Grader Guidance

Motor-grader machine control, used even on the smallest jobs, is helping companies hedge against today’s shrinking profit margins. Particularly in these challenging times, more and more contractors are rapidly declaring themselves “card-carrying” GPS believers as they tout a host of benefits. First and foremost is productivity, productivity, productivity, followed by precision accuracy, maximum machine utilization, and reduced material, fuel, labor, and rework costs. Not surprisingly, all that adds up to a quick and quite handsome return on investment.

“A GPS doesn’t make a bad blade operator a good one; but what it can do is make a good blade operator a better one—and it can make a great operator exceptional,” says Jim Scott, sales executive for Gilbert, AZ–based Scott’s Diversified Construction (SDC) Inc., a small, family-owned company that uses Topcon fully automatic GPS systems on each of its three CAT 140H graders. Scott says that, according to Topcon, SDC is one of the first companies of its size (30 employees) in the region to have adopted GPS technology some five years ago. “We use GPS on almost every project, the most recent being a 14-foot-high by 50-foot-wide by 300-foot-long test ramp for Boeing. We build the models ourselves, get localized with our GPS system; and all the surveyor has to do is confirm what we do,” says Scott, stressing that the biggest benefit is speed.

However, Scott cautions that there is a learning curve. He says that a lot of people think that with GPS all you do is get into the grader and drive, and that is not true. “You still have to have an immense amount of skill because you have to train your eye to look in many places. You’re looking at a monitor as much as you’re looking at a windrow. There is also a learning curve in knowing how to get the system localized and set up on each job,” he says.

Most of the SDC blade operators are between 25 to 35 years of age and have college degrees or experience. “They have the computer skills to make these systems really work for us. That’s why we were really one of the early adopters in commercial parking lot industry. We’re a little company, but we’re technology junkies,” says Scott.

Cam Walker is an outside sales representative for Allen Instruments & Supplies, an authorized Trimble Distributor in Arizona and Southern California. He says that contractors who resist the use of GPS do it “because they don’t know what they don’t know.” In other words, they are afraid of the technology, but once they find out what they’ve missed, they readily adapt.

“GPS is all about keeping money in your pocket. Right now, anyone who is working is utilizing GPS for the efficiencies they realize,” says Walker who also points to an often-overlooked benefit of GPS. “With all the new air-quality regulations in California, for example, GPS will actually help curb the particulate matter output and emissions of motor graders due to the fact that greater productivity means the machine is operating for fewer hours. Consider, too, that GPS can give a Tier 2 machine a Tier 3 status, as a Tier 2 machine with GPS will work more effectively than a Tier 3 machine without GPS,” he says.

For the past three years, Dusty Mueller, project manager for Wisconsin-based Mueller Excavating, has used a Trimble 990 GPS on a CAT 140M motor grader. The company focuses on road reconstruction, utility work, commercial site work, and subdivisions—and the GPS system is used on even the smallest project. The result is rapid completion and reduced rework. According to Mueller, the use of GPS is a key factor in allowing the company to offer customers a full package of both utility and grading work.

Mueller says that on the smaller projects, models are relatively easy to build, taking no more than two to three hours of office time—which in the end allows them to shave off up to 50% of the grading time. “The system is fully automatic, and the speed is just amazing. Even the best grader operator in the business could not work faster than this system allows. Plus, the small investment that it takes to do the valving on the grader to adapt it to the automatic system is well worth the cost,” he says.

Importantly, Mueller says that using grader machine control makes life easier for the foreman and the operators. “It cuts down on the stress, as they have the specifications in the grader and do not have to worry if the grade is right. There is no guesswork,” he says.

On certain private jobs that do not require a certified engineer, Mueller Excavating can save the owner considerable costs. “With GPS on our graders, we can do what a certified surveyor/engineer can do. The project owner would only need to get the final grade reviewed by the surveyor at the end of the job,” says Mueller.

