Equipment Management Software
Jeff Kumle keeps track of a lot of stuff. As the equipment manager at Yantis Co., a heavy highway contractor based in San Antonio, TX, he is responsible for the procurement, maintenance, repair, and mobilization of more than 350 pieces of heavy equipment every day. And that doesn’t count miscellaneous items such as air compressors and extra buckets.
Kumle is quick to concede that he couldn’t do the job without help from his equipment management software package. With a click of a button, Kumle can see the location of each piece of equipment, how long it’s been there, and where it’s scheduled to go next.
“When I came to Yantis, they were trying to keep track of things on a legal pad,” says Kumle. “The software makes managing equipment so much easier.”
Equipment management software, such as Resource Manager by Yuba City, CA–based SharpeSoft or Dispatcher by Houston-based HCSS, makes easy work out of what otherwise can be a management nightmare. With information stored in and maintained by the software, contractors can make informed decisions about equipment purchases, rentals, and maintenance and repair schedules. It also has theft-deterrence capability and can help a contractor keep more profit in his pocket.
“Almost anyone with more than 15 or 20 pieces of equipment—including support and ancillary equipment—should use equipment management software,” says Kumle. “Next to labor, equipment management is a contractor’s second biggest cost.” With 45 active jobs on the board at any given time, all of which require heavy equipment, he has to know at an instant which pieces of equipment are assigned to which job sites, and which equipment is due for maintenance.
“Equipment management software gives the contractor more control and greater accuracy and communication, all of which translate to money saved,” says Brent Hooton, sales manager at SharpeSoft. “The value of the software is that it allows the contractor to speed up the [equipment management] process because he’s more organized.”
The software does more than just identify which backhoe and bulldozer are working at which site, however. It can track trends in usage and utilization, monitor the number of hours of operation for purposes of scheduling regular maintenance, track where pieces of equipment are scheduled for use, and even alert a contractor or someone else when the engine starts up on equipment that otherwise should be shut down for the day.
“People are using it to make better business decisions,” says Steve McGough, chief operating officer at HCSS. “Say you own a fleet of 10 bulldozers. They’re all out on jobs and one breaks down. So the dispatcher goes out and tries to rent one.” Had a utilization report been run to show the number of hours each bulldozer is in operation each day, however, the dispatcher—or contractor himself—could have discovered that one of the bulldozers has been running at, say, 20% utilization.
“The dispatcher can send that bulldozer to the job site that needs one and save the rental costs,” continues McGough.
Rental costs can take a pretty big bite out of a contractor’s bottom line, and utilization reports and trend charts allow a contractor to make more informed decisions.
“The software can help the contractor make the most of a rental agreement,” says Hooton. “Suppose a contractor rents a piece of equipment and needs it on the site for, maybe, four days. But he rents it for a week because he can get a better rate. That means the equipment is available for three additional days. But if the foreman on another job site doesn’t know that, he won’t take advantage of it and get the most out of that rental.”
Similarly, trend charts allow the contractor or equipment manager to track when and how much particular pieces of equipment have been used over a specific period of time and identify the most cost-effective way of maintaining it.
“You can make equipment-purchasing decisions based on trends,” continues Hooton. “If a contractor sees that he rents a lot of backhoes during a particular time of year, he might decide to buy one and save the rental fees.”
Adds Kumle, “When you rent a piece of equipment you identify it as a rental and you can run a report on that piece and find out how much you spent on rental backhoes. You might decide that with depreciation and [tax benefits from] capital expenditure, you’re better off buying another one than continuing to rent.”
With a host of other bells and whistles, equipment management software also takes the guesswork out of equipment maintenance. The software lets a contractor or equipment manager easily keep track of periodic and preventative maintenance schedules, warranties, and repairs.
According to Kumle, heavy construction equipment requires a checkup after every 250 hours of operation. Equipment management software has meter-reading capability that counts the hours that the engine is running and lets the manager know when it’s time for, say, an oil change or lube job. The contractor, job superintendent, or foreman keys in the day’s usage for a piece of equipment, and the software does the calculations. For example, it might indicate that a skip loader will be due for service after 30 more hours of operation. If the equipment is fitted with a global positioning system (GPS), the readings are automatically fed into the software and the user doesn’t have to do anything.
