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As GPS machine control makes its way onto more surveying and construction sites, the question begs to be asked: who will provide the data--and how?
It’s almost as if Keith Rochester, RLS, PLS, can see the future. In 1983 he was one of the first to use an innovative 3D data design package now used for machine control. In 1986 he saw that the advancement of positioning technology, specifically the Global Positioning System (GPS) and robotic surveying technology, would rapidly change the face of construction and surveying, especially on larger construction staking jobs. And in 1999 he saw that 3D machine control would change it even more, potentially eliminating the need for construction staking. Rochester knew his company, Rochester & Associates (R&A) of Atlanta, Ga., would need to be part of the change--or get left behind. So he got on board: initially by investing in GPS and robotic surveying equipment, then by developing an innovative 3D data preparation service.
“I’ve always liked technology and envisioning the impact it will have,” says Rochester, founder and CEO of R&A. “I guess it’s just in my blood.”
That foresight has paid off. From its start as a one-man, home-based surveying shop in 1966, R&A has grown to be a multi-faceted civil engineering consulting firm with 190 employees and four offices in Georgia and one in the country of Turkey. Today, an increasing part of R&A’s business includes 3D data preparation, site calibration and training in support of blade and machine control technology.
“We saw a potential impact on our survey business from the application of automated technology,” says Darrell Rochester, PE, president of R&A and Keith’s son. “We quickly realized our primary product is the creation of buildable sets of electronic plans for our clients. We’re fully behind using 3D data because we think 3D just makes sense.”
Three-dimensional (3D) data is making sense to an increasing number of contractors and surveyors across the nation. Construction machine control systems--which put design surfaces, grades and alignments inside the cab--are becoming the wave of the future. More and more earthmovers, construction firms and DOTs today are depending on the advanced efficiencies, time savings and greater profits machine control can provide. And machine control depends on accurate 3D modeling to guide the blades, buckets, wheels and hoes to the precise position required. To see that, just look at some of the innovative firms using machine control today.
On the Construction Side
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The company purchased an RTK GPS system, which paid for itself on just two jobs by finding topo errors. Founder and CEO Dwayne McAninch was impressed.
So when he heard GPS was available for machine control on heavy equipment, McAninch jumped on board in a big way. The first firm in the nation to deploy Trimble (Sunnyvale, Calif.) SiteVision GPS equipment on its scrapers, excavators and supervisor trucks, McAninch works closely with both Caterpillar of Peoria, Ill., the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines, and Trimble on GPS machine control development. The company today boasts 35 SiteVision systems deployed on more than 50 scrapers, 58 dozers and 40 backhoes; they also have GPS on 15 supervisor trucks.
“GPS is revolutionizing the earthmoving industry,” McAninch says. “McAninch Corporation possesses a passion for innovation and is researching new and exciting ways to apply GPS technologies to the industry.”
For McAninch the choice to use GPS technology was simple: it provided his company with a fair competitive advantage. GPS machine control allows the company’s employees to be more productive and efficient from start to finish, which makes them more profitable. So much so, that the firm is planning to continue to upgrade its fleet of almost 400 pieces of equipment with GPS on-board guidance systems.
“Machine control helps insulate us and the consulting engineer from mistakes because we can identify any problems before we get onto the jobsite,” says Patrick Ruelle, director of business development at McAninch. “Machine control helps everyone look better in the client’s eyes. There are no surprises in a job; we know exactly how much earth we’re moving thanks to the technology.”
After the owner’s consulting engineer or surveyor sets survey control or 3D bench marks for the project, McAninch is often able to start immediately and get the job done with minimal construction staking; using GPS for site calibration, precision grading and checking, they’ve eliminated the need to wait on stakes and related scheduling issues.
“We integrated these GPS tools into our firm to cope with the workload and deal with the scheduling,” Ruelle says. “We can’t wait for site staking, so we’re intentionally taking risks. We don’t represent ourselves as expert surveyors or engineers--if we did it wrong, put the road in the wrong place by doing this, we’d be in trouble. But we take risks because, with this technology, mistakes such as that are difficult to make.
“It’s the difference between building houses with hand tools and power tools,” he says. “Today the question is how much more productive and efficient are you by using the tools you have?”
Small Company: Big Profits
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A mechanical engineer, Pinney does much of the work himself. After the first year, Pinney also purchased Trimble’s Terramodel software for 3D data modeling and now does everything from data management and preparation to site calibration, stakeout and earthmoving.
“These tools are user-friendly; that’s why we can do it all,” he says. “It’s made us much more profitable and we can now bid bigger projects than in the past.”
What’s a Surveyor to Do?
