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Geotechnical News • June 2018
GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION NEWS
ect.”
Nearly all the technical journal,
conference and symposia papers about
monitoring have been about technical
issues, which in my view demonstrates
a significant failure in our communica-
tion with each other. Therefore I want
to focus here on the cruciality (that’s
a new word!) of these human factors,
and to encourage you to pay more
attention to them in the future than
you have in the past. For those of you
who have heard all this before, yes, I
AM going to sing my usual old song.
At the end of this brief article I’ll
include some references, one of which
is a link to a video of a lecture by
Allen Marr of Geocomp in Massachu-
setts, given in Cambridge, England
last year, in which he talked about
many human factors associated with
performance monitoring as a risk
management tool. Watch, listen, learn
and act!
Another valuable reference about
human factors is an article in GIN by
Martin Beth of Sixense-Soldata, with
the title “Eight common sense rules
for successful monitoring”. When I
told Martin how useful I thought this
was, he replied, “But everyone knows
these rules”. Not true. Read, learn and
act!
Here are some common sense rules
from my own experience, many of
which do, in fact, sing my usual old
song. There are nine of them.
1. Every instrument on a project
should be selected and placed to
assist with answering a specific
geotechnical question: if there is
no question, there should be no in-
strumentation. When reviewing the
need for each planned instrument,
ask “What’s the question?”
2. It doesn’t make sense to ask “How
much should we spend on moni-
toring?”
3. When planning and executing
a monitoring program, use a
multi-stage systematic approach.
Full benefit can be achieved
from monitoring programs only
if every step in the planning and
execution process is taken with
great care. There’s a reference to
a 13-step planning procedure at
the end of this article. Instrument
selection must be made as part of
the designer’s systematic plan-
ning process, which includes the
identification of the geotechnical
questions.
4. Low-bidding for monitoring field
work usually results in poor qual-
ity data. There’s no need to con-
vince readers of GIN about this,
because I think that I’m preaching
to the converted. But we have to
work hard to convince decision-
makers in the offices of project
designers and project owners that
it is NOT in their interests to allow
low-bidding. The strongest argu-
ment is that it will cost more. (See
the 13-step planning procedure just
mentioned).
5. When monitoring data are crucial
to a project, as they often are,
don’t let anyone try to stop you
from spending the necessary mon-
ey to monitor properly. If you’re
not heard by decision-makers, play
Allen Marr’s video to them.
6. Motivate the people responsible
for instrumentation field work –
installers, data gatherers, maintain-
ers – by explaining not just HOW
to do it, but WHY their work is
so important. You’ll get far bet-
ter commitment. Of course this
recommendation applies to issues
much broader than monitoring.
I’ve encountered so many people
in positions of authority who only
say the HOW to their subordinates
– this is very short-sighted.
7. A tale against myself:
• I arrived on a site to install some
instruments
• I met the driller and explained to
him what I was going to do
• He said ”that won’t work”
• I was self-confident and “did it my
way” (you know the song!)
• It didn’t work
• The lesson learned: Listen to the
driller!
8. I’m going to address a contentious
subject, and say something about
how I believe designers of moni-
toring programs and instrument
manufacturers should interact with
each other. We all know that we
and they are dependent on each
other, and that we can work well
as a team. We’re all in it together.
But I think we need to recognize a
logical dividing line between what
we each do. Some designers rely
on manufactures to advise them
on what instruments are needed on
their project, and some manufac-
turers will do this without charge.
Yes, it’s an easy way out for the
designer who has insufficient
experience with instrumentation.
And yes, it’s understandable that
some manufacturers go along with
this, to cement a sale. But, to be
blunt, in my view this is not in the
good professional interests of our
monitoring community.
“In my view this
is not in the good
professional
interests of our
monitoring
community”
As I said earlier, instrument selec-
tion must be made as part of the
designer’s systematic planning
process, which includes the iden-
tification of the geotechnical ques-
tions. We need to do all that we
can to get this message to design-
ers. If designers don’t have enough
experience, logic says that they
should team up with someone who
does. No, that’s not self-marketing
– I’ve retired from consulting!
9. Following on from my previous
point, if manufacturers advise on
what instruments are needed on