“That enables you to dispatch the mechanic at the right time,” says Hooton.
Kumle sees the value in that. “Planned or scheduled maintenance is always cheaper than a breakdown repair,” he says.
“When [maintenance] is tracked manually on paper, typically it goes into a file and you don’t get the true cycles you need. There’s too much guesswork,” notes McGough. “You may be servicing too early or too late.”
Knowing when a piece of equipment will be due for service allows the contractor to be more efficient with his equipment crews. He can take a look at his job schedule and figure out the best time for a particular piece of equipment to be out of commission. He may see, for example, that his backhoe will need an oil change after another 150 hours of operation. He calculates that at 10 or 12 days of work on the job site. Estimating that after another couple of weeks he’ll be able to do without the backhoe for a few days, he arranges for the service to be completed during that window of time.
“A contractor wants to be operating his equipment at the lowest cost and maximum availability,” notes Kumle. “Next to labor, equipment management is [a contractor’s] second biggest cost.” He adds that he spends as much as 40% of his time analyzing his company’s equipment management costs and determining when to repair or replace equipment.
In addition to his equipment management package, Kumle uses computerized maintenance management software (CMMS), which allows him to do cost breakdowns and analyses of his company’s equipment. Michigan-based Ashcom Technologies’ MaintiMizer 4.0 is one example of CMMS.
“Every piece of equipment is composed of components, and with CMMS you can track the cost and life of each,” he says. “Take a bulldozer, for example. When you set it up [in the system] you figure you should get 12,000 hours out of the engine and 8,000 out of the transmission. When the life expectancy is coming up, you run a report and it tells you what’s happening with that bulldozer. Then you can schedule downtime to do maintenance.”
Other products, such as HCSS’s Dispatcher, possess that same capability, taking a lesson from the accounting industry and working equipment management into inventory and parts systems.
Whatever capabilities an equipment software package brings to the table, they have no value if the software itself is cumbersome or difficult to master. For the most part, equipment management software is designed to emulate the way contractors do their jobs. Screens mimic the white magnetic boards on which contractors track their jobs and equipment. Moving a piece of equipment from one job to another in the software program is as easy as taking a magnet and moving it from one space on the white board to another.
Hydraulic Systems: Pumps
We already know that backhoes, bulldozers, excavators, and other pieces of heavy construction equipment derive their power from hydraulic systems, which operate via pressure applied to fluid contained in a chamber or reservoir. Apply force to the liquid to push it through a tube or small opening, and you have action on the other side. Remember the piston pump, which has been discussed in a previous Technology in Construction section. As described in that example, the pump has two pistons sitting in parallel cylinders. Pressure applied to the first piston forces it downward and pushes on the fluid beneath it, which, in turn, moves into the second cylinder. The fluid, under pressure from the force applied to the first piston, pushes the second piston upward.
Without a hydraulic pump, however, no pressure would be exerted on the fluid; it wouldn’t move, and the hydraulic system couldn’t operate. The pump supplies the flow of hydraulic fluid to the system. It converts mechanical power—provided by the engine—into hydraulic power.
Hydraulic pumps work by moving fluid from one side (the inlet) to the other (the outlet). As fluid moves from one side to the other, it creates space for additional fluid to enter from the reservoir that holds the fluid.
Hydraulic pumps generally fall into two categories—gear pumps and variable displacement pumps. In a gear pump, the hydraulic fluid is pressurized by a pair of intermeshing gears that rotate within a housing. Fluid moves into the inlet where it gets trapped between the gear teeth and is carried around to the outlet. Pressure in the outlet area builds until it is great enough to release the fluid. Gear pumps work well, but have the disadvantage of the pressure changing as the speed of the engine increases or decreases. To get and maintain high pressure, it’s necessary to run the engine at full speed.
In a variable-displacement pump, specifically the common axial piston pump, a series of piston cylinders fixed in a ring inside a barrel create the pressure that makes the hydraulic system work. The cylinders revolve as the engine spins the barrel around. Extending out the back of the barrel, the pistons are attached to an angled swash plate. When the barrel spins, the angle of the swash plate pushes the pistons in and pulls them out. As the swash plate pulls the piston out, the hydraulic fluid is released from the tank; as the swash plate pushes the piston in, fluid is pumped into the hydraulic system.
