Grading and Excavation Contractor

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When new technologies can help your business prosper, you must take note.

By Paul Hull

What’s your reaction to the fact that the World Wide Web is really only a teenager now? I was amazed. I imagined practical Web sites had been going since … well, since much more than a decade ago. That’s how fast the world of computer technology is changing and being accepted. The inspiring ingredient of this recipe for commercial success has been communication. Today we know where to get information, how to get it fast and, hopefully, what to do with it. Those contractors who have won more contracts and expanded their businesses through better preparation and bidding have done so with the help of project-specific software and the Internet. Their tools have been software programs; their investment has been in new technologies.

People of different ages tend to rate components of their lives differently. In music, for example, are you strictly Beethoven, Bach, and Berlioz? Or do you favor the Lovin’ Spoonful? Herman’s Hermits? The Big Bands? Elvis? Chicago? Elton John? Led Zeppelin? Michael Jackson? R.E.M.? Nirvana? Eminem? All of them hit the highest notes of popularity. It’s the same with technologies. We tend to keep a place in our lives for favorite programs and favorite software, and they are favorites because they work well and because we cannot imagine anything doing better. The technologies, however, that have helped contractors are not fads, not gimmicks.

Several years ago (about six, I think) I read an article about lasers in construction. It praised their efficiency and was optimistic about their future. Especially, I remember two observations from the article. It pointed out that the success of lasers was seen mostly with contractors working on large-scale projects, and it noted that the increase in their use would be limited only by the innovative uses of their technology. The first point has been reinforced. “Smaller” contractors—and that’s the majority of grading and excavation contractors in North America—have been slow to accept new technologies, whether they are laser- or computer-related. A basic and understandable reason for that has been that smaller contracting companies (the local guys, if you will) have been owned by people in the age group that naturally suspects all newfangled ideas (just as fans of the music of the ’50s are wary of the tunes of the ’90s). That is changing. As the older contractors retire, their places are taken by owners who grew up with computers, lasers, video games, and joysticks.

The Wanasek Corp. serves the city of Burlington, WI. That city is in the southeast corner of the state and has a population of about 10,000, and Wanasek does its work mostly within 50 miles of its base. It’s not a large contracting company by national standards, but it is bigger than a five-man crew. This contractor has enjoyed successful projects for both commercial and residential sites. “We got seriously into excavating some years ago, starting with parking lots and other small jobs,” observes Nick Mianecki, civil engineer technician with Wanasek. “That led us to the purchase of several scrapers, and they allowed us to get into mass excavating and finish grading.” Among recent projects have been an 80-acre industrial site at Kenosha, WI (which included grading 250,000 cubic yards and the excavation and finish of a 5-plus-acre pond); the concrete demolition and crush-in-place of a 20,000,000-gallon concrete reservoir in Milwaukee; and work on the Indian Creek Watercourse at Fox Point, which included site grading, a 30,000-cubic-yard pond excavation, and a three-quarter-mile creek relcation.

Photo: Liebherr

Innovation has allowed construction machines to access and manage projects that would have seemed impossible some years ago.

Technology has helped this contractor. For the Fox River Landing site-prep project, there were significant advantages. “With the help of a mild winter and Trimble GPS-based grade control, we were able to knock out all four phases of the project by the fall,” comments Mianecki. In locations like Wisconsin, getting work finished by the fall has significant advantages; winter does not help excavation or grading there. “We attribute our ability to complete everything so far ahead of schedule to having the Trimble GCS900 Grade Control System. With that we can go from one area of a job to another, with the operator knowing exactly what needs to be done and what has already been completed in relation to the plan’s specifications. I can’t say enough about the system, especially when you consider that we completed the project in, literally, half the time.”

What convinced the contracting company’s management to use new technologies were the gains in productivity and the ability to stay competitive in a market where the only differences between bids may be cents per cubic yard. Speed of calculation is an important aspect of laser- and computer-based technologies, but accuracy may be even more important.

Hidden Technologies
We tend to think of technology as having a broad influence, such as lasers or computers, but there are technologies inside our equipment—innovative designs or new components that can claim as much right to the name “technology” as the laser or laptop. The advances hidden within machines do not seem to merit as much publicity, nor do they seem to be as complex or scientific. I found some examples of new technologies in recent releases about equipment. One of the excavators well received in North America is the Komatsu PC2000-8. With one engine replacing two, it gives a 50-horsepower advantage over its predecessor and offers simplicity of operation and service that has prompted contractors to say that even inexperienced operators can be productive with this machine. Among other features of new technologies on this excavator are better visibility, lower noise, and impressive capacities. It is designed to fill a 100-ton truck in four passes. On Case CX B Series excavators, the common-rail Tier III engines give 17% greater horsepower, with the fuel efficiency up by 20%. Case points out that these two features, which equal technological improvements, enable the machine to move 25% more material for each gallon of fuel. To further enhance savings for the owner, serviceability and maintainability have been significantly improved.

