Topcon

Topcon wins world’s largest total station bid: 860 state-of-the-art instruments supplied to Polish schools

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Topcon Positioning Systems has won the world’s largest total station order, with an order for 860 instruments to be delivered to the Polish Ministry of Education (MEN) by Topcon’s exclusive Polish partner TPI. 

The sale, valued at more than $US2.5 million, includes 430 GPT-3107N total stations and 430 AT-G6 optical levels; making for a total of 860 instruments in one sale.

TPI and MEN agreed on the sale in early May. The equipment will be used for educational purposes in all Polish secondary technical schools that require surveying instruments in their educational processes.

Ray O’Connor, president and CEO of Topcon Positioning and chairman of Topcon Europe Positioning (TEP), said the agreement was a true partnership between Topcon, TEP and TPI, one of the key dealers in the company’s global dealer network.

“Topcon is involved in the education of the next generation of surveyors throughout the world and this agreement emphasizes that commitment,” he said.

According to Przemyslaw Wilbik, operational deputy director for surveying products within TPI, the choice of MEN confirms the power of TPI’s countrywide service and support network.

“One of the key factors for the MEN to choose TPI is our network of branch offices around the country which provide local support to our clients,” he said.

“This nationwide service and support network makes us the right partners to offer a cost attractive and technologically reliable offer.

We are very proud to supply instruments from the new generation of reflectorless total stations – instruments with a unique range.

“The GPT-3107N offers the best range for prismless measurements and a perfect mix of both safety and performance,” said Wilbik.

Ewout Korpershoek, TEP director of marketing and sales, said: “We are very proud of this success for our Polish partner TPI.

“For the past 10 years they have been a great and trusted partner for Topcon and this tender only proves they are on their way to an even more successful future.

“The Ministry of Education has made a wise long-term investment in Poland’s future, by making sure that the surveyors of tomorrow get acquainted with state-of-the-art technology in an early phase of their lives.”

Korpershoek said the GPT-3100N total station uses multiple pulsed laser beams emitted at a constant frequency to measure distance.

“This way the total station offers increased measurement performance with a pin-point measurement beam, extended range, improved accuracy and lower power consumption.

“By investing in this new technology and having the back up of a solid service and support organisation, the MEN can look to the future with confidence,” he said.

Topcon’s 3D-MC2 system doubles dozer finishing speed

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At Conexpo in Las Vegas in March, Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) unveiled its new machine control system – 3D-MC2 (pronounced “3D-MC-squared”) – which can double dozer speed for final finishing, while still providing unprecedented smoothness.

Ray O’Connor, Topcon president and CEO, described the 3D-MC2 breakthrough “as tearing down the last barrier in regard to increasing job site productivity: speed.”

“There’s never been anything like this in construction machine automation,” he said.

“Topcon’s 3D-MC2 technology speeds up the position calculation by a factor of 10 from today’s systems, allowing for faster positioning in real time, which means the machine can be controlled to design grade at much faster speeds than any other system.”

According to O’Connor, this is not a technology that just any company can do.

“Any company can use sensors and think of the concept of getting a dozer to go faster with increased accuracy.

“What’s different here is that Topcon used the proper algorithms, satellite signal filters, the proper arithmetic formulas and the scientists and engineers at Topcon’s global technology centres – all working together – to accomplish yet another world’s first construction development,” he said.

“Topcon was the first company offering contractors the option of going stakeless at every phase of the job with 3D GPS machine control systems.

“It now is the first company to combine what the best science and engineering has to offer to break through the last barrier of construction productivity – speed,” O’Connor said.

The combination of Topcon’s GX-60 controller, MC-R3 satellite receiver and a specially designed inertial sensor, allows operation of a dozer at a higher gear with smoother results than possible with traditional grading methods, said Murray Lodge, TPS director of construction sales.

“It literally changes the way contractors will look at the finish grading process.

“This new addition to the Topcon family of machine control products will drastically change the role of dozer operation on a typical job site,” he said.