The flow of hydraulic fluid—and, consequently, the amount of force created—is adjusted simply by changing the angle of the swash plate. When the swash plate is perpendicular to the axis of rotation—pressed against the barrel completely—no fluid flows; when it’s at a sharp angle, a lot of fluid moves.
In addition, in a load-sensing hydraulic system, the system itself determines the angle of the swash plate at any particular time by monitoring its own needs. Variable-displacement pumps are extremely efficient because they pump only the amount of fluid the hydraulic system requires at any given time.
Machine Control
In grading and excavation work these days, practically no one operates equipment that doesn’t have some form of machine control. Similarly, practically every piece of heavy equipment that rolls off the manufacturer’s assembly line comes equipped with some form of machine control or, at the very least, has the built-in components that will be necessary for adding machine-control functions in the future.
Machine control consists mainly of laser and global positioning systems, machine interface systems, controls, and displays. A machine-control-ready piece of equipment is manufactured with all the electronics, hydraulics, harnesses, and software required to make them work. In fact, according to Thomas E. Bucklar, regional manager of the machine-control and guidance division for Caterpillar Inc., these pieces of equipment should be able to “plug and play” with the various position sensors and be on the job working in less than an hour.
“Plug the GPS [global positioning system] sensors on in the morning to grade a golf course, and install laser sensors on the machine-control-ready equipment in the afternoon to do house pads,” he says.
As we’ve discussed previously in the Technology in Construction section, machine-control systems fall into two categories—indicate and automatic. With an indicate system, the operator achieves the grade specified in the design requirements for his particular area by tracking information that appears on a display inside the cab. Indicate systems provide the operator with visual guidance so he can place and adjust the cutting edge or bucket properly, but he maintains control of the equipment. In an automatic system, the operator drives the machine, but the various systems—laser, GPS, sonar, etc.—control the movement of the blade or the bucket to achieve the same result. The operator doesn’t have to do anything apart from keeping the machine moving in the right direction. The automatic system places the cutting edge appropriately on the design surface, and the machine does the rest.
An indicate system still requires the operator to know where to fill, where to cut, and where to deposit dirt, but the automatic system allows him to achieve his specified grade more precisely and efficiently.
Machine control has revolutionized the construction industry by making it possible for jobs to be completed more quickly and with the highest degree of accuracy. With a wireless computer in the cab of his pickup truck, a contractor can receive up-to-the-minute progress reports from his equipment, download design changes sent by the engineer, and blend the two seamlessly by programming the new design specs into, say, the GPS-controlled hydraulic system.
Machine-control systems operate through microprocessors situated deep within the equipment, which monitor every aspect of a machine, including such operating information as engine temperature, fuel consumption, and oil use. They also control the critical hydraulic system that allows a blade or bucket to move with ease and accuracy.
Let’s take a quick review of the machine control provided by lasers, sonar systems, and GPS.
A laser is a specific kind of light whose characteristics make it ideal for construction purposes. Laser light is monochromatic and contains one specific color that is easy to recognize. In addition, laser light is a very tight and highly directional beam that stays strong and concentrated even over a distance as far as 2,500 feet.
A construction laser consists of the laser beacon itself, which produces the beam of light, and a receiver that registers the beam and lets the equipment operator know whether or not he’s on target. The laser beacon sits atop a tripod strategically located on the construction site. The receiver is attached to the appropriate area of the equipment—the blade of the bulldozer, for example. In that case, it would be situated on a measuring rod, allowing the operator to place the blade properly in relation to the site’s benchmark.
A sonic system uses sound waves to measure distance from one point to another, much like a radar system in a submarine. A transducer in the bottom of the sensor generates sound pulses and listens for echoes. The amount of time between the original pulse and the return echo indicates the distance between the transducer and the area being located.
GPS, based on a collection of 24 man-made satellites that orbit the Earth 24 hours a day, allows construction engineers to calculate the required position of equipment and survey lines with unprecedented accuracy. Also, by combining GPS data with 3D site plans, a contractor can create an automatic grade-control system in which the blades and buckets on his grading and excavating equipment adjust up and down automatically, without direction from the operator.
