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A Publication Featuring The Information Services Technology of Maine State Government
By Phil Pinkham
I first came to work for the State Highway Commission, as it was known then, in June, 1970. I was to spend the next six months organizing the project final records and computing the final quantities for the first contract of the Piscataqua River Bridge, I-95 between Kittery, ME, and Portsmouth, NH.
It was necessary to provide a trail for an auditor to follow from the amount of money that was to be paid to a contractor back to an inspector's original measurements or diary entry. The practice was for an inspector to make entries in a bound field book on a daily basis. At the end of a project, another bound, filed book was used as the "Final Quantity Book" (FQB). Each contract item was listed in the FQB. If an item was small, one page could be used for all of the calculations and references to the inspector's diary entries. On some items an inspector might even make his original entry directly into the FQB. If it was a large item or one that involved many calculations there was a reference in the FQB to the "Final Quantity Computations Book" (FQCB). The FQCB was an 8 1/2" x 11" binder containing calculations.
Throughout this whole chain of documents there was one thing that was sacred. It could not be erased. If it was changed, one had to draw a line through it so that the original entry remained legible. It was the inspector's original entry and measurements in the bound field book. Everything else was checked and subject to being changed. After the trail was established for the auditor, another individual had to trace the trail back to the original entry and check all of the computations and references along the way.
The only step along the way where computers were used was when the check was written to pay the contractor. It was six months of tedium. On one occasion, I spent the better part of a day looking for a $0.10 error. Today, an inspector makes a daily entry into a laptop. Software prompts one to provide an item number for the work that is inspected and/or measured. Files are regularly shared with the project's construction manager. The construction manager's software combines the daily entries of each inspector and offers the construction manager the opportunity to make an entry also. Twice a month the construction manager will logon to the network from his field office via modem. He will enter a few keystrokes and authorize a progress payment to the contractor. At the end of the project, the construction manager will again logon to the network, authorize a final payment to be made, and transfer his files to a diskette for the bean counters.
I don't want to give the impression that all is rosy in today's world. There are both software and hardware glitches. The software is sometimes awkward, because it protects the original "sacred" entry. Modem lines are busy. Laptop hard drives crash. Networks crash. However, the six months of tedium has been eliminated.
Phil Pinkham was the MDOT Construction Manager on the newly-completed Bath-Woolwich Bridge on Route One.
At the time of construction this was North America’s longest pre-cast segmental concrete span erected by the balanced cantilever method.