Uncharted Jobsites
Mapping Potential Jobs Before You Bid to
Save Time and Money
By Jason Morgan
 Any seasoned contractor knows the perils of bidding on a project. There are two possible project burns that threaten a contractor. 1) The bid is accepted and the contractor starts work on the jobsite only to realize that there’s more material to move than the contract originally specified. And so the painful renegotiation process begins, often times unsuccessfully. 2) Or, there’s not enough material and the contractor is looking at an expensive material import situation. Guess whose pocket that comes out of?
These problems have haunted contractors long before the economic bottom fell out. But with today’s increased competition and barrel-scraping bids, contractors need any bidding and estimating edge they can grab. Enter GPS technology. Sure, grading and machine control are the systems’ bread and butter, but resourceful contractors are putting these systems to work before the project is awarded.
“Contractors will go out to the site and set up their GPS base station to do a topographical survey,” says Tony Vanneman, Construction Products Marketing Manager for Topcon Positioning Systems Inc. “They’ll compare the surface to the info the engineering firm has. That’s one of the revolutionary aspects of the GPS system. Very rarely would anyone go out to the jobsite before they bid to do a topo. Now, I go to jobsites and I can already see pickup and ATV tracks in the mud, where people have already surveyed it.”
Without laser or GPS systems, additional man-hours are often needed for surveyors to re-stake a jobsite to show the required location and design elevations of pipe inverts.
Man-hours are also needed for grade checkers to interpret designs, direct operators on cut depth and check grades of the excavation and bedding material, according to Dwight Roberts, Connected Worksite Application Specialist for Caterpillar Inc. Material overages or safety factors for high dollar materials such as bedding for piping could be anywhere from 5 to 20 percent based on the estimator’s experience level.
With GPS systems, surveying costs can be significantly reduced or eliminated. No grade stakes would be required indicating the location or depth of the excavations on site. All of that information would be included in the 3D design utilized by the GPS system.
Typically, contractors are at the mercy of the engineer’s and surveyor’s job calculations. Of course, the utility construction situation might not be as clear as it seemed on the page once you’re out on the jobsite. Before GPS technology, contractors could have gone out to the jobsite with a telescopic level and long level staff or even a laser grading system to manually map the jobsite.
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| Pulling off a tight grade on a slope is tough, but getting on the jobsite and realizing you have too much material or not enough is even tougher. With GPS grading and machine control systems you can map the jobsite first to know exactly what you’ll be tackling. You’ll also be able to make that grade no problem. |
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“If you can imagine a guy in a perfectly square location with a level staff, figuring out the elevation of each of the corners,” begins Rich Calvird, Product Marketing Manger for Leica Geosystems. “Another guy walks the perimeter to get the distances. Then you can calculate area of volume by figuring out where you’re at against a reference point. I’ve seen guys literally sketch the jobsite on a notepad. They’ll write down how many feet and elevation and they have their rules of thumb about how they do their calculations. In a simple square area, that’s fine, but gets off quickly with irregular areas and contours.
“The big advantage with GPS is you have X, Y and Z. Not only can you do a topo, get a good accurate model of more complex surfaces and understand what you have to work with, but you can get it precisely and painlessly.”
With a GPS base station, a number of reference points and a rover unit — which can be attached to an ATV or pickup or carried around the jobsite — one person can create a three-dimensional topography of the jobsite to provide accurate specs and improved planning, just to name a few benefits.
“With GPS machine control, you could literally control an entire site from a handful of bench marks,” says Vanneman. “Obviously, contractors use many more than that, but they have the ability to control a site from five or six benchmarks.
Which means not having to go out there and do rough-grade staking and then go back out to stake for base material.
Staking it up two or three times. With this technology, a contractor is able to set up a GPS base station and to a topographical survey of the site. He can then compare the surface to the info the engineering firm has provided.”
Before you even bid, you can verify that the quantities provided in the job details are accurate to the physical jobsite.
And that knowledge saves time and money.
“If a contractor is doing a huge job and is planning on 200 trucks of dirt and he’s off 10 percent, that’s 20 trucks. That’s a pretty good chunk of change,” says Calvird. “Or maybe he’s trying to balance a grade so he doesn’t have to bring in any dirt. On a job where the stakes are a lot higher and you have the capability, you have some tremendous advantages.”