Each GPS satellite circles the Earth twice a day in a very precise orbit. To make sure the satellites can be detected from anywhere on the Earth’s surface, they are divided into six groups of four. Each group follows a different path, creating six orbital planes that completely surround the planet. The satellites are spaced so that from any point on the Earth, at least four can be detected at any given time.
The satellites transmit information via radio signals. These signals are captured by ground stations, each of which consists of a receiver and an antenna. In grading and excavating, GPS receivers are attached to construction machines. The receivers pass data to onboard computers that hold digitized site information. In real time, the information broadcasts from the satellite constellation to the receiver and on to the computer to guide the equipment’s movements.
By keeping a constant watch on the equipment’s location in relation to the site, GPS lets an equipment operator move dirt with tremendous accuracy, but it does something else, as well. It keeps track of piece of equipment’s location and movements. If a GPS-equipped backhoe makes an unauthorized trip off the construction site, for example, the owner knows where it went and when.
“All our new machines, particularly excavators, come equipped [with GPS],” says Tony den Hoed, of Volvo Construction Equipment, which features a Care Track System. “We have two types of systems. One is monitoring and the other is basic functioning.”
Older machines, whether manufactured by Volvo, Caterpillar, Kobleco/New Holland, or another company, generally can be retrofitted with the components necessary for adding machine control as an after-market feature.
“The costs vary from machine to machine and also from after-market companies and individual dealerships,” notes Caterpillar’s Bucklar. “Machine-control-ready options from original equipment manufacturers do have a cost associated with them, and aftermarket installations have labor charges plus their retrofit kits. The difference either way—and I have seen each more expensive—is closer to 1K than 10K.”
Volvo’s den Hoed notes that ordering parts as an after-market kit is only marginally more expensive than buying it factory installed.
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“It’s similar to buying a car,” he says. “Options taken at purchase are more reasonably priced. The key to factory installation is you save on the installation cost.”
Still, as Eric Winkler of Kobelco/New Holland acknowledges, “It could cost a few thousand dollars to retrofit a machine, but [an owner] might rather do that than spend $100,000 on a new machine.”
September-October 2007
Equipment Management Software
Jeff Kumle keeps track of a lot of stuff. As the equipment manager at Yantis Co., a heavy highway contractor based in San Antonio, TX, he is responsible for the procurement, maintenance, repair, and mobilization of more than 350 pieces of heavy equipment every day. And that doesn’t count miscellaneous items such as air compressors and extra buckets.
Kumle is quick to concede that he couldn’t do the job without help from his equipment management software package. With a click of a button, Kumle can see the location of each piece of equipment, how long it’s been there, and where it’s scheduled to go next.
“When I came to Yantis, they were trying to keep track of things on a legal pad,” says Kumle. “The software makes managing equipment so much easier.”
Equipment management software, such as Resource Manager by Yuba City, CA–based SharpeSoft or Dispatcher by Houston-based HCSS, makes easy work out of what otherwise can be a management nightmare. With information stored in and maintained by the software, contractors can make informed decisions about equipment purchases, rentals, and maintenance and repair schedules. It also has theft-deterrence capability and can help a contractor keep more profit in his pocket.
“Almost anyone with more than 15 or 20 pieces of equipment—including support and ancillary equipment—should use equipment management software,” says Kumle. “Next to labor, equipment management is a contractor’s second biggest cost.” With 45 active jobs on the board at any given time, all of which require heavy equipment, he has to know at an instant which pieces of equipment are assigned to which job sites, and which equipment is due for maintenance.
“Equipment management software gives the contractor more control and greater accuracy and communication, all of which translate to money saved,” says Brent Hooton, sales manager at SharpeSoft. “The value of the software is that it allows the contractor to speed up the [equipment management] process because he’s more organized.”
The software does more than just identify which backhoe and bulldozer are working at which site, however. It can track trends in usage and utilization, monitor the number of hours of operation for purposes of scheduling regular maintenance, track where pieces of equipment are scheduled for use, and even alert a contractor or someone else when the engine starts up on equipment that otherwise should be shut down for the day.
