Seven o'clock, no pegs
Your foundation gang is ready to dig plots 30 to 36. The machine is warm. There are no pegs. The engineer is on another site setting out a road, because the road gang rang him first. He will be over after lunch. Your ganger puts the gang on tidying and odd jobs until then, which is the best that can be done.
The engineer is not the problem. He is covering three sites with requests that arrive by phone the morning they are needed.
Why setting out causes standing time
Setting out demand is predictable a few days ahead, because it follows the programme. But requests are made when gangers realise they need it, usually the morning of, or the evening before. The engineer has no view across sites, so they respond to whoever rings first rather than to what matters most.
- Requests are made by phone, often on the morning they are needed.
- The engineer cannot see the week's demand across sites.
- Priorities are set by who rings first.
- Travel between sites is not planned around requests.
- What was set out, and to which drawing, is not recorded.
What standing gangs cost
Gang and machine time lost while waiting, every time. Pressure on engineers that leads to rushed setting out and mistakes. Arguments between gangers about who gets the engineer first. And no record of what was set out, from which drawing revision, which matters when something is later found in the wrong place.
The request queue we build
- Gangers raise setting-out requests on a phone: site, plots or area, what is needed, such as foundation lines, drainage offsets, kerb lines or levels, and when.
- Requests are prompted from the programme too, so upcoming work shows as a likely need before anyone asks.
- The engineer sees all requests across all sites by date and priority, on a phone or tablet, and plans their days.
- Requests needed the same day are flagged as urgent, and the contracts manager sees how often that happens.
- The engineer confirms a time to the ganger, so the gang can plan around it.
- When complete, the engineer records what was set out, the drawing and revision used, and a photo of the pegs or marks.
- Where there are several engineers, requests are shared between them by site and workload.
| Request | Site | Needed | Engineer's plan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation lines, plots 30 to 36 | East site | Tomorrow, first thing | Tomorrow, 7:00 |
| Road kerb line and levels | North site | Thursday | Wednesday afternoon |
| Drainage offsets, run F | East site | Friday | Thursday, 8:00 |
| Levels for slab | West site | Today | Urgent, after 11:00 |
Engineers ahead of the gangs
Setting out happens before gangs need it, because the engineer sees demand coming. Gangs stand less, and when they do, the reason is clear. The engineer's day is planned rather than reactive, which means fewer mistakes. And every piece of setting out has a record of the drawing revision it was set out to, which helps if a question comes up later.
Your contracts manager gets something too: a clear view of how much setting out each site needs and how often requests are last-minute. If one site keeps asking on the morning, that is a planning conversation with the ganger. If every site is waiting, it may be the case for another engineer or a GPS-guided machine, argued from your own records rather than a feeling.
Do your gangs wait for setting out?
- Gangs stand waiting for the engineer.
- Requests arrive by phone the morning they are needed.
- The engineer covers several sites with no view of demand.
- Gangers compete for the engineer's time.
- There is no record of what was set out to which drawing.