VAA Virginia Asphalt Fall/Winter 2019

10 FALL/WINTER 2019 This article was adapted from a press release from HeadLight In the spring of 2018, the Virginia Asphalt Association (VAA), the trade association that represents the asphalt paving industry in the Com- monwealth of Virginia, opened a dialogue with partners concerning innovation’s role in helping industry and agency collaborate to streamline project delivery. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and VAA, in a shared commitment to the modernization of construction pro- cesses, partnered with Superior Paving Corp, an asphalt paving con- tractor in Gainesville, VA, to pilot an innovative and photo-driven approach to communicating construction material quality infor- mation. Enter HeadLight. This modern answer to a process used for decades could be used from the field in real-time. The initial effort showed improved communications and project management efficiencies and has proven to be a significant success for both the organizations involved and the traveling public. The partnership aimed to overhaul information sharing between the agency and contractors on complex projects, resulting in a robust sharing of information between technicians in real-time. Also, the project information collected and shared could be easily viewed by any project stakeholder at any time by simply providing them access to HeadLight. Superior Paving Corp identified a specific need within their orga- nization to improve the process for reporting density in the field. HeadLight needed to not only improve their efficiencies but offer VDOT faster delivery and transparency into the work done on the job site. In turn, VDOT would be able to move more quickly to approve and close work items, which could result in faster payment to contractors. For the majority of contractor to DOT relationships, paper forms are still the most widely accepted method for reporting test results in the field. So why did VDOT and Superior Paving Corp support the need to overhaul the paper-based process? VDOT BREAKS STATUS QUO To Improve Contractor Collaboration and Project Delivery When polled, here were a few of the responses from their teams. • Paper forms can be lost. • The handwriting on the forms can be illegible. • It is labor-intensive to hand write up to six forms a day. • Once accepted, paper forms still need to be filed or scanned into a system for record-keeping. • Inspectors are not always on immediate site to answer questions (have to be inmultiple places). • Difficult to collaborate. • From technician to acceptance can take up to a week. Our Asphalt Quality Technicians like this app because this allows all their work to be completed as they go and saves them from having to pull out an additional tool to help with the math portion of their paperwork. At the end of the day, VDOT has a digital copy of everything they need for a quick reference. James Terrell, Quality Assurance Manager, Southern Region continues on page 14 △