“People are using it to make better business decisions,” says Steve McGough, chief operating officer at HCSS. “Say you own a fleet of 10 bulldozers. They’re all out on jobs and one breaks down. So the dispatcher goes out and tries to rent one.” Had a utilization report been run to show the number of hours each bulldozer is in operation each day, however, the dispatcher—or contractor himself—could have discovered that one of the bulldozers has been running at, say, 20% utilization.
“The dispatcher can send that bulldozer to the job site that needs one and save the rental costs,” continues McGough.
Rental costs can take a pretty big bite out of a contractor’s bottom line, and utilization reports and trend charts allow a contractor to make more informed decisions.
“The software can help the contractor make the most of a rental agreement,” says Hooton. “Suppose a contractor rents a piece of equipment and needs it on the site for, maybe, four days. But he rents it for a week because he can get a better rate. That means the equipment is available for three additional days. But if the foreman on another job site doesn’t know that, he won’t take advantage of it and get the most out of that rental.”
Similarly, trend charts allow the contractor or equipment manager to track when and how much particular pieces of equipment have been used over a specific period of time and identify the most cost-effective way of maintaining it.
“You can make equipment-purchasing decisions based on trends,” continues Hooton. “If a contractor sees that he rents a lot of backhoes during a particular time of year, he might decide to buy one and save the rental fees.”
Adds Kumle, “When you rent a piece of equipment you identify it as a rental and you can run a report on that piece and find out how much you spent on rental backhoes. You might decide that with depreciation and [tax benefits from] capital expenditure, you’re better off buying another one than continuing to rent.”
With a host of other bells and whistles, equipment management software also takes the guesswork out of equipment maintenance. The software lets a contractor or equipment manager easily keep track of periodic and preventative maintenance schedules, warranties, and repairs.
According to Kumle, heavy construction equipment requires a checkup after every 250 hours of operation. Equipment management software has meter-reading capability that counts the hours that the engine is running and lets the manager know when it’s time for, say, an oil change or lube job. The contractor, job superintendent, or foreman keys in the day’s usage for a piece of equipment, and the software does the calculations. For example, it might indicate that a skip loader will be due for service after 30 more hours of operation. If the equipment is fitted with a global positioning system (GPS), the readings are automatically fed into the software and the user doesn’t have to do anything.
“That enables you to dispatch the mechanic at the right time,” says Hooton.
Kumle sees the value in that. “Planned or scheduled maintenance is always cheaper than a breakdown repair,” he says.
“When [maintenance] is tracked manually on paper, typically it goes into a file and you don’t get the true cycles you need. There’s too much guesswork,” notes McGough. “You may be servicing too early or too late.”
Knowing when a piece of equipment will be due for service allows the contractor to be more efficient with his equipment crews. He can take a look at his job schedule and figure out the best time for a particular piece of equipment to be out of commission. He may see, for example, that his backhoe will need an oil change after another 150 hours of operation. He calculates that at 10 or 12 days of work on the job site. Estimating that after another couple of weeks he’ll be able to do without the backhoe for a few days, he arranges for the service to be completed during that window of time.
“A contractor wants to be operating his equipment at the lowest cost and maximum availability,” notes Kumle. “Next to labor, equipment management is [a contractor’s] second biggest cost.” He adds that he spends as much as 40% of his time analyzing his company’s equipment management costs and determining when to repair or replace equipment.
In addition to his equipment management package, Kumle uses computerized maintenance management software (CMMS), which allows him to do cost breakdowns and analyses of his company’s equipment. Michigan-based Ashcom Technologies’ MaintiMizer 4.0 is one example of CMMS.
“Every piece of equipment is composed of components, and with CMMS you can track the cost and life of each,” he says. “Take a bulldozer, for example. When you set it up [in the system] you figure you should get 12,000 hours out of the engine and 8,000 out of the transmission. When the life expectancy is coming up, you run a report and it tells you what’s happening with that bulldozer. Then you can schedule downtime to do maintenance.”
Other products, such as HCSS’s Dispatcher, possess that same capability, taking a lesson from the accounting industry and working equipment management into inventory and parts systems.
Whatever capabilities an equipment software package brings to the table, they have no value if the software itself is cumbersome or difficult to master. For the most part, equipment management software is designed to emulate the way contractors do their jobs. Screens mimic the white magnetic boards on which contractors track their jobs and equipment. Moving a piece of equipment from one job to another in the software program is as easy as taking a magnet and moving it from one space on the white board to another.
