Grading and Excavation Contractor

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Small Contractor Scores Big Gains

By Daniel C. Brown

“For the four years prior to last year, we had been averaging $1.5 to $2 million in annual revenues,” says earthmoving contractor Jon Rood. “Last year was our first full year using GPS, and we more than doubled our annual revenue.”

Tri-County can automatically grade to plus or minus one-tenth of a foot with its Cat D6N dozer equipped with a Topcon GPS.

Rood, who is president of Tri-County Construction Co. in Livingston, TX, says last year brought him some profitable projects. But he gives much of the credit for the increase in revenue to his Topcon GPS+ machine control systems, which automate the blade controls on two of his dozers and a motor grader. In addition, he uses Topcon GPSs to indicate digging grades on two excavators.

“GPS equipment is hard for the average excavation contractor to justify, because it costs as much as another piece of equipment,” says Rood. “That’s why it took us two years to pull the trigger on the purchase. After some careful research, we chose Topcon equipment, and our initial purchase cost $180,000. That is a lot of money. But six months later, the GPS equipment had paid for itself, and we asked ourselves why we waited two years to buy it.”

With 10 employees, Tri-County works primarily in east and south Texas. Throughout last year, the firm had completed six earthmoving projects—all stakeless—using Topcon GPSs. Two Caterpillar dozers, a D6N and a D5N—as well as a Cat 140H motor grader—were all equipped with Topcon’s 3D GPS+. A Cat 330 DL excavator got a Topcon 3DXi system for indicating grade. Tri-County also bought a Topcon Hiper Lite+ base and rover with an FC 200 controller and a Topcon standalone base station only (no rover). All of Tri-County’s earthmoving machines are now GPS-equipped.

Rood quickly counts the weeks that his GPSs have saved. Here are some examples:

At the Willacy County Regional Detention Facility in Raymondville, TX, the GPSs slashed the time of grading completion to 34 calendar days, from the 50 days it would have taken using conventional surveying equipment. The project involved 73,000 cubic yards of excavation, three large building pads, and 270,000 square feet of parking.
For the Maverick County Detention Facility in Eagle Pass, TX, Tri-County spent just 28 days to move 100,000 cubic yards of earth. With conventional surveying equipment, the job would have taken 45 to 50 days, says Jeff Rood, a co-owner of Tri-County with his brother Jon.
Heaven’s Gate Lake, a private 7-acre lake in Moscow, TX, required just 11 days to move 42,000 cubic yards of earth. With conventional equipment, it would have taken nearly a month, says Jon Rood.

In fact, Rood credits the GPS equipment with helping him to get the Heaven’s Gate project over other contractors who bid lower. The owner was an engineer who designed the lake with multiple grade breaks to create structural habitat for bass fishing.

“The owner asked me if it was possible to grade his lake the way he had it designed, and we assured him that since our 3D model would be based on his drawings our grading would be accurate,” says Jon Rood. “The owner had multiple contractors to choose from, and, although we were not the low bidder, we got the job because the owner said he was impressed with our professionalism and the amount of GPS equipment that we use. When we finished, he used our Topcon rotary laser to verify that our grades were correct.”

Step by Step
Jon Rood said learning to work with a Topcon GPS is not particularly difficult. The first step is to estimate the job using a digitizer and cut-and-fill software. A digitizer is a large board on which you can trace a stylus over the 2D drawing and enter the information into the computer (Tri-County uses Quest cut-and-fill software). Total square footage of the project, the building pads, the parking lots, the sidewalks, total cuts and fills, and proposed landscape areas are all estimated.

“When we win the job, we immediately request the Computer-Aided Design [CAD] file from the engineer and we forward it to Geoshack Services and Solutions,” says Jon Rood. “That’s a business unit of our Topcon dealer, Geoshack. We like having our models built by the same people that sold us the equipment. When you can mesh contractors and high technology, that is a huge asset.”

The CAD file, Rood explains, is a two-dimensional drawing of the project. Then Geoshack Services uses Carlson take-off software to convert the CAD file to a usable three-dimensional model. Field corrections can be handled immediately by e-mail, before the model is sent to the field.

Jon Rood says that because he and his brother Jeff have extensive surveying background, they themselves establish the control points on the project. This is called localization and can be done by any licensed surveyor. “The control points are benchmarks for GPS,” says Jon. “You have northing and easting and elevations for all of them.”

Next, he uses the Topcon Hiper Lite+ and the FC200 controller to create a local control file. Then he loads the control file, the 3D model, and the linework file (which also comes from Geoshack) into the GPS on the earthmoving equipment. All of that information is contained on a flash card or a USB drive.

The base station can be set up on a known control point or anyplace else on the site. At the Willacy County project, Rood set up the base station on a tripod at the southeast corner of the project—well away from trucks or equipment traffic. Jeff Rood says it takes about half a day to localize the GPS—to set up the base station, load the equipment with the files, and get the equipment on target. Unlike a rotary laser, a GPS base station does not have to have sight lines to its targets—the antennae located on the earthmoving equipment.

On the machines, the GPS consists of a touch-screen monitor, a satellite receiver box and satellite antenna. Topcon equipment uses two constellations of satellites for positioning signals—the US GPS satellites and GLONASS, the Russian constellation of satellites. “We have never had to delay a project because we couldn’t get a GPS signal,” says Jon Rood. “Early in the days of GPS, if your satellites went down over the horizon, you might lose two or three hours a day, of work.”

Good Dealer
“When you’re buying GPS equipment, first and foremost you’re buying the equipment,” says Rood. “The next key ingredient is your dealer. Our dealer is Geoshack/Houston and our salesman is Scott Bird. Our installer is Matt Humbertus. And whether it means jumping on an airplane to fly out and help us with a technical problem or driving to a remote job site to install a new machine, Geoshack and their team will bend over backwards to accommodate a contractor. I hope all dealers are as accommodating as Geoshack/Houston.”

Rood says many site work contractors in Texas, especially in the Houston area, are reluctant to accept GPS technology. That means his firm is more price competitive against non-GPS users. “We’re enjoying increased profits because we can do the work faster than a non-GPS contractor,” says Rood.

He plans to start work soon on the Winchester Power Park near Giddings, TX. It’s a $3.5 million excavation project that includes the clearing and grubbing stumps, the mass excavation of 150,000 cubic yards of earth, and the placement of 40,000 tons of crushed limestone base.

“We previously would have been afraid to bid this project because of the stringent grading specification—plus or minus five-hundredths of a foot,” says Jon Rood. “But now we’re planning to purchase Topcon’s millimeter GPS grading system to help us more than achieve the specified grades. In fact, GPS has taken Tri-County Construction from being a good grading contractor to being a great one!”

Daniel C. Brown owns TechniComm, a communications business in Illinois.

GEC - March/April 2008

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