“And as the speed increases, we can do more work in less time. That means less operating time and less fuel and, most importantly, more time that can be spent on other work in other areas.”

Increasing the speed of a dozer “is a no-brainer when it comes to increasing productivity,” Lodge said.

“With the 3D-MC2 system, you can simply make a pass faster. To introduce a system of this type, with the added benefit of a smoother finish grade is a revolutionary achievement for the construction industry.

“The potential benefits of having the option of being able to grade twice as fast as you normally will give contractors an incredible competitive edge,” he said.

“Fine grading with a dozer has traditionally been done at low speeds; operators are trained to go at a slow rate. Go too fast and the ground looks like a wave pool. 

“But having access to a system that allows them to grade with a dozer faster – 25% faster, 50% faster, or even twice as fast – and at the same time achieve maximum smoothness is a major plus for contractors,” Lodge said.

Topcon GPS lets Macmahon go stringless on major Perth freeway project

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Topcon GPS systems are playing a key role for Macmahon Contractors in the stringless construction of Perth’s 4.5 km Mitchell Freeway extension, which serves the city’s rapidly growing northern suburbs.

The project, which started in November 2006, and is due for completion in August, was well into the pavement construction works as of early 2008 – with the entire project constructed without the need for stringlines or pegging.

These include two Millimetre GPS™ on a John Deere 770D and a ??? grader for the pavement works, a 3D indicate system on a Cat D7 dozer for bulk excavation and levelling, plus a number of Hyperlite rover systems which have been used for survey and grade checking throughout the project.

According to Leith Collins, Macmahon’s project manager on the $113 million Mitchell Freeway extension, in addition to the 4.5 km of freeway construction, the project includes the realignment of 1.5 km of rail line, three bridges, five pedestrian underpasses, a 300 m rail tunnel, 52 hectares of land clearing and 24 hectares of revegetation.

“So far we’ve moved over a million cubic metres, both on site and off, and we’ve still got about 300,000 cubic metres to go,” Collins said when interviewed in December 2007.

John Ransom, road works construction manager on the project, said the great advantage of having Topcon equipment on the project was the ability to run the entire operation stringless.

“It’s been a great relief on resources, and now on the pavement operations, we are able to get plus or minus 10 mm, which is well within our specification tolerances,” he said.

“It makes it possible to run a really lean crew, without the need for stringers, so the cost of the operation is reduced greatly and the efficiency, therefore, goes up.”

Scott Pollard, senior surveyor on the project, said the Topcon Hyperlite systems had proved very versatile for survey work throughout.

“On this site, we’ve got one base station set up near the main office, so we’re able to take our GPS rovers pretty much anywhere on the job site,” he said. “We’ve got full radio range over the whole job site, so we don’t have to set up our bases, but they are a nice, small, compact unit.”

Pollard said the Topcon Millimetre GPS system has been giving very consistent results in the paving operations.

“The tolerances that we have on subgrade are minus 35 mm to plus 5mm and we get that without any problems at all and even on base course – where we’ve only got a 20 mm tolerance – we’re having no problems at all,” he said.

“Within McMahon, we’ve been using the Hyperlites for about five years now; we’ve found they’ve been very consistent and save the surveyors a lot of time.

“In addition, the as-cons (as-constructeds) have been coming up very consistent, so they’ve minimised our rework on all our pavement layers and it saved us a lot of pegging on large batters,” said Pollard.

Subcontractor Dan Cox of Roadtrim Contracting, who has one of the Topcon Millimetre GPS systems on the project, fitted to his JD 770D grader, found it has greatly increased efficiency on the project.

“On this project, we’ve been carrying out bulk earthworks right through to final trim on roadbase, limestone and subgrade,” he said.

“We’ve been running Topcon systems on our graders for quite a few years, but it’s only the past three to four months we’ve switched over to Millimetre GPS, which has greatly improved our efficiency and operating ease.

“From an operator’s point of view, we’re not relying on labourers to string, which holds the grader up and we are not waiting for surveyors to change pegs or replace pegs. It just speeds the whole system up greatly,” said Cox.

