Company Profile: Freese & Nichols, Inc. is an award-winning engineering, planning and consulting firm that plans, designs and manages infrastructure projects for clients across the United States.
Project Types: Transportation; Urban Planning and Design; Facilities; Infrastructure; Energy; Federal; Ecological Restoration
Key Outcomes:
- Over 50% improvement in time efficiency
- Instant availability of geospatial files for project design
- Project delivered on time and on budget
- Successful site restoration, including hydrologic reconnection and native vegetation repopulation
Freese & Nichols (FNI) is renowned for large-scale infrastructure projects. The firm also leads ecological restoration efforts. The City of Beaumont, TX, engaged FNI to restore Lawson’s Canal, a former water supply canal repurposed for emergency staging. The city had received a Section 404 violation for disturbing wetlands in the process.
With a tight schedule to assess, permit, and plan the restoration of the forested wetland, Environmental Scientist Brynn Putnam and her team turned to Ecobot. Having used Ecobot since 2020, they relied on the platform to streamline fieldwork and permitting.
In the field, Ecobot Collector allowed the team to quickly gather data with automated calculations and built-in QA tools. Back in the office, Ecobot Manager gave Putnam real-time visibility into fieldwork, enabling seamless QA/QC and instant report generation. The geospatial data collected in the field was immediately available for GIS integration, a key requirement for the restoration plan.
“Using Ecobot allowed us to collect and integrate field data seamlessly, including instant availability of geospatial files,” said Putnam. “Project delivery was on time and on budget, and Ecobot was critical to that success.”
With Ecobot, the team sped up the approval process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, leading to a successful restoration that removed fill and reestablished hydrologic connectivity and native vegetation.
“It’s safe to say that we are at least achieving 50% turnaround time savings from fieldwork to reports,” said Aaron Petty, another project manager at FNI. “With a frequently over-committed field team, the struggle is often to find the time to QC and finalize data sheets. Ecobot helps us pass the torch to QC and streamline the process, especially in crunch time.”
Ecobot’s data collection and management capabilities were pivotal in the project’s success, enhancing FNI’s portfolio of restoration and nature-based solutions.
