The Real-World Impact of Machine Control-Part V

Written by Paul F Hahn

Created on Sunday, 14 August 2011 11:31

C.D.C. Contracting, established in 1972, specializes in earth moving and utilities installation for residential, commercial and roadway projects.  They are headquartered in Concord, Ontario, Canada. Progressive and forward-looking, C.D.C. first adopted machine control systems in 2008. By combining the team-oriented approach of an experienced and dedicated staff of professionals with innovative engineering and a survey team using state-of-the-art technology C.D.C. meets and exceeds all requirements of their grading projects.  C.D.C. has 120 employees and operates a fleet of over 100 pieces of heavy equipment.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Bobby Pillitteri, a Project Manager at C.D.C. Contracting, wanting to get his take on the benefits of applying machine control technology to their projects.  Bobby has been with CDC since 2003.

C.D.C. has equipped one Caterpillar D6 and two Caterpillar D8’s with Topcon’s MC² machine control systems.  The D8 is used for bulk earth moving applications while the D6’s are used for fine grading, roadway work and backfilling utilities.  According to Pillitteri, the major benefits of the systems are “increased speed and accuracy”.  Bobby estimates that the systems have increased productivity for C.D.C. by 30%-50%, depending on the application.  Another benefit is a reduction in the number of survey stakes required to get the job done.  This has lowered their engineering costs and prevented project delays.  Roadway work is now being done stakeless and site grading stakes have been reduced by 65%-70%.  C.D.C.’s survey crews have now been re-tasked to do other work, primarily project control work, topographic surveys and the laying out underground utility lines.  The adaptation of machine control technology has also lowered fuel consumption rates, equipment wear-and-tear and operator labor costs.

C.D.C.’s approach to implementing machine control was to first adopt GPS technology into their survey operations in 2006.  This gave them the time to build up the in-house expertise and support needed for machine control data preparation.  Bobby believes that this is a more logical approach to implementing the technology, providing a smooth transition for the survey crews who perform their data preparation work with Carlson Software. When I asked Bobby about their learning curve, he said that the surveyors had had sufficient time to embrace GPS and data preparation technologies due to their implementation plan and their transition was quite easy.  For the equipment operators, Bobby said “Our operators, on average, took less than a day to pick up the functionality of the machine control software in the cab”. 

Pillitteri states that the increases in productivity and accuracy have contributed to C.D.C.’s bottom line, providing greater profitability. Contributing to this result is the elimination of re-work.  The project is brought to grade accurately the first time, according to Bobby.  C.D.C. plans to expand their fleet of machine control-enabled equipment in the future, considering the inclusion of excavators systems in the near-term.  Bobby states “Machine control utilization will become more and more the norm, rather than the exception, in the future”.  Ontario is a progressive region when it comes to machine control, with roughly 30% of contractors having already adopted the technology, according to Pillitteri’s estimates.  Adoption rates have spiked in the last year making Ontario a very competitive environment for contractors.    

In viewing their purchase decision from a return-on-investment perspective, C.D.C. is just now implementing project tracking software that will allow them to separate their earthmoving operations from the overall project results and calculate the ROI.  It is probably sufficient to say that they are pleased enough with their decision that they are planning to purchase more Topcon machine control systems going forward.  Pillitteri states “It is a great tool that helps us to do our work faster and more accurately.”

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