Cameron Waters, Business Manager – Geospatial Systems at Position Partners

New businesses and those wanting to operate smarter, need the latest technologies to optimise efficiencies and workflows. Let me talk you through how you can increase your return on investment (RoI) and kit out your business with the latest equipment and software that surveying has to offer while reducing the risk involved in a large capital layout.

In an ideal world, your fleet will include the highest spec robotic total stations, GPS, field controllers and software, as well as survey and engineering software. But the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the asset lifecycle needs to be factored in when setting rates and responding to tenders.

Knowing what your business cost per hour to run can support your ability to adjust your rates to market without nasty repair and maintenance surprises.

Weighing the positives and negatives of a technology refresh

When you’re considering upgrading your surveying equipment and software, especially all at once, it can be daunting, and the potential risk and effort needs to be weighed against the RoI. The surveying profession is heavily workflow driven, so it’s important to consider that the latest equipment provides:

• Proven productivity and uptime gains.
• Quality and speed of output that places you well in front of the competition.
• Collaboration that streamlines relationships with key engineering and government partners.
• Attractive workplaces for scarce young, tech-savvy talent.

Integrated collaborative workflows

With well-integrated, collaborative workflows operating via a single cloud service, all your data and people can be managed far more efficiently. Your on-site survey teams will have the latest, accurate information at their fingertips and there’s no lost time resulting from forgotten or lost paper files.

And the integration extends to being able to securely trade data between the players in the survey ecosystem – engineering firms, government authorities, external designers and town planners.

Attracting the best and brightest

One of the challenges many employers in the surveying profession are facing, is the difficulty to attract surveyors to fill their vacancies. There is a surveyor’s shortage across many of the metropolitan and regional areas across Australia.

One of the most crucial advantages of upgrading your equipment and software driven systems is that current technology and streamlined processes are what young surveying and engineering employees are looking for.

Your business sustainability depends on being able to attract the best and brightest, and exciting technology is one of the ways that you can ensure you’re attracting them!

Training & Support – making low TCO and optimum RoI a reality

We deliver highly customisable training opportunities, wherever your staff are across Australia. This training ensures that your staff are confident with the technology and use it to get the most effective and efficient results.

The quality and range of support components are what ensure rapid, enthusiastic adoption of new equipment and systems.

The relationship doesn’t stop at the conclusion of the training with our live Tokara support solutions providing users with instant, on-screen, real-time support to help with workflows, loading setting files such as geoids or grids, connections to RTK networks and much, much more. It’s like having one of the highly skilled support team standing right next to you in the field, ensuring you’re getting the very best out of every project.

Connecting and adding real value with intelligent systems

The reality of the surveying profession is that we now have to do more with less. To ensure your business continues to grow and stay ahead of the competition, you need to continue to improve your systems and technology.

Only with constantly improving productivity can our world support human population growth and standard of living expectations. It’s our sector that is building the schools, hospitals and roads that secure quality of life needs for the next generations of Australians.

But the broad construction profession has the lowest productivity gains. This is due to limited technical skill rates, out of date industrial relations and complex red tape. There’s so much that individual businesses can achieve quickly and affordably to turn productivity around.

Talk to Position Partners about leveraging technology for cut through. Because what drives us helps you.

 Adam Burke, Position Partners’ Geospatial Manager NSW

It’s now a matter of rethinking the structure of survey practices or being left stranded, short staffed and priced out of the market.

Stating the obvious – there’s a shortage of qualified surveyors

A 2018 BIS Shrapnel study quantified what we’ve all been experiencing in recent years, and what is about to worsen dramatically. Nationally, globally in fact, there’s a dire shortage of qualified surveyors. In NSW alone, there is a current shortfall of 530. This is tipped to reach 680 by 2024.

The impact is being felt across a number of industries – construction, mining and general spatial sectors – and there’s a delay and cost knock on effect to our wider society.

Surveyors sit with accountants and lawyers as being relied on for the considered precision of their expertise. Until recently, chasing productivity gains and technology adoption have been left to the more dynamic professions. It’s now a matter of rethinking the structure of survey practices or being left stranded, short staffed and priced out of the market.

