INTEGRATED DATA MANAGEMENT FOR MATERIALS TESTING AND ENGINEERING
Alta Vista’s software engineers and programmers created and maintained a simplified database that could store, transfer, and manage material testing data for Caltrans. This kind of system offers a solution to the challenges that come with the rapidly increasing amounts of data available on today’s complex infrastructure projects. The Data Interchange for Materials Engineering (DIME) system stores material test results in a central location and enables the flow of results from point of generation through to use on projects and data storage. DIME helps our clients ensure record retention and compliance by creating a searchable database. This also allows performance history and material trends to be more easily accessed, and risks better assessed.
Integrated data management systems like DIME open doors for analysis on both project and program levels, reducing cost and increasing confidence in data analysis. DIME also has the potential to reduce testing needs based on the program-level data that is now accessible, in addition to project-level data alone. Currently, DIME is used in QA and QC laboratories across the state for structural and concrete materials, and is in the process of being implemented for asphalt, soils, and specialty materials labs.