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You have a question?
Text Blue.

One number every foreman already has, on the iPhone already in their pocket. Route sheets, spec drawings, safety answers, locate status — without a call to the GF, a binder, or a hunt through Teams.

Prepared ForGage Crabtree · Hydaker-Wheatlake Construction FromForge AI LLC · Bargersville, IN ContactZack Kikendall · zack@forgefurther.ai · (317) 698-3371 ScopeIndianapolis Field Operations Pilot
02 / Why now
"It's not if. It's when — and who.
We could be the first ones to go after this. Come over to Hydaker, and your instructions are textable."
GAGE CRABTREE · GENERAL FOREMAN, INDIANAPOLIS

This page is the field-level answer: a small, controlled pilot with one work unit in Indianapolis — proven in ninety days, measured in hours returned to the field, built so IT never has to hand over the keys.

HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT02 / 09
03 / The friction
Where the hours go today

Great crews.
Paper-and-phone-tag operations.

FRICTION 01

The 7:30 route sheet scramble

Every morning, 8 foremen text their work order and location to the GF. The GF compiles it into the route sheet AES requires — by hand, before the day starts. Live circuits mean it can't be skipped and it can't be late.

FRICTION 02

Spec drawings buried in Teams

A print calls out framing 470.01. The foreman opens Teams, finds the right channel, scrolls the overhead standards folder until the number appears — then shows his phone to the crew. Multiply by every callout, every job.

FRICTION 03

Safety answers take too long

A crew asks about lightning. The answer exists — two pages in the manual — but finding it "took forever." QR codes and binders don't answer questions; they store them. Slow answers on a live circuit are a safety problem, not a paperwork problem.

FRICTION 04

Locate status runs through one person

Foremen must verify locates before digging — so they text the GF, the GF checks 811, the GF texts back. Every check interrupts supervision. Every delay holds a crew that's ready to dig.

HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT03 / 09
04 / Meet Blue
Not a chatbot. Not another app.

Meet Blue.
The one-stop shop that ties it together.

It lives in iMessage

No app to install, no portal, no new login. Blue is a contact on the company iPhones the foremen already carry. If they can text, they're trained.

It knows your documents

AES overhead & underground standards, the safety manual, the work order flow — loaded once, version-controlled, and answered with the exact page cited every time.

It works for the GF

Blue drafts; Gage approves. Route sheets, locate submissions, anything that leaves the building goes through a human first. The GF stays in command — with 50 fewer hours of admin a month.

The field campaign — Gage's words

"We've got all of this stuff. What ties it all together? You tie it together with Blue. You've got a question about locates — text Blue. Question on a spec — text Blue. Don't call me. Text Blue."

HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT04 / 09
05 / See it work
Three conversations · one work unit · every day

Same thread. Same phone.
Same way you'd text a real employee.

Morning Route Sheet · GF
7:46
Blue
7:30 — route sheet check-in sent to all 8 foremen.
7:46 — all 8 in. Draft ready for your review:
📄 HWC-Indy Route Sheet · Tue 7/1
Crew 3 swapped to the Emerson job — fix that one.
Updated — Crew 3 → Emerson, WO 4471. Good to send?
Send it.
Sent to AES + Hydaker route sheet recipients. Filed for the week. ✅
Specs & Safety · Foreman
9:41
Blue
Blue — what's the rule on lightning?
Suspend elevated & energized work at first detection. Resume 30 min after the last strike. Full text + diagram:
📎 Safety Manual · Lightning, pp. 112–113
and pull the print for framing 470.01
470.01 — single-phase deadend. Drawing attached:
📐 OH Standards §4 · Dwg 470.01
👍
Locate Status · Foreman
6:58
Blue
Locates good on WO 4571? Digging holes at 8.
Yes — ticket INA-2299481. Cleared 6/24, valid through 7/14. All utilities responded.
what about the Arlington job?
Not clear yet — INA-2299502 expires 7/3. I flagged Gage for the refresh. Hold digging there past Thursday.
Thanks Blue
👍

DEMO CONTENT IS ILLUSTRATIVE · REAL DEPLOYMENT ANSWERS FROM HWC'S ACTUAL STANDARDS & MANUALS, WITH PAGE CITATIONS

HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT05 / 09
06 / The hours
Measured in supervision time, not slideware

What one work unit
gets back every month.