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There is room--and demand--for surveyors in the 3D construction world, say contractors and progressive surveyors across the nation. From large surveying and civil engineering firms to small one-person survey shops, surveyors are finding a new and challenging world opening up to them--a world in which they become data managers, instrumental on project teams from start to finish, from construction staking to as-builts. Because machine control uses three dimensions--vertical, horizontal and elevation for precise location and grade--data must be available in 3D. And data must be accurate. Contractors often don’t want to carry the extra liability of site calibration, preparing data or managing data files and will look to others to do these tasks. Years ago, McAninch could find no one in their area with that capability, so they took it in-house. McAninch GPS division manager Tim Tometich, who has a construction engineering background, initially did all file and data prep; as the company expanded its use of GPS, however, it outsourced some of its file and data prep. And Pinney says either he or someone at his company will probably become licensed in the future. All of this opens new doors for progressive civil engineers and surveyors to be part of the 3D construction machine control world. Here’s how a few individuals and firms are doing the 3D data and walking through that open door today.
Doing the Data
David Reynolds, PS, survey manager for HLS Surveyors and Engineers in Vandalia, Ohio, had used GPS for surveying since 1999. After watching contractors increasingly invest in machine control equipment, Reynolds realized he needed the tools to prepare data for the new equipment if he wanted to be part of it. He did, and trained on data preparation services using Terramodel. Since then, Reynolds and HLS have provided 3D data prep for contractors in the greater Ohio area as well as in other areas in the Midwest.
Data prep clients come to HLS at all levels: Reynolds works on projects that provide only paper plan sets and require everything from reading the plans to converting the data into 3D models. He also gets projects that include digital data from the start, enabling faster completion.
To create 3D models of the build site, Reynolds uses several Computer-Aided Design (CAD) packages, including Autodesk (San Rafael, Calif.) Land Development Desktop, Eagle Point (Dubuque, Iowa) Civil Series and Trimble Terramodel. The 3D project files are then loaded into the office software to convert the files into machine-ready format. They can then be easily loaded into the machine control equipment using a flash memory card or PCMCIA card.
The goal of data prep is to do everything possible in the office to make it easy for the equipment operators. All the tools and information machine operators need to build a site is inside the cab; they simply follow the model created on the system’s in-cab computer screen. Gone are the days of hand signals and guess work. The seamless digital path from office to field makes for greater efficiency in the field--and fewer mistakes.
“Often the people who do quality control inspection are amazed at the ability of the machine control system to produce grades for the operator,” Reynolds says. “And they’re amazed at the machine’s ability to grade a site so close to the design without all the random grade stakes.”
But Reynolds believes the construction world won’t be completely stakeless. “A lot of staking can be eliminated using machine control,” he says, “but I don’t see machine control replacing 100 percent of staking. It’s more an additional tool to improve the efficiency and productivity of contractors.”
Construction and Surveying
Other surveyors are working on the construction side. Sandor Vegh, PS, has been surveying for more than 20 years. Today, he heads the GPS machine control division for Trucco Companies Inc., an Ohio construction firm in the city of Powell. Prior to hiring Vegh specifically to guide them into the machine control world 2 1⁄2 years ago, Trucco used surveyors strictly as project subcontractors. Today, the company employs three full-time surveyors: Vegh and two one-person crews. They’ve also hired an assistant for the surveyors as well as a full-time person to perform data prep.
Vegh hadn’t used GPS before getting into GPS machine control at another firm. But he was an immediate believer. A ‘technogeek,’ Vegh never questioned machine control’s ability to work after reading about the technology and seeing a demonstration on it.
Nor does he question the need for surveyors in the machine control world.
“By eliminating many unnecessary stakeout procedures, machine control puts surveyors in more of a quality control position,” Vegh says. “Surveyors are constantly needed to serve the GPS and robotic machine control systems as well as to set site control, evaluate control points, do site calibration or set additional control points for checking and further stakeout. To me, the surveyor now has time to do the more important things such as stakeout and quality control.”
Not all firms will follow the Ohio construction company’s lead, but it’s working for Trucco. After starting with one Trimble BladePro 3D system in 2001, Trucco now has 11 GPS systems for both dozers and compactors, as well as three GPS total stations and a robotic total station for the survey crews and foremen. And the company is planning to outfit almost all its equipment with GPS machine control.
“GPS machine control improves our efficiency and accuracy,” says Mark Trucco, CEO of Trucco Companies. “Profitability comes from how efficient and productive we are, so GPS machine control definitely impacts our bottom line.”
“I wouldn’t want to run my business without machine control,” he adds. “We like what it does for us.”
And for that, he has a surveyor to thank.
