Flagship candidate

Hazen Intelligence

Make 75 years of engineering knowledge easier to use.

Hazen's project history is an advantage only when people can find the right experience when they need it. I would assess a secure knowledge layer that helps employees locate relevant projects, documents, standards, lessons and internal expertise without replacing the source material.

Extend, buy or build

These are proposed assessment criteria, not a vendor recommendation or an assumed budget.

Extend: Use the current platform when it meets source, permission and evaluation needs, and the main friction is configuration, metadata or adoption.
Buy: Choose a mature enterprise option when it closes a material gap with acceptable controls, integration and total cost.
Build: Build narrow custom retrieval or integration only when distinct Hazen requirements remain after evaluating existing options.
Pause or stop: Pause or stop when access cannot be enforced, source quality is insufficient, or measured benefit including reviewer effort does not justify cost.

Worked example: answer only what the sources and permissions support

Three cases show how source support and permissions should shape the result.

Illustrative workflow • fictional records

This example illustrates expected behavior, not an existing Hazen internal system.

Employee question

Have we solved a similar PFAS treatment problem before?

Supported answer with inspectable citations

Two approved fictional project records describe prior evaluations of PFAS treatment under comparable planning conditions. They are starting points for locating relevant experience, not a treatment recommendation. See Source 1 and Source 2.

Source 1

Source date: March 2024

Fictional Project Record A: PFAS alternatives screening

Inspectable excerpt

The project team compared treatment alternatives using water quality objectives, pilot observations and operational constraints.

Relevance: Similar evaluation workflow and documented decision criteria.

Return to the cited result

Source 2

Source date: September 2025

Fictional Project Record B: Bench and pilot study synthesis

Inspectable excerpt

The review organized source water conditions, test conditions and documented engineering review notes.

Relevance: Similar evidence structure and engineering review process.

Return to the cited result

Next human review: A qualified engineer would verify applicability against the actual source water, project constraints and current standards before using any past project experience.

Example questions

The kinds of questions engineers could bring to it.

"Have we solved a similar PFAS treatment problem before?"
"Which past projects used a similar process or design approach?"
"Who inside Hazen has worked on this issue?"
"Which standards or internal guidance should I review before I start?"

How an answer is produced

Every result points back to a source the employee can open.

1Question
2Permission check
3Approved Hazen sources
4Ranked results with citations
5Employee reviews source
6Feedback improves retrieval

What a useful answer should include

Direct links to the underlying document
Project name and date
Why the result is relevant
Named internal expertise where permitted
Standards or guidance connected to the issue
A clear statement when the system does not have enough evidence

Guardrails

Respect existing document permissions
Do not move client data into unauthorized models
Show sources, not unsupported answers
Log and evaluate repeated failure patterns
Start with a bounded practice area before broad rollout

Pilot

Example pilot sequence. The timing would depend on the practice area and the state of its documents.

Weeks 1 to 3
Choose one practice, define approved sources and record baseline search time.
Weeks 4 to 7
Build retrieval, permissions and source display.
Weeks 8 to 10
Test with a small engineering group.
Weeks 11 to 13
Evaluate usefulness, access control and repeat use.