SITECH Horizon: New Professional Services Offering

Many contractors across the country have embraced the technological advances available in construction equipment over the past several years.

SITECH Horizon, a company under the Weisiger Group, has become a one-stop shop for advanced Trimble construction technology solutions in western North Carolina.

Trimble offerings like machine control systems, construction surveying equipment, intuitive software and fleet/asset management tools enable builders to take firm control of their job sites while increasing productivity and efficiency.

Additionally, Trimble creates solutions that help engineers and builders increase productivity and collaboration on the job site. The company’s solutions enable businesses to achieve accurate estimates and takeoff quantities, to manage project complexities from one location and to share accurate design data with all working members of a particular project.

SITECH Horizon will aid contractors in delivering a quality project on time, on schedule and on budget, according to Robert Krouse, the company’s digital construction specialist.

As part of Krouse’s role within digital construction, he works as an engineer for the company assisting in several different needs on the job site. He works in modeling, drone, field and estimating services for SITECH and its customers.

“For our construction customers, we market and sell Trimble products for machine control, site, survey layout, including software,” he said. “The software includes Trimble Business Center, in addition to an online file transfer for construction equipment called WorksManager, and WorksOS, a productivity manager that connects to construction equipment. So, while equipped with this software, an excavator or dozer is not only doing grading, but also recording data and the surfaces that they are creating. That information can be uploaded to look at productivity like cut fill volumes on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.”

With Trimble, Krouse explained, contractors also get software for model building, estimation and productivity. With the addition of SITECH’s drone products and drone software offerings like Trimble Stratus, contractors can easily use the diminutive aircraft to fly over and define ground surfaces of their job site. In simple terms, they can see their project from the birds-eye-view.

“They will often fly a drone across a site to check the grades before doing the actual project bidding to make sure they are in line with the engineers’ information,” he said. “A contractor may need to know what his or her volumes were for that month, so they fly the drone, compare its survey to the original one and build according to that data.”

For example, a large construction firm wins a bid to build an interstate highway. This firm needs assistance in mapping its progress throughout the project to make sure they are staying on time and on budget. The company would contact SITECH Horizon to access its modeling expertise to monitor its excavation progress and share their data about the site via CAD files. SITECH Horizon would then use these files to build 3D models of the existing surface and would provide permitted and approved plan sets.

With this new service offering, SITECH Horizon is better able to support smaller companies with limited resources.

Several Machine Control Products Available

SITECH Horizon is the local distributor of Trimble construction software, site positioning software and drones for site modeling. But the heart of Trimble’s construction equipment product lineup is its three machine control systems — Earthworks, Roadworks paving and Groundworks — for connecting the technology to the worksite and giving contractors better efficiencies.

Just how, Krouse was asked, does Trimble do that?

“One is that with Trimble products, there is no survey,” he said. “If you have a machine model that is built correctly, there is little surveying needed prior to doing grading, which means you do not have the grade stakes that used to be placed in the field and have your cut fill items listed on these stakes. The advantage for the equipment operator is that the plans are in the machine and he or she will know exactly where the grade is at any given point, and those machines can offset for the site improvements whether it is paving or grading based on what their site improvements are on that job site.”

In addition to its products and software, SITECH Horizon provides service and support personnel that can be available onsite throughout a projects duration to assist with project needs, according to Krouse.

“It can be as simple as setting up the first base station onsite for the GPS guidance, training crews on how to use the rover and do survey layout, or how to do 3D line work for an excavator digging a pipe project,” he said. “It is not the product, but the service and support that makes the biggest difference.”

Trimble systems are compatible with everything from compact equipment to excavators, scrapers, motor graders and wheel loaders made by most OEMs, including Cat.

Using Trimble to Save On Costs

Krouse said that the contractor can realize big cost savings on a project by applying Trimble construction technology in a variety of ways.

With the help of Trimble and drone technology, a 10-mi. highway project can be captured in one sweep. With a drone on the job site, an engineer can capture a snapshot of the original surface and load the image into the machine via Trimble’s machine control software before the operators scoop their first bucketful of topsoil of the day. Contractors are now able to learn more about their work site before breaking ground.

Today’s drone and software technologies not only provide a new view of a project but allows operators to adjust their work to the exact measurements that they need. This new technology allows for companies to adjust their precision to as small as a half-inch. For example, on a large grading project, a company is required to meet precise yardage, feet, even inches. What used to take a surveyor putting stakes in the ground, potential rework and reevaluation now has been eliminated with a GPS technology. Adopting these new technologies makes both the machine and operator more in tune with the status of the job site. These small adjustments have an opportunity to save big money in the long run.

Are Autonomous Earthmovers in Our Future?

The advancements made in site technology have truly been astonishing in a relatively brief period, he noted.

“Fifteen years ago, none of this was even a topic of conversation; now we are discussing where does GPS head from this point forward,” Krouse said. “GPS guidance allows you today to steer your equipment. You pick an alignment and use the technology to run the machine where you need it on the grade, meaning that it is just a matter of time before you will not need an operator to run the construction piece. The simplest machine to use this technology on is a roller, something that goes back and forth and is just rolling over and compacting soil. That is likely the first stage in introducing autonomous machinery to a construction site. An excavator, on the other hand, may be the hardest machine to make automatic.

“Regardless, I think automation is the future for large mass earthmoving projects. No matter the size of a construction company, to stay competitive today, it will have to employ machine control technology, or it will risk being left behind the eight ball.”

Robert Krouse is an experienced project engineering consultant who has spent more than 22 years perfecting his skills in progressive business management, project management and organizational leadership.

Krouse has spent eight-plus years of progressive engineering design experience in land development, environmental compliance, solid waste and water resource management through employment opportunities in consulting engineering, and as a site project engineer of a municipal solid waste disposal facility. After his own personal business endeavors, Krouse joined the SITECH community, getting his start in the world of digital construction.

With previous experience at SITECH Alleghany in Harrisburg, Pa., where he served as a provider of resources, education, and insight of current technologies available for construction and site development utilizing global positioning systems (GPS), he joined the SITECH Horizon team in Charlotte, N.C., to launch its professional services offering.

For more information, visit www.sitech-horizon.com. CEG

(Carolina Cat Marketing Specialist Alexis Ritchey contributed to this article.)