues related to responsible charge and licensing as they are related to the use of machine control and digital design files during construction.
6)Prepare guidelines for the surveyor’s role during design and construction when machine control and digital design files will be used by the contractor.
7)Prepare standards for digital design file or topographic data deliverables to the contractor for use during construction.
Do you have to be licensed for construction staking?
Do you have to be licensed for creating surfaces?
Are there questions concerning machine control data on the PE or PLS exams?
I know NC has rules regulating who can create models as a third party but they don't enforce them.
Thad:
I believe it depends on the state. In California most surveying for construction would need to be performed under the supervisions of a PE or PLS.
However, this law is rarely enforced, as I imagine is the case in a lot of other places.
The Sunburned Surveyor