Position Partners sees itself at the forefront of the technology pursuit and is committed to helping transition the profession and the industries we support into a sustainable future.

Training job ready professionals

The education sector is playing catch up as it transforms its courses to train job ready people for the rapidly changing demands on our profession. But irrespective of it efforts, the core difficulty is the seeming impossibility of attracting students in the first place. School leavers are just not enrolling in surveying.

Our profession needs to attract Millennials. PwC polled 4,500 graduates across 75 countries to understand what was important to them. 60% said state of the art tech was important to selecting a profession. Those polled said money was not so key but progression and learning is critical to job satisfaction. They are up for new experiences. And we have a great message for them. Surveying is now tech driven. And everybody needs surveyors – it’s so transportable – urban, regional, country and remote, as well as having the potential to take them overseas.

The solution is for all of us operating in the profession to take on tech savvy Millennials and be more creative in how we leverage the vast array of standard and industry specific technologies. The fewer numbers of fully qualified surveyors are freed to complete work faster and more accurately.

Practicing what we preach

Position Partners actively engages Millennials. We bring them on as part of our team to learn by doing. We then support them as they sign up for university or TAFE studies as a result of having been ‘hooked in’.

We’re aligned with the 1300apprentice initiative. Within six months, our young recruits are talking with and supporting customers in their productive use of technology. Our workplace training matches the needs and culture of the survey profession. They’re not just any type of software techs, they are specifically survey support technicians. And it’s been great for our business.

Survey practices also now have need for skills that aren’t strictly of the profession. RPAS (the commercial alternative to pesky consumer drones) operators are transforming the quality and quantity of our output. If you’re using higher end tech, you’ll have an exciting business that will attract the best, most committed people. In a success cycle, your adoption of technologies will be faster and easier, with effective throughput to customer projects and contract completion.

Planning smarter for a smarter future

Over the next 32 years Australia’s population is expected to grow by another 14.9 million. The Millennials we employ today will still be working. They’ll be fulfilling our demand for design, infrastructure, homes, roads, dams, schools – for the betterment of society. You can put your quality stamp on a Millennial today.

From left to right: Noburu Katsu (Chairman & CEO, Mitsui & Co (Australia)), Ian Petherbridge (Chairman, Position Partners), Martin Nix (CEO, Position Partners), Nobuaki Kitamori (Representative Director, Senior Executive Managing Officer, Mitsui & Co), Hiroshi Kubo (General Manager, Construction and Industrial Machinery Division, Mitsui & Co).

The Mitsui representatives learnt about Tokara Link telematics and remote support technology, developed by Position Partners to streamline the design file transfer and technical support capabilities on site by eliminating the need to visit machines in person. 

Global company becomes a corporate shareholder in intelligent positioning technology provider Position Partners to amplify innovation across its core markets.   

Mitsui & Co. (Mitsui) is a Japanese organisation with operations in 66 countries worldwide. Specialising in identifying and realising innovation in businesses across a wide spectrum of industries, Mitsui has more than US $100 billion in assets and has invested more than $15 billion in Australia over the last decade.

For Position Partners, Mitsui’s investment opens the door to numerous collaboration opportunities within the Mitsui network, facilitating greater value to customers through streamlined technology and support. For Mitsui, the investment aligns with a strategic company goal for digital transformation that will optimise business processes.

“Mitsui’s reach and vision into global business optimisation is considerable and the company’s investment in Position Partners will assist us to identify and leverage technology that is evolving both within and beyond our core industries,” said Martin Nix, Position Partners CEO. “By tapping into how various businesses are applying AI and IoT systems, we can continue to offer customers the latest developments to improve their productivity.”

Mitsui now holds 20% of Position Partners. As part of the agreement, Daniel Shibata from Mitsui will join Position Partners’ Executive Steering Team to support Position Partners strategic interests through the Mitsui network. Mitsui has also appointed a director to the Position Partners board.

