Contractor Machine Control Use/Misuse

Been doing this for over 18 years.?ÿ It all depends on the training and support for the equipment.?ÿ Some are great, others not so much.

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Iƒ??ve seen guys calibrate with the wrong rod hight more than a few times, or with a completely worn out tip. Those are the errors that might not get noticed for a while because as far as the contractor is concerned their calibration has great residuals and the rover agrees with the machines... so itƒ??s all good!?ÿ

All contractors treat the their rods like shit and non of them have ever calibrated the bubble in my experience.
People knock over base poles and brackets and just push them straight again without telling anyone.

A grade checker with his VRS rover checked one of my base installs and told his boss the height was wrong and his rover was right. So he went and updated the elevation in the base. He didnƒ??t realize his rover was showing geoid heights and the base was in wgs84....somehow I still get blamed.?ÿ
Iƒ??ve had drivers copy coordinates from one base to another and get something wrong.?ÿ

I had a contractor complain about my model last year, that the road surface wasnƒ??t smooth..I checked the model and it was fine. I checked the valve calibration in the dozer...also fine. So why was the blade getting all jittery sometimes? Turns out they had the base in the middle divider of the road. Every time a big truck drove past in the contraflow the blade would jump up and down a bit as the corrections changed! When I put the machine in auto with the blade just of the ground, you could see when a truck drove past the blade would move up and down..

My advice is donƒ??t give calibrations as grid points so contractors canƒ??t measure those them selves. Give them a .dc, .cal, gc3 or whatever calibration file their system uses. Also lock the display menu on any base stations. And donƒ??t give out information that can be dangerous...?ÿ

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The shortage of surveyors around here is due to grading and construction companies snatching them up and paying them handsomely to alleviate those issues.?ÿ ?ÿ

When a contractor screws up a machine control project the injured party is the contractor. If you can show that the injured party is the public then you can get rules changed to require that construction layout be done by licensed professionals. Most states do not consider construction layout "practice of land surveying".

The competition here is not always between machine control and LS guided staking. It is between machine control and no stakes at all.

Where the work does affect the public, agencies should be requiring as-builts by licensed professionals before signing off.?ÿ They should be doing that anyway.?ÿ ?ÿ

I was on a job site in South Carolina in the late '90s where the contractor had some how gotten the notion that he needed to redo his site calibration every day. Hey, what could go wrong?

@jflamm

That would be me!

I'm not concerned at all. They'll learn from their mistakes like we all do.

And probably make way more money along the way.

@jaro  me too!

@chrisfox   Our carpenters are hard on things and nobody knows how anything happened.  They'll call and say they need another set of bi-pod legs because theirs don't work right anymore.  We show up and the legs look like the St. Louis Arch.  Mother of god, how did that happen?  They'll just shrug their shoulders.  I think we had to order 4-5 new Leica 360 prisms last year because they won't lay the rod down on a windy day.  We had a Leica TS that went goofy.  Sent it in to get calibrated.  The shop calls and says they can't do anything with it because the frame is bent!  Nobody fessed up to that one either but a subcontractor could have knocked it over and stood it back up while no one was around.  It's been an experience getting these brick heads to treat these things like the precision tools that they are.   

What concerns me is who is building the surface that these guys are using? Most of the time, it's just some guy with little to no experience with surveying or engineering.

Posted by: @jflamm

I think we had to order 4-5 new Leica 360 prisms last year....

And yet the contractor still thinks it worthwhile to spend that money rather than hire a professional surveyor.?ÿ How can that be? I think we all need to take a really hard look at ourselves.?ÿ

@andrew-clark  Sitech has a Midwest location just outside of the St. Louis area and they are very busy.

@norman-oklahoma   We have to order them through our Yard operations.  They charge it back to the project.  The Project Manager gets angry for the bill.  He yells at the Superintendent who then yells at the carpenters to take better care of their equipment.  It's been a process but they are getting better.  Needless to say, I won't be letting them touch my laser scanners or drones anytime in the near future!

Having worked on both sides of the line now, I understand the reasons for this happening.  It's time.  Survey companies cannot keep up with the demand.  They simply do not have the man power.  With today's accelerated construction schedules, construction companies cannot wait for the surveyor to show up in 2-3-4 days.  Time is money.  They promised the owner that they'd be done by a certain date.  There are monetary penalties for not hitting that date. The owner wants their business open and people coming through the doors.   It makes more sense to have a layout guy on site at all times.   

The carpenter and labor unions here are training their people how to use survey equipment.  Button pushers, more or less.  We (surveyors) have lost our grip on this piece of the pie due to the evolution of technology.  The only saving grace from losing it all is that, around here, control has to be set up by a LS and utilities are required to be layed out by a surveyor.  We always have the site civil/surveyor do all of the sitework (-minus grading) though and our guys just stick with the building envelope.  That's just been our model although the idea has been brought up lately of expanding our repertoire.  

Given the cost of moving dirt, and the tight margins on construction bids around here, this is a self correcting problem

Posted by: @jflamm

construction companies cannot wait for the surveyor to show up in 2-3-4 days

Any Super worth half his weight in salt should be able to prevent this from being an issue 95% of the time with proper planning and project management.?ÿ It's fascinating to me that a project will come to a screeching halt with no stakes and yet such a critical task doesn't garner enough importance to forecast out on the schedule a couple days before it's needed.?ÿ "Our pipe is showing up this afternoon, if we don't have stakes in the morning the pipe crew will pull off and can't be back for another 2 weeks!"?ÿ And how long have you known about this pipe delivery, yup, that's a you problem!?ÿ Bringing layout in-house isn't going to fix a lack of planning.?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ

@cameron-watson-pls

If they are really waiting 4 days for a surveyor to show up then I can't blame them for taking matters into their own hands. Maybe they need a new surveyor, but I'm betting that part of the statement is hyperbole. 

Construction crews have always done layout - using tapes, string lines, & levels. Nothing new there. They have simply upgraded their tools and expanded their capabilities.  

@mark-mayer

I agree with 4 days being too long although I'm picking up a lot of work because of that very fact.  I guaranty service 2 days from the date the scheduling request is made but still get a lot of calls at 3:00 PM expecting to be able to get a crew the next morning.  That's just a lack of planning and that Super wouldn't get my crew or his own internal one with such short notice. 

As to the individual trades doing their own layout, I agree as well.  There are a number of plumbing, electrical and foundation crews here that utilize equivalent tech to mine and I don't have a problem with that at all.  I would rather spend my time doing the high dollar work instead of the back breaking stuff.  I'm currently working with a large GC who's bringing layout in-house but in a metered capacity.  They have a PLS on board to manage it but realize they don't want to bite off more than they can chew so we're doing the expensive high precision control and layout and they're doing the more straight forward stuff.  I actually like it because it frees me up for other work. 

Surveyors who want a Board to reclaim functions they willingly let others take from us will have a very long wait. They should. If you want the work back, esrn it.?ÿ

I had a friend that made a very good living being willing to show up the next morning.