Gradall is another excavator maker that has replaced two engines with one to improve performance. It’s the Gradall XL5100 III excavator, now using a single Tier III Detroit Diesel Mercedes engine instead of two of the previous kind. This change in power technology gives greater horsepower and uses less fuel. In strength, the breakout force has gone up from 21,900 to 24,900 pounds. There are electronic joysticks instead of hydraulic controls. You can get models in a 6x4 or 6x6 configuration, and they can travel on highways at 55 miles per hour.

Liebherr’s compact R924 excavator was designed to be efficient at job sites where there is little room to maneuver. It has minimal tailswing. Included in this model is the technology (an electronic regulating system) that gives efficient conversion of the engine output in hydraulic performance, and there is an automatic lubrication system that is just one aspect of an improved maintenance program. All the service points are located centrally and can all be reached from the ground. Fuel efficiency is a goal of LBX Link-Belt X2 Series excavators and the manufacturer claims the greatest efficiency in that area as well as greater productivity in trenching and truck-loading applications. To get 10% more hydraulic horsepower, the Tier 3 Isuzu engine uses a common-rail fuel-injection system.

Innovative technologies inside the machines apply to loaders, too. Caterpillar says the operator of its 414E loader has full control of all five functions of the machine’s three-point tool carrier plus the ability to activate the auxiliary hydraulics and work tools, thanks to one joystick. That single joystick replaces the traditional four or five levers. That’s technology at work to help the operator get better productivity—in more comfort, too, these days. Doosan has five models in the DL Series of wheel-loaders. Technological improvements? You can see the common-rail, electronic Tier III engines and good communication between the engine and the automatic transmission. Component life is extended by the use of a ZF axle, with its lower gear speeds meaning lower heat generation. Increased productivity, better fuel efficiency, and faster cycle times are produced by Volvo’s L350F wheel-loader. This loader, around 50 tons, gets power from a new 532-gross-horsepower Tier 3 Volvo engine. It has more powerful hydraulics, a new Volvo transmission with lockup, and new axles. And you know how Volvo tests its new models! This one has undergone more trials at real sites than any other to see that new technologies for the machine work as anticipated and engineered.

Backhoe-loaders, skid-steers, track-loaders, and mini-excavators all benefit from that genius technology. We are bombarded by promotions that would have us believe that very big televisions and very small telephones are the only technologies we need in our frantically busy days. But manufacturers like those mentioned above and others like JCB, Yanmar, John Deere, and Kubota are all fine-tuning and improving the technologies that make their machines so popular and trusted.

A Common Factor for Multiple Technologies
If there is a common factor for everything that happens at your job site, whatever technologies you have chosen in order to gain productivity and profit, it is the operator. Some people have accused manufacturers of forgetting or ignoring the operator, of making the machine itself the sole ingredient of the earthmoving recipe. And there are operators who claim they can do the work just as well without technological help as with it, so they ignore the advantages they have been given. It is essential, therefore, that everybody on your team knows why technological aids have been purchased and how they should be used for everybody’s benefit. We have to find the time to teach our employees; that may mean slipping some training into a slot where you had hoped to do something else. It does not help productivity to have a work force where everybody except old Mike is in synch. It doesn’t help to have a management team where everybody except Simon (who wanted a different software program) is working together.

Technology involves impersonal equipment, but it must always involve completely the people who will use it. This philosophy applies to small companies as well as those that have several project managers and hundreds of employees. Even if the crew comprises only you, George, Joanna, and Clint, make sure you are all aiming at the same success, with the same wise use of tools, machines, and technology.

There are probably few readers ofGrading & Excavation Contractor who still maintain that technology plays no part in their operations. Most of us have been through the process of researching, deciding, and acquiring that brings new technologies to our companies to improve our business. When all the talk is about cell phones and new capabilities for them, it’s easy to forget that at one time the typewriter was a new technology and accounting software was innovative—and not that long ago. One of the aspects of our contracting that makes us different from many other businesses is that much of our work (where we make our money) is done away from the office. That means the technology should not be limited to the main office; people at the job sites must be able to interact easily and with understanding of what they are doing. Project managers, foremen, superintendents, and machine operators play an important role in our businesses. They should be able to communicate with their offices and access all information that is relevant to their work. There is good software that can do what we want, but we have to have that basic commitment to the “whole company” concept in communications. No, every worker does not need to know all the financial data, nor does every office employee have to know how to grade a slope. We know what everybody needs to know; let’s make sure they do.

