Directional Boring & HDD

Work Stops While You Wait for a Signature

Change orders, purchase requests, and scope changes sit in someone's inbox — or worse, on someone's desk — while crews stand idle and customers wait.

Uncle Steve on approval delays in directional boring & hdd

The Directional Boring & HDD Industry at a Glance

Horizontal directional drilling contractors — trenchless underground utility installation crossing existing utility corridors daily.

12,000+

US Companies

$2M–$15M

Avg. Revenue

5–20

Field Crew Size

6.8%

Growth Rate

Bore logs on paper, locate verifications in camera rolls, 811 tickets printed and sorted by hand. The gap between the drill rig and the office is entirely paper.

Directional Boring & HDD Industry Data & Research

Key statistics shaping the directional boring & hdd market today.

38+ million 811 tickets processed annually in the US
Common Ground Alliance, 2024
Cross-bore remediation costs average $150,000+ per incident
PG&E / GPRS, 2024
CGA Index rose from 94.0 to 96.7 — trending wrong direction
CGA DIRT Report, 2024

Does This Sound Like Your Directional Boring & HDD Operation?

  • !Techs wait hours or days for a supervisor to approve a scope change
  • !Paper approval forms get lost between the field and the office
  • !Nobody knows where a pending approval is in the chain

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Every stalled approval idles a crew at $75–$150/hour. A single day of approval delay on a 3-person crew costs $600–$1,800 in unproductive labor.

What Directional Boring & HDD Companies Typically Use

BOSS811UtilocateProcoreHeavyJob

These tools are great at what they do — but they don't eliminate the approval delays gap. That's what we build.

Directional Boring & HDD Operational Challenges

  • 1Every bore path must be cleared through 811 before drilling
  • 2Cross-bore risk at $150K+ per incident
  • 3Post-construction as-builts required but captured on paper
  • 4Locate ticket expiration requires update/remark management

Compliance & Regulations

  • A811 mandatory notification before excavation (federal)
  • BState-specific locate ticket validity (10–45 days)
  • CPHMSA pipeline safety for gas crossings
  • DUpdate and remark requirements before ticket expiration
Common roles:Owner/OperatorProject ManagerDrill OperatorLocator

How We Fix Approval Delays for Directional Boring & HDD — No ReKeying

1

Map Your Workflow

We study exactly where approval delays happens in your directional boring & hdd operation — the forms, the handoffs, the re-entry points.

2

Build a Working Prototype

Not a demo. Not a slide deck. A real, functional prototype that eliminates the pain point and works with your existing tools.

3

Prove It Before You Pay

You test the prototype on a real job. If it doesn't eliminate the approval delays problem, you don't pay.

Get No ReKeying for Your Directional Boring & HDD Operation — Free Prototype

Tell us about your operation and we'll build you a working solution — no commitment, no credit card.

No spam. No credit card. Just a prototype that works.

Approval Delays Problems for Directional Boring & HDD Companies | Simply Connected Systems