Machine Control & the Land Surveyor - Opportunities for the Positioning Expert

Written by Jay Jones, PLS

Created on Friday, 03 April 2009 03:15

What are some of the opportunities for the Land Surveyor in the Construction Industry with the advent of Machine Control Technology?

If your land surveying business, or even part of your business is comprised of construction layout, you most certainly have been affected by machine control technology. If you haven’t seen the effects, you definitely will in the near future. Machine control technology is here to stay and its impact on the land surveyor is only going to increase as time goes by.

Machine control technology will continue to redefine the role of the construction land surveyor. These changes are not all bad. Machine control technology may eliminate the opportunity to spend hot, endless summer days pounding hubs into the ground with an 8 lb. sludge hammer. It may also eliminate the opportunity to drill a 1 inch pilot hole through 6 inches of frost in order to get a grade stake far enough into the frozen ground to stand up under its own weight. It may also eliminate the opportunity for contractors to call the surveyor’s office at 6:30am looking for a survey crew to replace the grade stakes that were run over by the off road dump trucks using them as a slalom course. It may also eliminate the opportunity to layout a new centerline through a tick infested swamp, all while swatting malaria ridden mosquitoes and trying to avoid your waders from becoming the new home to a family of water moccasins. It may eliminate a lot of the opportunities that surveyors used to enjoy. Personally, I welcome some of these roles being “redefined” by Machine Control technology.

However, as a land surveyor that performs construction layout, you should be concerned about the fact that some of the services you provide may no longer be needed. The bright side is machine control has not eliminated the land surveyor on the construction site, it has only changed their role. As some opportunities are eliminated, others are created. You must commit to embracing change to participate in these new roles.

One of the most prevalent opportunities associated with machine control technology for the land survey is the need for positioning experts. Utilization of machine control technology only works properly if the 3D model guiding the construction equipment is on the same coordinate system and elevation datum as the proposed design and the original existing ground. It is critical that all design information coincide with each and be on the correct reference system and elevation datum in order to achieve proper location and the proper grades.

Land surveyors are already positioning experts. No one knows better than land surveyors how to position themselves on the earth and we understand how to make sure projects are in the right location and at the correct elevation. It has typically been the surveyor’s role to establish control and benchmarks on a construction site because they are the positioning experts. Land surveyors have always been responsible for ensuring that a construction project is being built in the correct location and to the correct grade so why should their position change now? If something goes wrong, the surveyor is held liable, so they must be the ones responsible for ensuring the accurate location and grade.

An accurate localization (or site calibration) is one of the most important procedures to assure proper results using machine control technology. A positioning expert should perform this task. Without a correct localization, the project could be built in the wrong location or at the wrong elevation. The “localization” is basically building a 3D control network around a construction project then tying the proposed 3D surface model into that network to ensure the design is in the correct location and to the correct grade. This ensures that your project coordinates and the design coordinates are on the same system whether it is a state plane coordinate system or some other assumed system.

Without a correct and adjusted localization the project can very easily end up in the wrong location. In fact, most of the major manufactures of machine control equipment mention in their product manuals the need for land surveyors to setup the control network. Even the manufactures realize the importance of having a land surveyor involved in the process. The construction division of the NYS Department of Transportation has embraced machine control technology and they fully understand its impact on completing projects with better accuracy and more efficiency, effectively reducing costs. However, they do specify, and I paraphrase, “all site control be established by a licensed land surveyor to ensure that control is correct and to ensure the proper positioning from the beginning of the project.” They don’t want construction companies setting their own control networks unless they have the qualified personnel on staff. They want positioning experts to be responsible for ensuring the correct location and grades before a project has begun.

There is still a need for land surveyors on construction projects and there is still a need for project control and benchmarks. In fact, I believe you will find that most of the construction companies that have invested in machine control technology and understand how the technology works, realize the need to have a positing expert on site. Contractors who embrace and understand the technology you will quickly realize that machine control technology is not a magic box that completely eliminates the need of the land surveyor. Even with machine control technology, construction projects still need to be built correctly. In fact, with machine control increasing production and reducing the time it takes to bring a site to grade, ensuring that the positioning is correct from the beginning of a job is more crucial than ever.

One of the potential problems with machine control is the fact that a dozer being guided by GPS can cut a perfect ditch in a very short amount of time in the wrong location just as easily as it can in the correct location. The land survey is all ready very adept at ensuring the position of the project before doing construction layout so they are a natural choice for doing the same role for the machine control construction site.

Yes it is true that machine control technology has eliminated some of the tasks historically performed by the land survey. But for the land surveying optimists that sees the glass as half full, the majority of those services were the manual labor opportunities of pounding wood into the ground or cutting line to layout a centerline. We have not lost all of our opportunities to be the positioning experts we have always been. As with any industry and any advancement in technology, you must be willing to adapt in order to grow or even survive. Land surveyors have seen an exponential amount of technology advancement in their industry in the recent years. These advancements have also changed the construction industry. The people and companies that adapt move forward. The ones that don’t will eventually fade away. This is true in the surveying business and it is also true in the construction business.

Construction companies aren’t necessarily looking to be construction surveyors, they are simply taking advantage of machine control technology to maintain or improve their competitive edge in a very aggressive industry. The construction companies that take advantage of machine control technology have an advantage over those companies that don’t. Surveying companies that embrace and learn machine control technology also have advantages over those companies that don’t. One important factor we need to realize is that surveying is not only a profession, it is a business, and businesses need to adapt to change.

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