Our approach to modelling archived site investigation data on a site with a history of chalk mining was highly commended at this year’s Keynetix Data Management Awards.

“We had a large amount of data – mainly hand-written logs – from the site, dating back to 1999,” explained Harrison Data Manager Conrad Stewart. “Rather than just proposing additional fieldwork, we decided to digitise this information first.

“We used Autodesk Civil 3D to create a model that gave us the opportunity to validate the mapped locations of the mining pit and shafts and to add value to our engineering assessment.

“Despite the task being more in line with a desk study, the results and interpretation we provided was as if a full-scale investigation had been carried out. This provided useful insight to site conditions, but at far lower cost. Plus, we now have a database of information that can be used for other sites in the area.”

Four of our entries to this year’s Keynetix Data Management Awards were shortlisted in three categories: Data collaboration, data innovation and data visualisation.

“These entries demonstrated our full range of capability, from changing our company culture towards centralised data management, to improving project status updates, and an innovative approach of combining NHBC tree assessments with site investigation data,” Conrad added.

“Geotechnical and geoenvironmental software is advancing at a rapid rate,” he said. “We have always been an early adopter of new data management tools and technologies, to help us to gather investigation, monitoring and insitu test data on site; improve how we manage laboratory test data; and to deliver BIM-ready ground models. Together, this helps our clients get the maximum benefit from investigations.”