Haydon Building Corp. is a general building and heavy civil contractor headquartered in Phoenix. Jeff Fields is the company’s GPS manager. “We’re somewhat new to GPS, having gotten into it just two years ago. We started with a Topcon GNSS system on an excavator, and now we have a Topcon G63 system on our motor grader,” says Fields, who stresses that the big benefit of motor-grader machine control is not worrying about knocking out survey stakes and replacing them. “That means a lot fewer man hours, and the operator doesn’t have anything to dodge out there,” he says.

The G63 kit for motor graders incorporates Topcon’s GX-60 control box, originally a component of the X63 indicate system for excavators, and the MC-R3 machine control receiver capable of tracking all current and planned satellite system signals.

“The last project on which we used the G63 system was a 10-acre parking lot in Douglas, AZ. When we had the surveyor come out and check it with the robotic system, we were within .300 of an inch plus or minus throughout the entire site,” says Fields, who explains that his company builds its own models from CAD files supplied by the engineer.

To those who are not using GPS on their graders, Fields says, “Make the step, then give yourself a year or two to really learn all the parameters of it. Even during the learning curve period you will save money on your jobs. We rely heavily on the dealer to get us through that curve and help us with any issues we may have. With its accuracy, it’s a profit maker and a good way to make up for all those potential other mistakes that may happen throughout a project.”

In most cases, Haydon Building Corp. runs its GPS off the “network” supplied by Branco Machinery, a Topcon dealer and supplier of ground engagement tools. Brad Conover is president of Branco Machinery. “We have a GPS network set up in Phoenix and Tucson. Contractors can dial into the network via a cellular modem, eliminating the need to set up a base onsite and resulting in a time-and-cost savings,” says Conover. He adds that the use of GPS networks in the general construction industry is a relatively new trend and is available to contractors under an annual subscription.

To maximize the benefits of GPS, Conover says that his dealership encourages the contractor to have a point man, or a person who takes charge of the use of the equipment. “It is technology that they have to learn and understand, and the point man is fully trained and can then train the remaining employees,” says Conover.

Branco Machinery provides training at the time of installation with the point man, operator and the field personnel, and then follows up with ongoing onsite and phone support. “We always say that our work starts after the sale,” says Conover.

Schmidtlein Excavating uses a Leica PowerGrade 3D on a Volvo G940 motor grader. Formerly featured in GX for a large commercial project in Topeka, KS, Schmidtlein reported that the system paid for itself over the course of just two projects, while saving significant labor costs and delivering precision accuracy.

According to Leica, PowerGrade increases machine utilization and flexibility due to its PowerSnap Concept, which allows the operator to change from one configuration to another or from one machine to another, as the job demands. The operator can easily switch to 3D GPS mode one day and to 2D laser mode the next. The system can also be transferred from a grader to a dozer as needed, eliminating the need to buy a complete dozer or grader system for each machine. Leica explains that a simple docking station allows an easy and quick exchange of panels, depending upon the needs of the job. The operator can simply swap the 2D with the 3D panel or even transfer the panels between machines.

D Construction of Coal City, IL, uses a Leica PowerGrade MPC-1350 system on its John Deere 770CH grader and its John Deere 850J dozer. The company has extensive experience working on underground utilities, commercial buildings, water and sewer projects, highway construction, petrochemical plants, and asphalt and concrete projects.

It has just completed its first year using GPS, having invested in the equipment for use on a $40 million Union Pacific Railroad intermodal project that required laying 400,000 tons of stone.

“We didn’t want to do that the old-fashioned way, and beyond this project, the systems will stay busy. We are planning to add GPS to more machines next year,” says Bill Savoree, project manager for D Construction.

As for the learning curve, Savoree says it was really fairly easy. “Leica’s goal was to train us and get us up and running in one day, and they did that. Our operators were out there using the systems on day one. Then the Leica team stayed with us for the first week until we were fully comfortable,”
he says.

