November 30, 2000

Flash Gordon meets the backhoe

Lasers have become common in surveying and construction work but PPI Survey & Laser Equipment in Kent is using lasers in uncommon ways, dramatically changing how contractors, engineers and heavy equipment operators do their work.

Photos courtesy of Topcon Laser Systems Topcon's TS5 system shows the excavator operator real-time digging or slope cutting operations.

"We use lasers to control construction equipment," said Ken Shersty, branch manager for PPI. "By marketing products from Topcon Laser Systems ... we’re helping contractors cut costs, improve their work and even reduce labor. That’s pretty important at a time when there’s such a shortage of skilled laborers and rising construction costs."

By linking excavators, graders and paving equipment to on-site laser beacons, global positioning satellites (GPS), computers and other electronic systems, Topcon’s equipment transforms even older construction machinery into state-of-the-art high-tech tools.

Labor saver

One of Shersty’s favorite examples is Topcon’s Touch Series 5 laser system mounted on excavators. Using a combination of laser beams and excavator-mounted sensors that calculate bucket angles, the user friendly Topcon LCD touch control panel shows the operator his exact bucket depth and angle relative to the project’s desired grade or depth. Instead of requiring one or two grade checkers to take periodic measurements while the operator stops digging, the Topcon system allows continuous work without spotters.

"That's not only a labor saver but it’s also a safety advantage," Shersty said, referring to accidents in which grade checkers have been caught in cave-ins. The Topcon equipment even lets operators work "blind," moving ahead with digging projects despite water-filled ditches that obscure the bucket’s location and the depth of the cut.

Using the Topcon laser and equipment control system, operators can have automatic control of sloped cuts and precisely controlled excavation depths that virtually eliminate over-excavation and rework, according to Topcon literature. Contractors are using Topcon systems for faster, more accurate trenching for sewer and drainage pipe, hillside slope cuts, basement and footing excavation and road paving.

Shersty's enthusiasm for Topcon’s products is sometimes even surpassed by his customers. Listen to Rob Holden, equipment manager for Universal Land Construction Co. in Woodinville. The company installed a Topcon TS-5 system on an excavator two years ago.

"It was bought especially to help us dig detention ponds for storm water runoff, huge ponds for large projects. They have to be engineered exactly and dug exactly. The percentage of slope has to be perfect to get approved by the inspectors. All you have to do with this system is set it (on the instrument panel), click on it and it does the right thing. It never does it wrong," Holden said. "The surveyor puts his marks in and we take off from there, and we only have to dig it once. Before, we’d cut over or under the slope line and we’d come close but not good enough for the inspector and the engineer. Now it’s exact, every time. It’s pretty amazing."

Before using the Topcon system, Holden said the excavator operator relied on a man on the ground to check the grade.

"We were paying two people, and the equipment had to stop regularly. Now we’re able to send the ground man off to do something more productive, and the excavator operator doesn’t have to stop work at all. As hard as it is to get manpower these days, that change has been really important for us," he said.

When his company bought the first unit, Holden said, "We figured if it paid for itself in a year, well, OK. It does so much better than that for us that we bought a second system."

Versatile system

As the only company handling Topcon products in Washington and Oregon (with offices in Kent and Portland and a smaller satellite location in Spokane), PPI is gaining a lot of attention in the industry, Shersty said.

"The systems are so versatile. This morning I was talking to a client who was excavating a ditch 60 feet deep while it was filled with water. With Touch System-5, the monitor mounted in the cab shows where the bucket is in real time. By using the measurements of the equipment, the changing angles of the arm and bucket, and a lot of trig and mathematics, we can figure exactly where the bucket is while it’s working," Shersty said.

While Topcon started the "machine control" industry, he said, laser-guided and automated machine operations didn’t really take off until the early 1990s, even though the first equipment was available a decade earlier. Initially the biggest markets were agricultural, then paving machines began using the systems for precision route guidance. Today the big users are excavators and graders, a market PPI and Topcon have cultivated by visiting construction companies, showing off digital videos and CD-ROMs on the sales crew’s laptop computers and even flying potential clients to Topcon’s Pleasanton, Calif., factory to see equipment systems in action.

"This is not a spur of the moment sale. You don’t just take order forms to people, it takes a lot of soliciting. But once they use the systems, they love what they do and their operators love using them. We look for companies with multiple equipment units because once they use a system they usually buy more," said Shersty, who counts Goodfellow Brothers Inc. in Wenatchee and Washington Group International (formerly Morrison Knudsen Corp. in Seattle) as satisfied customers.

Graders, too

While the automated excavator system amazes people, Shersty said contractors are even more impressed with the 3D-GPS system for graders, the world’s first self-tracking station with satellite links, laser communication to the grading equipment, a precision Local Positioning System (LPS) and a rugged Rocky laptop computer that takes construction site shakes and quakes in stride.

Photos courtesy of Topcon Laser Systems Grader operators use a Topcon monitor to measure grading routes and slopes.

Digitized site plans are loaded into the laptop, creating a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) for reference. Then the computer is connected to Topcon’s GRT-2000 high-speed auto-tracking laser (able to track equipment up to 40 miles per hour) that locks onto the LS-2000 receiver mounted on the grader. As the machine moves over the site, its position is automatically tracked by the laser station, while the laser on the grader receives slope and elevation data from the site plans. The system also has a field survey option in the computer, able to record random points on a site as the grader travels across it, continuously comparing the existing terrain with the site plans in the computer. At any point on the site, the operator knows how accurate the grade is as the site is reshaped.

Because planned-site grade information is continually sent to the machine in real time by a laser "stringline," initial staking time is reduced and re-staking and conventional stringlining is eliminated.

Dale Mininger, maintenance manager for Washington Group International, is using Topcon’s BladePro 5 system on graders that are clearing the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 18 site for additional container cargo handling.

"We've got 12 of those Topcon laser grade systems. Their effectiveness will be phenomenal on that site," Mininger said. "It’s enabled us to reduce a six-man crew to only two on that project, the equipment operator and a set-up man for the stringlines, besides speeding up the whole operation."

Mininger said the grader makes its first pass, recording information as it goes, then makes the other passes with the blade automatically set to the same height.

"It can also set up sonic stringlines so the system can guide the equipment exactly where it needs to be," Mininger said.

"One of the best things is that the equipment is easy to use, even the first time," Shersty said. "A lot of equipment operators don’t have computer science degrees, so the products have to be easy or they won’t use them. We can train a grader or excavator operator to use our Topcon system in five minutes. Practically speaking, we do spend more time with them but they can be comfortable operating it within the first few minutes."

Different parts of the country vary in the use of automated construction equipment and laser systems, he said, with about 75 percent of paving operations automated in the Northwest compared to 10 to 20 percent of the grading and excavation operations, a far lower figure than in other parts of the country. That’s why Topcon sees this area as an unfulfilled market for its laser systems, Shersty said.

For more information about Topcon’s automated construction equipment and laser-guided operations, contact Shersty at (425) 251-9722 or (800) 558-5368 for demonstration CD-ROMs; or go to Topcon’s Web site at www.topconlaser.com.

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