Estimated time returned — Indianapolis unit · 1 GF · 8 foremen
Morning route sheetcollect · compile · correct · distribute — every working day
~45 min/day → ~16 hrs/mo
Spec & safety lookups8 crews · ~2 lookups/day · ~8 min hunting Teams or binders
~21 hrs/mo
Locate status verificationforeman → GF → 811 portal → foreman round trips
~10/wk × 10 min → ~7 hrs/mo
Simple locate draftingsingle-property & short-run tickets, drafted for GF approval
~4/wk × 20 min → ~6 hrs/mo
Total returned to the field
≈ 50 hrs / month
More than a full work-week of GF and foreman time, every month — per work unit. Multiply across Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Kentucky.
ESTIMATES BUILT FROM GAGE'S WALKTHROUGH · WEEKS 1–2 OF THE PILOT BASELINE THE REAL NUMBERS · FINANCIAL CASE FOLLOWS MEASURED RESULTS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT06 / 09
07 / Guardrails
Built for live circuits and gas lines

Blue drafts.
A human decides.

RULE 01

Approve before send

Route sheets, locate submissions, anything that leaves the unit — the GF signs off first. Blue never submits an 811 ticket, ever, without explicit approval on that ticket.

RULE 02

Cited answers only

Every safety and spec answer names the document, section, and page — and attaches the source. If Blue can't cite it, Blue says so and routes the question to the GF. No citation, no answer.

RULE 03

Versioned documents

Standards and manuals load as controlled drops. When AES issues a change, the new version is loaded deliberately and Blue reports which revision it's answering from. No silent drift.

RULE 04

Hard scope lines

Complex pole-to-pole locates stay with Gage. COINS, payroll, timesheets, Samsara, Ariba — out of scope, full stop. The pilot does three things well instead of ten things halfway.

HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT07 / 09
08 / For IT
The part built for the review process

Zero keys required.
Nothing touches the USC network.

Deployment footprint
Self-contained appliance
Mac Mini at the Indy office
Forge-owned & maintained
needs only power + internet
No network access
no domain join · no AD · no VPN
no Teams/M365 integration
can run on dedicated cellular
One-time document drop
standards + safety manual
provided by HWC, versioned
no live connection to Teams
iMessage transport
texts company iPhones
dedicated Apple ID
no software installed on phones
Data & accountability
Data stays on the box
encrypted at rest & in transit
never sold, never used to
train anyone else's AI
Narrow data scope
documents + daily WO locations
no financials · no PII beyond
participating foremen contacts
Clean exit
cancel → hardware retrieved
data destroyed & certified
documents returned
Open book
full written brief for the
helpdesk case · NDA + security
questionnaire on request
HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT08 / 09
09 / The pilot
Small, measured, reversible

Ninety days.
One unit. Real numbers.

Step 1

IT review

Written brief filed with the helpdesk. Forge on call for any question IT has.

Weeks 1–2

Build & baseline

Document drop, unit build, and measuring today's actual route-sheet and lookup times.

Week 3

"Text Blue" day

Foremen add one contact. Five-minute onboarding at the morning meeting. That's the training.

Days 15–90

Live operations

Daily route sheets, field Q&A, locate status. Gage approves everything outbound.

Day 90

Scorecard

Baseline vs. actual: hours returned, answer accuracy, foreman adoption.

Then

Scale decision

Real numbers in front of HWC leadership. Scale, adjust, or stop — their call.

UNIT 01 · PILOT
Hydaker — Indianapolis
Gage's unit · 8 foremen + PM
UNIT 02
Next Indy GF
same backbone · local route sheets
UNITS 03–20
Ohio · Michigan · Iowa · KY
one Blue per work unit
SHARED
The backbone
safety manual · AES standards · locked
Every unit gets its own Blue — same safety backbone nobody can deviate from, its own route sheets and local knowledge. Prove Unit 1, and scaling is a copy, not a rebuild.
QuestionsZack Kikendall · Forge AI LLC Emailzack@forgefurther.ai Cell(317) 698-3371
HYDAKER-WHEATLAKE · FIELD OPERATIONS PILOT09 / 09