Hydraulic Systems: Pumps
We already know that backhoes, bulldozers, excavators, and other pieces of heavy construction equipment derive their power from hydraulic systems, which operate via pressure applied to fluid contained in a chamber or reservoir. Apply force to the liquid to push it through a tube or small opening, and you have action on the other side. Remember the piston pump, which has been discussed in a previous Technology in Construction section. As described in that example, the pump has two pistons sitting in parallel cylinders. Pressure applied to the first piston forces it downward and pushes on the fluid beneath it, which, in turn, moves into the second cylinder. The fluid, under pressure from the force applied to the first piston, pushes the second piston upward.
Without a hydraulic pump, however, no pressure would be exerted on the fluid; it wouldn’t move, and the hydraulic system couldn’t operate. The pump supplies the flow of hydraulic fluid to the system. It converts mechanical power—provided by the engine—into hydraulic power.
Hydraulic pumps work by moving fluid from one side (the inlet) to the other (the outlet). As fluid moves from one side to the other, it creates space for additional fluid to enter from the reservoir that holds the fluid.
Hydraulic pumps generally fall into two categories—gear pumps and variable displacement pumps. In a gear pump, the hydraulic fluid is pressurized by a pair of intermeshing gears that rotate within a housing. Fluid moves into the inlet where it gets trapped between the gear teeth and is carried around to the outlet. Pressure in the outlet area builds until it is great enough to release the fluid. Gear pumps work well, but have the disadvantage of the pressure changing as the speed of the engine increases or decreases. To get and maintain high pressure, it’s necessary to run the engine at full speed.
In a variable-displacement pump, specifically the common axial piston pump, a series of piston cylinders fixed in a ring inside a barrel create the pressure that makes the hydraulic system work. The cylinders revolve as the engine spins the barrel around. Extending out the back of the barrel, the pistons are attached to an angled swash plate. When the barrel spins, the angle of the swash plate pushes the pistons in and pulls them out. As the swash plate pulls the piston out, the hydraulic fluid is released from the tank; as the swash plate pushes the piston in, fluid is pumped into the hydraulic system.
The flow of hydraulic fluid—and, consequently, the amount of force created—is adjusted simply by changing the angle of the swash plate. When the swash plate is perpendicular to the axis of rotation—pressed against the barrel completely—no fluid flows; when it’s at a sharp angle, a lot of fluid moves.
In addition, in a load-sensing hydraulic system, the system itself determines the angle of the swash plate at any particular time by monitoring its own needs. Variable-displacement pumps are extremely efficient because they pump only the amount of fluid the hydraulic system requires at any given time.
Machine Control
In grading and excavation work these days, practically no one operates equipment that doesn’t have some form of machine control. Similarly, practically every piece of heavy equipment that rolls off the manufacturer’s assembly line comes equipped with some form of machine control or, at the very least, has the built-in components that will be necessary for adding machine-control functions in the future.
Machine control consists mainly of laser and global positioning systems, machine interface systems, controls, and displays. A machine-control-ready piece of equipment is manufactured with all the electronics, hydraulics, harnesses, and software required to make them work. In fact, according to Thomas E. Bucklar, regional manager of the machine-control and guidance division for Caterpillar Inc., these pieces of equipment should be able to “plug and play” with the various position sensors and be on the job working in less than an hour.
“Plug the GPS [global positioning system] sensors on in the morning to grade a golf course, and install laser sensors on the machine-control-ready equipment in the afternoon to do house pads,” he says.
As we’ve discussed previously in the Technology in Construction section, machine-control systems fall into two categories—indicate and automatic. With an indicate system, the operator achieves the grade specified in the design requirements for his particular area by tracking information that appears on a display inside the cab. Indicate systems provide the operator with visual guidance so he can place and adjust the cutting edge or bucket properly, but he maintains control of the equipment. In an automatic system, the operator drives the machine, but the various systems—laser, GPS, sonar, etc.—control the movement of the blade or the bucket to achieve the same result. The operator doesn’t have to do anything apart from keeping the machine moving in the right direction. The automatic system places the cutting edge appropriately on the design surface, and the machine does the rest.