A contractor in Ontario with whom I spoke a couple of years ago put his situation most honestly. “We keep our equipment as simple as possible to reduce the possibility of error,” said Barry Bender. “My experience in 20-plus years of using laser equipment tells me to use the simplest system available. We would never give up the laser equipment. We still try new pieces as they are introduced, and we upgrade when something superior comes along.” This contractor has had experience of laser systems that did not work as expected. With one, the receiver didn’t pick up the beam quickly enough so the operator had to pass it through the beam several times until he caught it. That did not accelerate operations. Ease of operation and simplicity of procedures will help any operator, skilled or unskilled. Projects don’t wait for you to find skilled operators, so you may have to use less-than-perfect operators to run your equipment and programs.

Some technology helps the overall planning for a job rather than the particular work of one machine. “It uses common terms that are familiar to site estimators,” advises Steve Warfle at InSite Software in Rush, NY, when talking about InSite SiteWork. “A time savings over a conventional takeoff of five to 10 times is easy to achieve. With a good CAD file, a complex takeoff can be done in half an hour or less.” InSite’s SiteWork is described as earthwork-takeoff software and the company’s Field General as construction-layout software. The Web site is interesting and has a good demonstration of the software’s abilities, good enough to make it a benchmark for your researches in software. With Field General, offset staking of buildings, curbs, and roads is easy because you simply pick points from the CAD file and indicate the offset distance and how often you want a stake. You can dual-offset the centerline of a street or a road, get intermediate stake elevations between known elevation points, and print a scaled plan with the layout points. You can measure the work in progress and verify the work that has been done already. Field General also exports surface models to Topcon’s 3DMC, Leica’s 3D Systems, Caterpillar’s AccuGrade, and Trimble’s SiteVision 3-D to give you machine control at your site.

Those Topcon, Leica, Caterpillar, and Trimble products allow the triangulated surface from SiteWork to be loaded into an onboard machine control, such as on a dozer or a grader. The onboard readout shows how high to raise or lower your blade for stakeless grading. In words, the programs sound complicated, and that’s a reason contractors have shied away from them too much. In practice, the programs are easy to use. Like many new products, once you’ve used them, you wonder how you ever managed without them.

The Whole Project, With Everybody Involved
Technologies have improved the way we estimate and bid. If you’d like to investigate some other sources of programs for estimating costs, let me recommend (in no order of preference) On Center, SharpeSoft, HCSS, BuilderHelper, Deneb WinJob, Sage Timberline Office, Quick Measure, Maxwell Systems Quest Takeoff, Contractor’s Office, and Vertigraph. Estimating packages for earthwork and excavation let contractors produce accurate dirt takeoffs and perform cut-and-fill estimates, thus allowing them to come up with fast, accurate bids. Reports nationwide tell us that such packages give those who use them an edge over those who do not. And you don’t need an advanced degree in computer science to run them.

There is another aspect of all technological products that we must consider, because there is one condition that can upset even the best excavation and grading plans. The weather has probably wrecked more schedules than anything else. Rain, wind, and snow can cause delays; excavators don’t like puddles, and loaders loathe slippery ground. Our lasers, handheld computers, and similar instruments should be able to withstand the worst weather. They should shrug off attacks from wind and rain, being dropped in puddles, or sent skidding across a patch of ice. The ruggedness of all technological products must be the best we can find. Ask the manufacturer about that; ask your suppliers; ask your fellow contractors. Strength against the weather is not something that is described in high-tech language, but it is important. Your likely problem may be dust rather than ice, heat rather than cold, but do check out the proposed device’s weather-resistance quotient.

Wasn’t it a fellow called Einstein who pointed out that the faster an object moves, the more energy it has? Once we get our businesses moving fast with the help of some of that good, available technology, we are going to discover that we ourselves have more energy, for work and play.

This reinforces the notion mentioned earlier that everybody in the organization (whether we have four or 400 employees) should understand where we are going, how we intend to use new technologies, what goals we are going to achieve, and how everybody is going to benefit from the success. Contractors have told me they are excited by the new energy in their businesses when they choose to include everybody in the process of growth.

Finally, there are the questions we hear most often regarding all technologies. How can I trust them? How do I know if the results will be good? If you’re new to construction-related technologies, ask other contractors how they have fared with different approaches and products. Most of the companies offering hardware and software for contractors, for office or field use, are reputable and believe their products can solve our problems of productivity and efficiency. Most of them can, but we must consider all the aspects involved; they are different for each of us. We work in different states, in different climates, with different soils and local conditions.

It is likely that the technology you need to propel your company forward is available today. In a recent conversation, a local contractor denounced the fact that an out-of-town contractor had won the excavation contract he felt was certainly his. “How could he make a better bid than me?” asked the local contractor. “He probably used estimating software to get as accurate as he could,” I replied. And that turned out to be true. It was nothing to do with the mayor’s politics or the country commissioners. The out-of-town contractor used the technologies in which he had invested to secure and complete a lucrative contract.

Paul Hull writes on construction topics for several Forester Media publications.

GEC - Buyers Guide 2009

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