The client is a UK-based provider of field service and workforce management software for the utilities, telecommunications, and civil engineering sectors. Its platform connects back-office teams with field operatives and manages work from planning and resource allocation to on-site execution and completion.
Our client collaborated with another provider to identify underground utility infrastructure and reduce the risk of accidental damage during construction and excavation work. This risk assessment was necessary because water, gas, electricity, and telecommunications networks ran underground, out of sight. An excavation crew had no way of knowing what lay beneath a site. Striking one of these assets could injure or kill workers, cut off supply to homes and businesses, and lead to costly repairs and legal liability.
Our client’s platform captured the location of planned works and retrieved maps and utility records from asset owners. This document set had to be assigned a risk class (high/low) that told users how safe it was to dig there. However, while the platform could fetch utility maps, it could not interpret them. Analyzing these records required specialized domain judgment and left no room for error, as even a single wrong call carried severe safety, legal, and financial consequences. This was specialist work, outside the client’s core expertise as a software provider. They wanted to partner with a utility-records specialist with a verifiable data and document processing workflow that ensured field teams received accurate, trustworthy risk classifications.
Our team received inquiries (field service requests raised by the safe digging platform’s users) daily and were supposed to process them as per the following scope:
Because we shared every risk assessment report directly with on-site excavation teams, the challenge was maintaining flawless accuracy across inconsistent inputs and surging volumes.
Mislabeling a high-risk site as low-risk meant sending an excavation crew into danger, such as a ground with high-voltage cables. With human lives on the line, there was no acceptable margin for error. The process demanded 100% accuracy for every record.
The collected records could be detailed maps, scanned plans, written notes, or partial extracts using varying symbols, color codes, and depth notations. Every document required independent review before it could be interpreted.
Inquiry volumes fluctuated with the construction seasons, yet turnaround SLAs remained fixed during demand spikes. Analysts had to maintain consistent, rigorous judgment on peak days without succumbing to time pressure or making rushed calls.
When maps contradicted each other, site coordinates were unclear, or asset data was missing, strict safety protocols prohibited us from filling gaps through pattern analysis or independent web research. Yet simply flagging & escalating to the client threatened turnaround SLAs.
We set up a dedicated team of 7 document analysts (with prior utility domain experience) and designed a decision framework. Each analyst was trained on the client's risk guidelines and to recognize when a document needed a second opinion. Our utility inquiry processing workflow ran in five stages.
Every analyst was trained on the client's procedures and on possible record/data variations. Training covered map legends, symbol sets, depth and pressure notations, and the client's criteria for high- and low-risk classification. Analysts were evaluated by their classifications on test inquiries before they started work on the live inquiry set.
We documented how each asset presented their records, which notations signaled elevated risk, and which edge cases had come up before. This rule library became the team's shared reference, so a classification never depended on which analyst picked up the inquiry. We updated it whenever a new format, asset owner, or client instruction appeared.
Analysts first confirmed the work location, the type of excavation or construction activity, and whether there was enough information to continue. Then, we reviewed each map, plan, and written response retrieved through the client’s platform, and identified the utility assets near the work site.
For every document, we assessed what type of asset it showed, how close it was to the digging site, and how dangerous it would be to break ground. We made this assessment in accordance with the client's risk and caution guidelines. For example, a high-voltage electrical cable running within two meters of a site where someone planned deep-trench excavation was classified as high risk and required mandatory asset-owner consultation. Conversely, a low-pressure water pipe located 20 meters outside the work boundary was classified as low risk. Documents near the decision boundary (where a clear decision could not be made) were referred to a specialist for analysis.
Every completed inquiry passed a second check before release. A reviewer confirmed that:
We corrected anything caught at this stage before delivery and fed it back into the rule library or a short refresher session, so the same issue did not recur. We also tracked accuracy, turnaround, pending inquiries, and recurring issues regularly. During construction-season peaks, analysts moved between review and quality-check roles as the queue required, so neither stage became a bottleneck, and no check was shortened.
We flagged and held inquiries with missing or unclear information, conflicting records, unusual scenarios, or portal problems. We never filled a gap with an assumption, so the work focused on getting the client’s answer as fast as possible:
Over more than a year of live operation, our team met every quality benchmark while maintaining full SLA compliance.
100% Case Classification Accuracy Field teams could plan every dig on classifications they never had to second-guess.
Zero Reversed Classifications In over a year, the client never reported errors in any of our classified cases.
100% SLA Adherence We completed inquiries within agreed timelines, so accuracy did not compromise timeliness.
Accurate document processing, regardless of the domain or niche, depends on people who understand what a wrong call costs. SunTec India builds specialist teams that bring domain training, documented decision rules, and layered quality control to safety-critical and compliance-led document work.
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