“Mitsui is committed to working in cooperation with Position Partners to achieve our shared strategic objectives. We look forward to introducing the company to our partners, particularly in the resources sector and in South East Asia where we have already identified opportunities,” said Daniel Todd, Mitsui & Co (Australia), General Manager Mobility Business Division.

About Position Partners

With around 270 people in offices Australia-wide, in South East Asia and New Zealand, Position Partners is the largest Australian-owned company focussing entirely on the distribution and support of intelligent positioning solutions for geospatial, construction and mining projects. At Position Partners, we are committed to increasing productivity for our customers and building lasting business relationships around high calibre positioning activities.

Position Partners is partnered with Topcon, as the exclusive Australian distributor for machine control and positioning systems, with complementary solutions from other technology innovators including Z+F 3D laser scanning products, Carlson mining and landfill machine guidance and industry-leading Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS). Advanced hardware systems are powered by sophisticated software platforms that includes Building Information Modelling (BIM) and infrastructure solutions, DynaRoad mass haul and scheduling tools and MAGNET Enterprise surveying software.

A full range of leading instruments and systems is backed by superior service and industry expertise to give our customers the support they need for any project.

About Mitsui & Co.

Utilizing our global operating locations, network and information resources, we are multilaterally pursuing business that ranges from product sales, worldwide logistics and financing, through to the development of major international infrastructure and other projects in the following fields: Iron & Steel Products, Mineral & Metal Resources, Infrastructure Projects, Mobility, Chemicals, Energy, Food, Food & Retail Management, Healthcare & Service, Consumer Business, IT & Communication Business, Corporate Development Business.

Cameron Waters,  Geospatial Business Manager, Position Partners

Do you watch Netflix or do you connect to Amazon Cloud Services through a Netflix UI to stream data? Using a cloud service for your survey data should be no different, it should just be considered computing and the advantages are just as good as binge-watching House of Cards with no adverts!

I’ve discussed how access to MAGNET Enterprise is now standard with every licence of MAGNET (Unlock your survey software’s potential) so there is no excuse not utilise MAGNET Enterprise to maximise your productivity and collaboration…it’s like getting free Netflix for life with your TV!

Here are the top three reasons to use MAGNET Enterprise whether you are a one-person band or a national company:

1. Project Management

Managing each project is quick and simple with folder templates for data and teams for people.

Any type of data can be added to the project, not just survey data, so that you have everything you need in the one place, for everyone to access. You can also apply different levels of access to each contributor to ensure your contractors and staff have the correct features set within the project.

Email alerts will let you know when action is needed, and activity reports can be run on the jobs posted from the field to optimise collection efficiencys.

Need storage? How does unlimited sound?

MAGNET Field and MAGNET Office can connect automatically to the assigned projects and simply download or contribute data. Any other contractor can also achieve the same through the web interface, but Bentley and Autodesk have a much more intimate relationship.

2. Third party software connection

The power of modern application computing is realised with the connections between MAGNET Enterprise, Autodesk BIM 360 and Bentley ProjectWise. Once you connect to MAGNET Enterprise, the BIM360 and ProjectWise clouds are completely accessible. You will have direct access from both the field and your office.

Having this level of access to these engineering software packages enhances your collaboration from within your organisation and adds value to your company as a subcontractor on large project utilising BIM or similar data standards.

3. Geo-referenced data

What would an application for surveyors be without a map? And this isn’t any ordinary map! Multiple data sets can be combined to view on the map, basic measurement tools can be used to do some quick project analysis and when you catch something, you can easily mark-up the area of interest for everyone in the project to see.

Want to see the efficiency of the feature survey? No problem: Just replay the job to see exactly how the data was collected in the field!

‘Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change’ – Stephen Hawking.

Adapt or die, it’s a bit harsh but it’s the reality of an industry (construction) that has the lowest productivity and the most amount of rework. Manufacturing, mining and farming are all increasing productivity while construction is doing the opposite.

Attract the best people to your company by using the latest in collaborative computing to maximise their productivity and give them the ability to have pride in their work, not frustration from rework.