“We find now when we are balancing out, it’s just taken all the guesswork out. We can get our quantities right there, within a semitrailer load, we know exactly what’s going on, how much dirt we need for that area – it’s a major improvement,” he said.

“From the experience we’ve had here so far, I’d definitely recommend using Topcon grade control systems on future projects, and I think that it will become the standard procedure for this company from now on,” said Machahon’s John Ransom.

“The benefits are too great to walk away from.”

Millimetre revolution comes to the paving industry

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In January 2008, Topcon Positioning System released its Millimetre GPSTM precision control system for asphalt pavers and profilers following its successful application on graders. Neil Other, TPS Australia/NZ sales manager, talks about what this means for the road construction and maintenance industry.

Topcon introduced its Millimetre GPS concept three years ago, and it has achieved global success, being adopted by grading contractors around the world.

The great advantage of this system is its ability to allow grader operators – even relatively inexperienced ones – to grade to accuracies of 5-10 mm – providing substantial productivity enhancements for contractors and owner operators.

The same benefits apply to the paving and profiling aspects of road construction and maintenance.

Paving

In paving applications, Millimetre GPS will help increase productivity in cases where you have to pave off a set elevation and slope, as an alternative to setting stringlines.

In applications where a contractor has to pave to a designed elevation, previously the only way to achieve alignment has been to use a laser, with stringlines to achieve the vertical curves. But, now Millimetre GPS has simplified the process.

In such an application, it acts as a “virtual stringline” which the paver follows to pave to a designed elevation.

The other big advantage of this technology in paving is that it allows a contractor to pave and check grades at the same time, whereas a robotic total station-based control system with several total stations controlling the paver still needs an additional, dedicated total station for the grade checker.

Over the past few years, Topcon has done a lot of field testing on roads, airports and parking lots, to ensure the system works.

Paving contractors have just one chance to get it right when laying asphalt – unlike a grader or dozer where you can come back and rework it. You need to be extremely confident that the product will perform.

With our Millimetre GPS paver system, we are using all standard equipment; the receiver pole is fitted to the tow arm that connects the screed to the paver. The Millimetre GPS pole is on one side and the cross slope or sonic sensor is on the other.

There is also the option of running the Millimetre GPS on one side and the sonic on the other to give us joint matching.

The Millimetre GPS goes on the outside for the first pass, then the paver is turned around and the sonic is used for joint matching to the crown, with the Millimetre GPS on the other side to ensure the elevation remains correct.

This all works with Topcon’s existing sonic sensor or cross slope systems that many contractors are already using on their pavers, so it’s seamless.

It’s simply a matter of connecting up the PZS machine control box to the paver to get the millimetre accuracy.

In addition, contractors can also use the same components that they are using on existing grading equipment for their paving machines. This makes for an easy transition because they can the same hardware for grading and for paving – and just swap back and forth between them.

Profiling

Profiling is the other road construction application where Millimetre GPS is now available.

We see the development of this market proceeding a little differently to the paving side.

In the past for many profiling contractors, there’s never really been an incentive for them to do much to improve the ride – they are just told to mill off X centimetres of pavement.

If they were profiling a road with existing bumps, they’d simply follow the contours, and it would be up to the paving contractor to make it smooth.

But now, a profiling crew – by using 3D machine control – can cut to get a very consistent and accurate subgrade, so there’s a much better end result when paving over the top of the milled surface.

Increasingly one-stop-shop contractors are investing in this technology because they can see the benefit, while road authorities are starting to pay rideability bonuses, as well as productivity bonuses – so we believe Millimetre GPS will become increasingly attractive for profiling contractors.

One of the world’s first applications of Millimetre GPS on a profiler was recently set  up on a machine in South Australia for contractor Blacktop Profiling – and has operated extremely successfully over the past few months.

The benefits of this highly accurate form of machine control, in terms of productivity, ease of use and quality of work, have been proven in earthworks final trim work over the past three years.

Now it’s the turn of the paving and profiling sector.