With grade control systems, contractors can typically prepare a tighter bid with less cushion for rework or materials. And these systems allow contractors to prepare more consistent sub-grades, so bedding or base materials are placed more consistently, reducing the contractor’s risk for material overage needs. “In some cases our customers have seen a 90 percent reduction in survey costs compared to the use of no system on site,” says Roberts.
“I’ve heard stories of guys who had a 90-day job. They invested in GPS grading and machine control with a base system, rover and one machine and they finished that job in 50 days,” adds Vanneman. “If you take the daily cost of that crew and multiply it by 40 days they saved, the return is amazing.”
Ten years ago, GPS technology was used mostly by large construction firms for high-end applications. Today, anyone willing to plunk down the cash for the hardware can reap the benefits of a GPS grading and machine control system, regardless of the size of the project.
“It’s an evolutionary thing,” says Calvird. “For some guys, they see a lot of good deals out there, so it’s time for them to take the leap. For others, the cash flow and everything considered they can’t take the chance.”
Most people in the industry have heard about grade control products like laser and GPS systems, but not everyone understands the benefits they deliver. Project owners can expect projects that utilize these systems to be completed in less time, with more consistent grades, more safely (by removing grade checkers from around the machines and trenches) and a better quality product in general. Project owners that take an interest in the use of these systems are recognizing the benefits of their use and are looking for contractors who utilize grade control systems as part of their daily work, says Roberts.
With the contractor taking the job estimating into his own hands, it promotes value engineering by potentially discovering a significant cost reduction that benefits all parties. The developers, surveyors, engineering firms and contractors can all work together because they see it as a collective win/win, according to David Pinaire, Global Strategic Consultant for Caterpillar Connected Worksite. “I’ve see instances where, through value engineering, they worked with the customer to raise the height of a roadbed 6 in. from the proposed height and shared the savings with the customer to the benefit of both parties,” he says.
Digital data is a potential stumbling block for some. With paper documents, there is a process of checks, balances and approvals for officials to sign off. And the increased popularity of GPS digital data is forcing barriers to come down, says Calvird.
“In some areas within the mining industry, they’ve gone to electronic permitting,” Calvird says. “Though construction is still paper-based permitting, I think that’s something coming down the pike.
A lot of the barriers have been getting smashed. We are getting the data moving between the engineers, surveyors and the contractors.”
Rovers roaming the jobsite, three-dimensional topos and talk of base stations can be overwhelming for a contractor who spends most of his time on the jobsite or pouring over bid prospects and not constantly checking tech-specs on new technology. So if you’re new to GPS technology, now is a good time to check out the myriad of deals and packages offered by most manufacturers — from OEM solution masters like Topcon, Leica Geosystems and Trimble to machine manufacturers like Caterpillar and John Deere.
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| Without a GPS system, additional man-hours are often needed for surveyors to re-stake a jobsite to show the required location and design elevations of pipe inverts and grade checkers to interpret designs, direct operators on cut depth and check grades. GPS grading systems allow you to cut the grade right the first time. |
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A rental purchase option (RPO) is a popular route to GPS system efficiency. Topcon, for example, is getting creative with its RPO offerings and many dealers are seeing a rollover of 80 to 90 percent from rental to purchases. “One of our most interesting scenarios is from our dealer in Michigan.
The business is thriving because they are leading with an RPO option,” says Vannman. “They’re saying, ‘don’t worry about the financing. Rent it for a month or two and get through this job.’
And they’re putting the first month of rental toward the purchase and once they get that this can make them money.”
Today’s reality is that many contractors have some work and are looking to squeeze every dime out of every job they have or that they are coming in third, fourth or fifth when bidding jobs and they’re looking to make a change to bid more competitively.
“I met a contractor who was in a small market in northern Alberta, Canada. In 2005/2006, he said he was a big fish in a small pond and was competing against a small handful — three or four different guys,” says Vanneman. “Jump to the summer of 2009, and he said he was bidding against 30 to 40 guys. These guys were bidding as far away as Nova Scotia. People are panicking and doing whatever they can to get work.”
In a time of trickling cash flow and competitive bids, a contractor can use any advantage he can find. Let’s not forget that beyond the bidding and estimating advantages, GPS systems primary use of grading and machine control are the real strengths. Hitting a grade the first time saves time and money in its own right. It just so happens that the systems offer value-added functionality that’s opening more doors for contractors and giving them an edge over the competition.
Jason Morgan is Associate Editor of Utility Contractor.
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