From Skeptic to Fan
Not all users are such instant believers. Some are skeptical--at least initially. One such skeptic was John Stone, PLS, GPS coordinator for River View Construction, an earthmoving company in Wausau, Wis. Before the firm's owners purchased their first machine control system, Stone did everything in his power to test the accuracy of the SiteVision grades. He set stakes to double-check the machine; he even used a conventional level to test it.
“I finally convinced myself it was doing such a good job I didn’t have to set stakes anymore,” he says.
He’s now an ardent user; River View today has five SiteVision systems on Komatsu (Komatsu North America, Vernon Hills, Ill.) dozers and another one that River View switches between its Caterpillar motor grader and a Sheep’s foot, or compactor.
“We’ve almost doubled the amount of jobs we can do in a year,” Stone says. “It cut down on our man-hours, work gets done quicker and we don’t have to set as many stakes.”
But while Stone plans all new jobs, does site calibration and grade checking, and oversees all the machine control equipment, he goes elsewhere for data prep--to another surveyor who has exchanged his rover for a mouse.
3D Data Prep and Surveying
For more than 15 years, Wisconsin’s David Renaud, RLS, ‘paid his dues,’ as he puts it, in good weather and bad, doing everything from boundary surveys to road topos. Today, Renaud is manager of the survey division of REI in Wausau, Wis., a civil and environmental engineering firm with three full-time survey crews. He now spends most of his time in the office.
Initially, Renaud did mainly map certification and survey computations. Since last year, however, he’s increasingly doing 3D data modeling for the firm’s growing list of clients using GPS machine control.
“I really enjoy it; it’s challenging to create the digital model accurately and correctly,” he says. “It may not be my design but it’s my work that makes this thing buildable.”
As construction 3D machine control use increases, more and more project developers and state agencies are including 3D data and at times machine control capabilities in their project specs, Renaud says. So he’s certain the demand for 3D modeling will expand.
“Machine control is definitely the wave of the future,” Renaud says. “This is the way the industry is going; whether it’s a surveyor or a CAD operator who will create these models, they will need to be created.”
It’s then up to the individual or firm to determine who that will be. The question really becomes: Will it be you?
Sidebar: Communicating Between Surveyors and Contractors
Surveyors who are technically proficient but lack good communication skills may have higher incidents of disputes and claims than surveyors who are less technically proficient but who cultivate professional relationships with their clients. Some clients are often simply unaware of the effort that the surveyor expends on their behalf.
Effective communication can be the answer to quickly resolving issues between surveyors and contractors. It is important in a surveyor-contractor relationship to identify who will be the appropriate decision makers. Often when a contractor retains a surveyor for a project, an outside party (such as the property owner), will attempt to direct the activities of the surveyor. This can create potential risks for the surveyor. Taking direction from another entity may put the surveyor in conflict with the surveyor’s obligations to the contractor and expose the surveyor to potential claims.
Another issue that often arises in the surveyor-contractor relationship is communicating the scope of services. The services required by a contractor are very different from the services required by a property owner. The surveyors and contractors involved in a project should effectively communicate and come to agreement on the scope of services. Statistics from CNA/Schinnerer’s (Chevy Chase, Md.) professional liability program indicate that the majority of claims against surveyors come from clients (60 percent), and a frequent source of those claims is unmet expectations. Complete communication between contractors and surveyors regarding the scope of services can help to avoid insurance claims.
The most common area that requires effective communication between the surveyor and contractor is the contract for professional services. Sometimes the contractor will ask the surveyor to sign an agreement that is the same agreement the contractor uses with trade subcontractors. Since these agreements have been drafted for construction activities, they are not appropriate for surveyor services. The contractor may ask the surveyor to sign such an agreement because the contractor fails to realize the distinction between the services of the surveyor and a trade subcontractor. Both the surveyor and the contractor should understand the particularities of each other's professional services and needs. It should also be understood that, under the law, surveyors are held to a professional standard of care while trade subcontractors must provide more stringent warranties and guarantees, which are excluded from most professional liability policies.
Each meeting or conversation between a surveyor and a contractor is a chance to hear the client’s concerns and to adjust the firm’s focus or performance to meet the client’s expectations and the goals for the project. Each meeting with the client is another opportunity for the surveyor and contractor to understand the scope of services, thus making the relationship successful.
Statements concerning legal matters are general observations and may not be relied upon as legal advice. All such matters should be reviewed with a qualified advisor.
With the help of Rochester & Associates' site calibration services, Shepherd Construction Co. of Atlanta, Georgia, grades sub-base with 3D GPS technology under a parking deck with close clearances. R&A strategically placed reflectors on the columns and underside of the deck beams.
Leslie Paynor is a writer specializing in construction topics.
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