Route Plan Workshops
A route plan earns its keep only if the crew can follow it without a phone call. We start
with a large printed map of the ground, the access roads and the seasonal hazards, then sit
down with crew leads, the site contact and whoever holds the keys. Over a full day we agree on
entry points, water sources, turnaround times, safe parking and the order in which the work
should be completed. The plan is then tested against three bad days: a late start, a washed
out crossing and a crew member missing.
The workshop ends with a route book that fits in a jacket pocket, a one page brief for each
crew lead and a set of laminated route cards for the trucks. We leave a working copy behind
so your supervisor can adjust the plan mid season rather than waiting for us. Follow up
support by phone is included for thirty days.
Crew Schedule Audits
Schedules usually fail quietly. Two crews start from the same yard because nobody noticed the
overlap, a certification lapses in week seven, and the drive home pushes past a rest window
that looked fine in a spreadsheet. Our audit rebuilds the rotation from the ground up, shift
by shift, and maps every drive, certification and handoff against the actual season calendar.
We return a corrected schedule, a short set of standing rules for the next season and a
checklist that a supervisor can run at the start of each month. Where a legal or safety
requirement applies, we point to the rule rather than guessing, and we flag anything that
needs a conversation with your own advisor. The audit is as much about protecting the crew as
it is about gaining back the days that get eaten by poor sequencing.
Gear Kit Checks
A kit that works in the yard can still fail on a cold ridge. We open every bag, weigh the
packs, count consumables against the length of the season and check that each role carries
what the route plan assumes. Missing connectors, dead headlamps, split gloves and expired
sealant all get caught at the bench instead of at kilometre eleven.
The result is a kit standard, a packing list per role and a simple weekly check the crews can
run themselves. We deliberately avoid building a museum of spare parts; the inventory is
sized to the work, stored where it is reachable and labelled so a new hand can restock it
without a manual. Anything beyond that standard gets removed from the general bag and placed
in a clearly marked spares bin.
Field Comms Setup
Communication plans tend to be written once, filed and forgotten until the first emergency.
We design a ladder that fits your terrain and crew size, from a short radio check in each
morning to the escalation call when somebody is overdue. Repeater placement, dead zones and
the phone tree are mapped on the same route sheet the crew already carries.
Then we run it. A practice day puts every crew through a silent radio test, a missed check in
and an overdue call, and we watch where the plan breaks. Coverage notes, call signs and the
escalation order go into the route book, and we revise the plan on the spot while the crews
are still on the hill. Clients often tell us the practice day was the first time the whole
crew agreed on what a missed check in actually means.
Season Route Reviews
A review held at the close of the season is the cheapest improvement you will make all year.
We compare the planned route with the travelled route, collect every detour, every closed
gate and every improvised crossing, and rework the map while the details are still fresh in
the crew memory. The review is a conversation first and a document second.
Repeat reviews build an honest record of how the ground behaves across seasons. Wet years,
dry years, new construction and changing access rules all show up in the record, and the next
plan starts from evidence rather than from last spring assumptions. The output is a revised
route book, a short narrative of what changed and a list of decisions that need to be made
before the next season opens.
Client Walkthrough Days
A client walkthrough day puts everyone on the ground at the same time: the client, the site
contact, one crew lead and us. We walk the route, stop at the handoff points and agree out
loud what a normal day looks like, including where the trucks park, where the work begins and
what the crew will call in as finished.
Most of the friction in the first two weeks of a contract comes from assumptions that never
get said. A walkthrough makes them visible. We record the agreements in a short shared note
and add the handoff points to the route cards. Both sides leave with the same picture, and
the crew stops being asked to interpret a contract in the mud.