GIS Proposal Questions

why the secrecy?

i put in a proposal to locate every hydrant in the greater boston area
my method would be to buy a segway, build a little doodad to be able to drive up to a hydrant and align the doodad to the hydrant with a gps up above, then grab an RTK shot and move to the next one. if a float solution, mark it in the description to return with ground equipment and having a crew with a TS and GPS rover to quickly RTK three points and the hydrant.

i figured every location would be well within 1', certainly well within the radius of the hydrant itself. 95% would be even closer.

plus photos of each structure (don't forget the essential photos)

they opted for a proposal using handheld, GIS grade accumulation that was not much less expensive than my fancy pants methods... penny wise and pound foolish...

I had a few questions about how to price this type of service, and did not want to give the appearance of any type of price fixing or collusion.

I can't see how we can charge what a normal survey crew would charge for this type of data collection. Many of the utility companies around here are using employees to gather the data. I am trying to get my foot in the door with my local town to get some experience in this type of work.

Sounds like fun. Keep us posted.

Nosy lurkers are interested.

😉

Instead of price, shouldn't you be selling your ability to the prospective client?

It brings to mind an article I read years ago (sorry can't find a copy anywhere) about a local government entity that wanted to collect GIS data on their utility infrastructure.

They hired a dozen college students, armed them with a data collects, and under the supervision of existing employees the hunt for information was on. After months of intense data collection only a small portion of the town had been finished and of all the data collected, only a small percentage of it was deem usable (Based on overlaying points on aerials and ground truthing). Frantic to show some return on investment, a small group of survey professionals were brought in. In a short amount of time a large portion of the town had been shot in with high levels of confidence in the data.

It turned out that you can teach people to use hardware and software. It's a little bit harder to teach people how to effectively collect data.

Thanks for the replies, and the emails.

I am definitely NOT going to lowball this. The Mayor is a BIG supporter of using the locals to do work in the Town.

I want to make sure they get the information that they need, and do it at a professional price, and hopefully be on the "team" for managing the data for many years to come.

This will be my first project of this type, so there will be a learning curve, and there will be many "unbillable" hours I am sure. My relationship with the Town lends itself to be a good project to learn this type of work, especially the way I intend to approach it.

It sounds to me like you are thinking like a surveyor (not necessarily a bad thing) but you are in a new market where our typical thoughts and ideas rarely will get the job. In the example above, you can see that a gis type location good to 1.5-10 feet wins out over a reasonable cost solution that gives better and more reliable accuracy. This is why surveyors dont get these jobs. We are overly honest with our numbers. We know that the manufactur promises of GIS handheld at "submeter" is a farce and therefore we use a more expensive method than a GIS firm would to meet the specs. My point is that we will always lose these jobs to firms that are willing to either
a) understand that GIS grade is good enough for the job or
b) come up with faster ways to locate datasets.
for instance Network RTK can collect data fast enough to make us competitive with superior results. Mobile scanners and Lidar will be feasible at some point. Market that to the client. The segway is an interesting concept for an urban setting.
Understand that the client may still say the cheapest bid wins....in that case, you have to be able to win on cost...
I hope that these thoughts are helpful to you.

I am also interested in providing infrastructure mapping services via GPS and a GIS software.

Has anybody tried Manifold GIS? How does the cost-learning curve compare to the big package?

Many years ago heard a story that may give some perspective. This was about the time total stations were becoming the instrument of choice. Architect had requested quotes for a "stadia survey" and required copies of the raw stadia topo notes as well as the finished contour map. All the proposals returned included statements that 3D coordinate lists would be provided from electronic data collected total station topo shots.

Story was architect called surveyor he had worked with for years and ranted about not wanting to pay for the increased accuracy of an edm "stadia is good enough and has got to be cheaper" was his argument. Architect wanted to be able to spot check stadia distance and elevation computations to verify map accuracy. He had difficulty believing total stations no longer included stadia cross hairs and the edm/data collector combination was quicker. Surveyor needed to go to architect's office and demonstrate the equipment to show the change.

Those outside surveying do not always know what progress has been made and how it has changed surveying. At times it takes showing them the time cost equation to get them to understand.

Harold
I haven't tried Manifold but take a look at Global Mapper. It is now owned by Blue Marble. The support to the user is great.