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From our very
first issue, we’ve trumpeted the themes of (1) employee
welfare and training, (2) attention to safety, (3) regulatory
compliance, and (4) adoption of proven technologies as the
foundations for success. These have the basis for the vast
majority of our articles and the subject of nearly all my
Editor’s Comments over the years. And here we are again.
The cover shot
and the article that goes with it (“Size
Doesn’t Matter,”) offer proof that the magazine
has been spot-on from its very first issue when we turned
our focus on technologies with the article titled “Automating
Your Construction Site” (www.gradingandexcavating.com/gec_9909_automate.html),
which at that moment seemed more in the realm of Buck Rogers
than your everyday dirt-moving world. The fact that GPS and
lasers existed in the rarified atmospheres of the mining industry
or the very largest construction firms, and then only on their
most expensive machinery, may have made our prophecy look
pretty far-fetched back then, but not anymore. While these
tools might not be in everyone’s rollaway yet, it’s
apparent that it’s just a matter of time before they
are.
A Peek at the
Past
Let me take you back to ConExpo 1999 where for the most
part the machines were hydro-mechanical and the displays,
while digitally based, parroted their analog ancestors. Yes,
laser and GPS systems were present, but not on the front line.
For the most part it seemed like its predecessor with only
a trim and a rinse to mark the three-year passage of time.
ConExpo 2002, by
contrast, was a wake-up call to the 100,000-plus visitors
who trooped the area in a state of amazement at the tremendous
display of technological wizardry. While in some ways it smacked
of “things to come,” it showed for certain that
the days of beefy levers and no-nonsense dials were numbered,
booted out to pasture by fighter plane joysticks and electronic
display panels offering the promise of control and information
beyond imagination.
It remained for
this year’s ConExpo to drive home the point that the
electronic-hydraulic onslaught was no flash-in-the-pan. A
revolution was in full progress, leaving the questions not
of if and what, but rather of how far and how fast …
and that’s the threshold we stand at today.
What’s
in Store for Us?
The opportunities afforded by existing technologies are
too great to envision, much less enumerate, but I’d like
to suggest one to consider.
Over the past several
years we’ve experienced an increase in the amount of
night and inclement weather work, both of which place a premium
on situational awareness. During this same period we’ve
witnessed a significant increase in the use of hearing protection
gear—plugs, Mickey Mouse ears, or acoustic earphones—and
while there is much to be said for the health aspects involved,
the isolation from the immediate environment introduces dangers
of a different sort to work sites. OK, we’ve got a situational
awareness problem.
What do we do about
it?
The best answer,
of course, is to provide constant reminders of these risks
to our workers at daily meetings, at lunchbox training presentations,
through signage, and by other attention-getters, but I wonder
if this isn’t an opportunity to bring some existing technologies
to bear.
While still in
its infancy, military commanders now have the ability to monitor
the precise position not only of aircraft and vehicles, but
also of individual soldiers … and then direct their activities
via discrete communications. Granted, this requires some very
sophisticated and expensive stuff, such as the use of satellite
sensors, transmitters, and transponders, but then we don’t
need all the bells and whistles to monitor and control a job
site. In fact, the basic tools already exist in the commercial
world, and there’s a good chance you employ many of them
right now.
If you are using
a GPS (or laser) base station and can communicate with your
people and equipment in real time, you are well on the way
to having what amounts to a job-site collision avoidance system.
What’s missing is the black box that integrates location
data, looks for potential collisions, and issues some sort
of warning or command.
It’s truly
astounding what technology makes possible these days. It seems
that our biggest problem lies in deciding what we want and
then asking for it.
Send
John an Email
GEC
- November/December 2005
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