Frost & Sullivan award 2020

Frost & Sullivan, the growth partnership company, announced that the winner of the Frost & Sullivan’s Global 2020 Enabling Technology Leadership Award in subsurface utility engineering data is – 4M Analytics.

Read the full report here.

According to the Enabling Technology Leadership Award criteria, Frost & Sullivan analysts follow a 10-step process to evaluate award candidates and assess their eligibility according to select best practice criteria.

The reputation and integrity of this award are based on close adherence to this process, and 4M Analytics had the honor of being a fitting & worthy recipient.

The SUE industry has many challenges. Among them is mapping and verifying underground infrastructure and utilities in rural areas. While blueprint records may already exist in urban settings, rural areas pose a more significant challenge.

For major projects in rural areas, SUE costs mount to the tens of millions of dollars. Also, every time the actual underground utility location does not match the existing blueprints, it drives up construction delays, claims & change orders, and budget overruns. Additionally, relocating utilities is often a pandora’s box to even more expensive delays and overruns.

After more than three years of R&D, 4M Analytics has developed a distinctive solution that is able to pinpoint underground utilities.

This is enabled by collecting massive amounts of data and utilizing advanced remote sensing capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI), and computer vision in a data fusion engine delivering meaningful insights from the data captured.

4M’s innovative approach enables a highly scalable and efficient solution that yields massive savings for customers.

Leveraging multiple layers of remote data acquisition, 4M reduces the amount of fieldwork required. Minimizing the groundwork cuts costs dramatically, and makes scaling up a project’s scope or survey area simple.

While current SUE methods need three to twelve months to collect, process, and survey (from manual records search to manual field locating), 4M can produce the same quality and more easily digestible results (in a smart map) in only days - and all done from the comfort of the company’s office.

4M delivers its enhanced maps through its 4MAP and 4DIG applications. In the easily consumable app format, the mapping-as-a-service model facilitates relevant project stakeholders to optimize planning and collaborate over a single source of truth for all subsurface infrastructures.

In the 4MAP application, a customer can draw a polygon at the desired location on the map, press purchase, and access all of the area’s utilities based on 4M’s cloud.

The second mobile app, 4DIG, serves as a real-time tool for matching excavation with underground utility locations. Informing operators where to take caution and when underground utilities present a hazard, the 4DIG app enhances situational awareness and helps prevent damage and accidental strikes.

To conclude, 4M Analytics delivers a highly detailed and highly accurate, up-to-date, interactive smart map of all underground utilities and structures. In contrast to typical SUE surveying programs, which typically require several months to compile, 4M’s solution requires only days.

It informs builders with a real-time picture of the infrastructure landscape below the surface before the construction planning phase.

The company launched in January 2019 and is already selling services commercially on a global scale. So, if you’re interested in an actionable solution at an unprecedented scale and low cost, who also happens to be Frost & Sullivan’s ETL’s pick for 2020 – just reach out.