Using technology to facilitate contractor and consultant collaboration

Overview

Communication between contractors and consultants can be difficult, especially when geography makes it impossible for everyone to visit a site. In this ICE South West Lunch and Learn webinar, Alex Parr of Balfour Beatty explores how digital surveying tools are helping bridge that gap. 

The presentation will begin with an overview of drone photogrammetry and how it can rapidly generate accurate topographical surveys for earthworks planning. These surveys support volume calculations, cut and fill assessments and reporting, offering a faster and safer alternative to traditional ground-based methods.

Alex will then explore the use of OpenSpace, a reality capture platform that creates a 3D interactive walkthrough of the site—much like Google Street View. Its “field notes” feature allows issues, design queries and observations to be pinned directly to site features, giving teams a shared visual reference regardless of where they are based. This approach makes coordination between contractors, consultants and project managers easier and reduces the back and forth often caused by unclear photos or descriptions.

To round off, the webinar will explain how LiDAR scans, captured in a matter of seconds, can be embedded within field notes to provide accurate measurements for checking levels, clearances and as built details.

Combined, these tools highlight how modern digital capture methods can make communication clearer, improve decision making and streamline project delivery—even when teams are spread across different locations.