An indicate system still requires the operator to know where to fill, where to cut, and where to deposit dirt, but the automatic system allows him to achieve his specified grade more precisely and efficiently.
Machine control has revolutionized the construction industry by making it possible for jobs to be completed more quickly and with the highest degree of accuracy. With a wireless computer in the cab of his pickup truck, a contractor can receive up-to-the-minute progress reports from his equipment, download design changes sent by the engineer, and blend the two seamlessly by programming the new design specs into, say, the GPS-controlled hydraulic system.
Machine-control systems operate through microprocessors situated deep within the equipment, which monitor every aspect of a machine, including such operating information as engine temperature, fuel consumption, and oil use. They also control the critical hydraulic system that allows a blade or bucket to move with ease and accuracy.
Let’s take a quick review of the machine control provided by lasers, sonar systems, and GPS.
A laser is a specific kind of light whose characteristics make it ideal for construction purposes. Laser light is monochromatic and contains one specific color that is easy to recognize. In addition, laser light is a very tight and highly directional beam that stays strong and concentrated even over a distance as far as 2,500 feet.
A construction laser consists of the laser beacon itself, which produces the beam of light, and a receiver that registers the beam and lets the equipment operator know whether or not he’s on target. The laser beacon sits atop a tripod strategically located on the construction site. The receiver is attached to the appropriate area of the equipment—the blade of the bulldozer, for example. In that case, it would be situated on a measuring rod, allowing the operator to place the blade properly in relation to the site’s benchmark.
A sonic system uses sound waves to measure distance from one point to another, much like a radar system in a submarine. A transducer in the bottom of the sensor generates sound pulses and listens for echoes. The amount of time between the original pulse and the return echo indicates the distance between the transducer and the area being located.
GPS, based on a collection of 24 man-made satellites that orbit the Earth 24 hours a day, allows construction engineers to calculate the required position of equipment and survey lines with unprecedented accuracy. Also, by combining GPS data with 3D site plans, a contractor can create an automatic grade-control system in which the blades and buckets on his grading and excavating equipment adjust up and down automatically, without direction from the operator.
Each GPS satellite circles the Earth twice a day in a very precise orbit. To make sure the satellites can be detected from anywhere on the Earth’s surface, they are divided into six groups of four. Each group follows a different path, creating six orbital planes that completely surround the planet. The satellites are spaced so that from any point on the Earth, at least four can be detected at any given time.
The satellites transmit information via radio signals. These signals are captured by ground stations, each of which consists of a receiver and an antenna. In grading and excavating, GPS receivers are attached to construction machines. The receivers pass data to onboard computers that hold digitized site information. In real time, the information broadcasts from the satellite constellation to the receiver and on to the computer to guide the equipment’s movements.
By keeping a constant watch on the equipment’s location in relation to the site, GPS lets an equipment operator move dirt with tremendous accuracy, but it does something else, as well. It keeps track of piece of equipment’s location and movements. If a GPS-equipped backhoe makes an unauthorized trip off the construction site, for example, the owner knows where it went and when.
“All our new machines, particularly excavators, come equipped [with GPS],” says Tony den Hoed, of Volvo Construction Equipment, which features a Care Track System. “We have two types of systems. One is monitoring and the other is basic functioning.”
Older machines, whether manufactured by Volvo, Caterpillar, Kobleco/New Holland, or another company, generally can be retrofitted with the components necessary for adding machine control as an after-market feature.
“The costs vary from machine to machine and also from after-market companies and individual dealerships,” notes Caterpillar’s Bucklar. “Machine-control-ready options from original equipment manufacturers do have a cost associated with them, and aftermarket installations have labor charges plus their retrofit kits. The difference either way—and I have seen each more expensive—is closer to 1K than 10K.”
Volvo’s den Hoed notes that ordering parts as an after-market kit is only marginally more expensive than buying it factory installed.
“It’s similar to buying a car,” he says. “Options taken at purchase are more reasonably priced. The key to factory installation is you save on the installation cost.”
Still, as Eric Winkler of Kobelco/New Holland acknowledges, “It could cost a few thousand dollars to retrofit a machine, but [an owner] might rather do that than spend $100,000 on a new machine.”