Larry Roberts, manager of Slurry Pavers of Glen Allen, VA, says grader machine control really makes a difference on the small jobs. Roberts runs a Topcon Millimeter GPS on a Cat 12H and a Volvo 720B motor grader. He got into GPS about three years ago.

Combining GPS and laser technologies alike, the Topcon Millimeter GPS allows contractors to use one GPS for finish grading, trimming, profiling, and paving airport, highway and parking lot projects.

Topcon says that the system provides a significant enhancement in the vertical measuring precision of RTK GPS. The technology, known as Laser Zone, generates a vertical accuracy to within a few millimeters, as compared with the centimeter vertical accuracy of conventional RTK GPS.

“I use the system on anything from small parking lots to large airport runway jobs, such as a Dulles airport project which involved 653,000 square yards of area—a job that was entirely without stakes,” says Roberts. “On these larger projects, it has probably tripled my production rate. I can do as much as 15,000 square yards of runway in a day with one motor grader, and at the end of the day everything is within a quarter-inch tolerance.”

But the thing that really sold Roberts on GPS, he says, was its benefits on the small jobs. “We do a lot of full-depth reclamation work and soil stabilization, and we might only be on the job for one to three days. A lot of times there is no 3D model for the job, so we actually build our own model right on the job site,” he says.

Slurry Pavers just finished a 17,000-square-yard subdivision project that required the rebuilding of failing curb and gutter streets.

“We could actually shoot in a model off the curb and gutter manually. The fact that I could do that sold me on this system. I can go out on a job site and build a model within one-and-a-half to two hours using my rover and hand-held computer. The only downside of the system is interference with tree cover and sometimes power lines. Other than that, it works great,” says Roberts.

The difference in GPS technology over the past several years, says Roberts, is the availability of the millimeter GPS, which brings the tolerance down to just 3 millimeters. “It makes a huge difference in your finish grade. Before, most people only used GPS for rough grading. They didn’t really use it for fine grading and now the technology is there for tackling fine grading,” he says.

Roberts predicts that in less than 10 years, GPS will be required on jobs.

“A lot of your DOT specs already say that you have to have some type of automatic slope control on your grading equipment,” he says. “That’s good for the young operators who love it, but many of the older operators don’t want anything to do with it. I hear them say that they can grade it better by eye, which isn’t so. I always tell them, ‘You might be good, but you’re not that good.’”

Schneider Excavating, based in Lannon, WI, prides itself on being one of the first in the Milwaukee area to do its own construction staking rather than contracting it to an outside engineering firm. So it is no surprise that the firm was one of the early adopters of GPS technology on its motor graders and dozers. The company uses a Topcon MC-R3 GPS on a Cat 140G and a Cat 140H motor grader. The left side of the Cat 140H blade has a Tracker Jack laser tracking system installed. The right side has a Topcon Millimeter GPS.

The Leica PowerGrade System can be easily configured for 2D or 3D operation, and can be swapped from one machine to another.

“Currently we use the systems for parking-lot grading and some building slab grading; however we first purchased the system for the fine grading of a soccer field where a new field turf system would be installed,” says Fred Hartzheim, a civil engineer for Schneider Excavating.

The specification for the field turf job called for deviations of less than 0.125 inch over a 10-foot length, a degree of precision easily met by the millimeter system. Without the system, costly labor-intensive hand grading and raking would have been required.

“We didn’t have to pound any stakes, or constantly shoot a laser grade,” he says, “and as we had a 3D model built, we could just keep working our way across the field. With the half-percent crown on the field, it’s a flatter field turf system but you’re still maintaining your drainage. With our GPS skills, we got the job over companies who specialize in doing these types of field turf jobs. Few in our region are operating the millimeter system. Today, we run GPS on all of our equipment—anything from a scraper to a backhoe to a dozer to a compactor,” says Fields.