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John Trotti Grading & Excavation Contractor Editor

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GX Contractor Editor's Blog

November 11th, 2008 7:32am PST

In Pursuit of the Digital Jobsite

Posted By John Trotti Comments

In the September/October issue’s Editor’s Comments I proposed that:: In the next five years, the acceptance of digitally enhanced/controlled equipment and the underlying understandings of its use should be virtually universal, but this is only the entry ticket into the arena where the dramatic changes lie...the real-time digital job site and emergence of highly flexible, nonlinear project management processes, techniques, and visions.

Over the past couple of years, our “Technology in Construction” section has used machine control as its entry point into more detailed discussions of the digital job site. This was not, as you might suspect, by accident, because we wanted to root the grander subjects in something that made obvious and immediate sense—a blade, a bucket, or a compactor wheel in your favorite environment … dirt. Now we turn to the underpinnings of a revolution changing the way all of us will do business with TINs at the forefront...the tools of project management.

No surprise that the management process begins and ends with a total understanding of what the project is about, but less than a half-step behind comes the need for a precise knowledge of the job site and what it takes for you to get from any point in time or space to where it is you plan to go.

Now more than ever before, your ability to swiftly, accurately, and confidently determine work to be done—the amount of material to be dug, scraped, pushed, compacted, and hauled; how this relates to machine time, fuel consumption, payroll, and the myriad details you once lumped into a category called “miscellaneous”—is fundamental to your survival in a business whose margins for error have shrunk to near zero. Love it or hate it, that’s the reality of the modern job site, brought to you through the wonders of technology.

I’d like to know what your project management experience has been over the past several years. How do you compare where you are technologically today with where you were, say in November 2006? What tools and understandings have made the difference?

What about the future? What changes do you see yourself making in the next year or two?

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