Geotechnical News • June 2018
29
GEOTECHNICAL INSTRUMENTATION NEWS
to be managed by the owner/designer/
contractor.
Most often, only the instrumenta-
tion supplier and the instrumentation
installer eat, sleep and breathe instru-
mentation, and therefore accumulate
the deep instrumentation knowledge
and experience that can benefit the
project. Owners, designers and con-
tractors can access this knowledge and
experience by engaging instrumen-
tation suppliers and installers early
in the project development phase to
explore options to meet the instrumen-
tation objectives and to finalize the
instrumentation requirements.
Bruce Ripley
CEO, RST Instruments Ltd.
11545 Kingston Street, Maple Ridge
BC , Canada V2X0Z5
Giovanni Caloni and Daniel Naterop, SISGEO SRL
When we talk about the relation
between designers and instrument
manufacturers, the link should be
really close. And in this close relation
the “human factor” plays a key role.
Designers know very well the geo-
technical problems in their projects,
but they do not know enough about
instruments and technologies avail-
able, to monitor if their assumptions
will be confirmed during construction.
We often see drawings and specifica-
tions of projects where the monitor-
ing solutions are clearly wrong or,
maybe worse, they are a “copy and
paste” from other previous projects:
it means that, for some designers, the
monitoring programme has a very low
importance.
SISGEO helps a large number of
designers to plan a good monitoring
programme: sometimes we were asked
to do it for free (in most cases) and
sometimes we receive a fee for our
technical consulting.
Designers calling the manufactur-
ers in order to have suggestions on
the instruments is indicative that the
designer takes care about the monitor-
ing system. This will help them during
construction time, with the aim of
checking and, if needed, changing the
designing solutions in nearly real-
time.
Maybe the right behaviour from
designers’ part would be to call the
manufacturer not just when needed,
but to keep a continuous relation in
order to be constantly updated on the
available technologies and solutions.
If the manufacturer considers itself
only a “manufacturer” and thinks that
its job is limited to receiving quotation
requests and selling instruments, this
could lead to a great misunderstand-
ing. This is why SISGEO staff are
always collaborating with designers
and with final users.
All the parts involved into this process
must have clearly in mind their final
target and their mutual relationship.
Manufacturers can help designers, giv-
ing them suggestions on the available
instruments, but the final decision on
the monitoring solution to be adopted
must be up to the designers who have
full knowledge about the geologi-
cal conditions and the features of the
structures under construction.
Giovanni Caloni, Customer Care
Manager, Via Filippo Serpero 4/F1,
20060 Masate-Milano, Italy
Daniel Naterop, Manager North
Europe
Dändelsteinweg 8, 8708 Männedorf,
Switzerland
Closure
John Dunnicliff
Some manufacturers indicate that their
role is limited to supply of instru-
ments. Others believe that they have
a larger role to play. So my “hope that
we’d be able to agree on how to chart
a way forward with these issues” was
clearly unrealistic. We’re all entitled to
our opinions!
If any reader wishes to send me a
discussion about ANY issues relating
to the important topic of human fac-
tors, that would be welcome, and I’ll
publish them in later episodes of GIN.
Send them to me at
john@dunnicliff.
eclipse.co.uk.
Included in this invita-
tion are all the manufacturers who I
invited earlier: those who opted out
and those who would like to say more
after reading what their competitors
had to say. My deadline for receiving
more discussions is
July 10
this year.
If you send me a discussion, please
follow the above format. If you prefer
to write a stand-alone article, please
follow “How to Submit Articles to
John Dunnicliff for GIN” in
www.
geotechnicalnews.com/instrumenta-
tion_news.php.
