Headlight Inspection Program

Location:  Frisco 2

Speaker:  Tyson Rupnow, PhD – LADOTD

Presentation Description
Traditionally, DOTD has relied on a primarily paper-based process for field data collection. Mobile technology (defined as hardware and software that can be used in concert to allow integrated data collection, access to project-related information, and realtime communication capabilities) continues to improve and become more affordable. This research project explored the feasibility of replacing the traditional, paper-based inspection process with a cloud-based, mobile project inspection technology named HeadLight, piloting this technology on over 50 projects across four districts in Louisiana. A materials module was also developed. Inspectors using HeadLight experienced a 28 percent increase in productivity when creating and submitting daily work reports (DWRs). The increase in productivity for Department-wide adoption is estimated to exceed 117,000 hours per year. Inspectors collected and shared 1.9 times more observations while increasing the number of photo and other media observations which contributes to a more complete record of the project and provides immeasurable value to DOTD. Project inspectors using HeadLight provide more complete and consistent data tagged with time and location metadata. DWRs are automatically generated from daily observations eliminating omission and transcription errors with submission rate improvements up to 66 percent completed within 24 hours and up to 82 percent completed within 72 hours. By increasing the timeliness of submitted DWRs, data is more readily available across DOTD. Data stored in HeadLight provides a wealth of material for future training of new employees and even training of existing employees for particularly unique construction scenarios. It was observed that none of the projects using HeadLight had a lost claim that occurred during this pilot study. While more research is warranted, this suggests that HeadLight provided both DOTD and contractors an improved communication platform to resolve issues before they escalated to a dispute and/or claim. It is anticipated that the benefits listed will be more considerable when the technology is further leveraged using big data analytics.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Rupnow is the Associate Director for Research at the Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC). Dr. Rupnow holds a M.S. in geotechnical engineering and a Ph.D. in civil engineering materials from Iowa State University. Prior to joining LTRC, he worked as a post doctoral research associate for the National Concrete Pavement Technology Center in Ames, Iowa. Prior to promoting to the Associate Director, Research where he administers the research program for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) and serves as one of the State RAC members, he served as the Senior Concrete Research Engineer for 6 years. Work included evaluation of high portland cement replacement ternary mixtures, implementing the surface resistivity test method, and full scale load testing and evaluation of RCC and bonded concrete overlays on asphalt. Dr. Rupnow currently serves as an adjunct instructor for Louisiana State University where he occasionally teaches Civil Engineering Materials Laboratory, Soils for Construction, and a graduate course in Concrete Materials. Dr. Rupnow also holds a Research Associate Professor position with the University of Louisiana Lafayette. Dr. Rupnow is a member of TRB Committees AFN30 Durability of Concrete and AFN10 Basic Research and Emerging Technologies for Concrete and is a Member of ACI – Louisiana. Dr. Rupnow is a licensed registered professional engineer in the state of Louisiana.