Topcon dealers combine to form Australia’s largest positioning specialist

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Topcon Positioning Systems’ network of major independent Australian dealers have joined forces to form a new company – Position Partners – creating the country’s largest and most experienced specialist in the precision positioning business.

 

The formation of Position Partners has also resulted in one of the largest Topcon distributors in the world, with the company operating from new national headquarters – currently under construction – in Melbourne.

Coming together to form Position Partners are ABC Lasers (Queensland), Laserquip (NSW/ACT), Laser Beams (Victoria/Tasmania), Ross Instruments (South Australia/Northern Territory) and Stadia Instruments (Western Australia).

All the principals and staff of the former independent dealers have combined to establish Position Partners, and will continue working in the new company, which will cover the civil construction, survey, building and GIS sectors.

The new company has a staff of more than 120 people throughout Australia, with the directors alone having more than 170 years of combined industry experience, dating back to 1975.

According to Position Partners, no other supplier of precision positioning products in Australia will be able to match the depth of industry knowledge, experience and support capabilities, combined with Topcon’s world-leading product quality and innovation.

The principals of each of the former dealers are the shareholders of Position Partners, and are continuing as state managers in the new company.

Former dealer principals and now shareholders include Mike Forrest (Queensland), Brian McLoughlin and Garry Fleming (NSW) and Bob Bent (Victoria), all of whom pioneered the introduction of the first laser-based and automatic machine control systems for the construction industry in the late1970-1980s, followed by 2D grader and sonic systems in the 1990s and more recently the latest 3D-GPS systems.

Others include South Australia’s David Gow, who started in the industry in 1985 as a laser repair technician before becoming the principal of Ross Instruments in 1997, and Garry MacPhail, a qualified engineering surveyor, who managed Topcon’s WA branch for 12 years before starting Stadia Instruments with Bernard Cecchele in 2001.

The development has been warmly welcomed by Topcon Positioning Systems, with Ray O’Connor, president and CEO of Topcon Positioning Systems, praising the efforts of the dealer principals in establishing Position Partners.

“We applaud the forward thinking of these innovative dealers in combining their expertise, experience, dedicated work forces and operation footprint to better serve our customers and potential customers throughout Australia.

“Topcon offers its congratulations and full support for the new organisation now and in the future,” he said.

A company spokesperson said that Position Partners would provide Topcon’s construction, survey and GIS sector customers with a dramatically increased level of service, as well as new extension technologies and services to improve their businesses bottom line.

“We’ll have many more locations and many more people on the ground, while maintaining the industry-leading levels of support, experience and service that customers have always received through the previous independent dealer network,” he said.

“Position Partners combines the many decades of experience from Topcon’s state dealers into one, focussed, powerful, national company.

“No other organisation in Australia can match the depth of knowledge, product range and experience in the supply of lasers, machine control and surveying equipment, and GIS systems that we can bring through Position Partners.

“And in addition to our knowledge and expertise in supplying, servicing and supporting Topcon precision products, Position Partners offers Australia’s largest hire fleet of lasers, survey and machine control systems.”

The spokesperson said there were a number of reasons driving the formation of Position Partners.

“Increasingly we are dealing with large national contractors, often on a daily basis, who work locally and across state borders. Now we are able to provide a seamless, consistent level of service anywhere in Australia.

“In addition, over the past few years, as separate businesses, the principals have been working more closely together, sharing information, hire equipment, spare parts, and so on – so this is a logical development from that point of view.

“And while each of the state dealers had their own comprehensive service and repair facilities, two dealers – ABC Lasers and Laser Beams – had gained accredited Topcon Regional Repair Centre status, which all the other dealers have been accessing as well.

“By joining together into a single organisation, we are now much better placed to take advantage of the economies of scale and synergies we can achieve,” said the spokesperson.

“This development will also mean substantial advantages to our customers.

“As GNSS-based machine control, survey and GIS products move into the mainstream construction, surveying and infrastructure-management sectors, there is increasing demand from our customers – and future customers – for strong, sophisticated dealer organisations with the expertise and resources to provide the service and support levels required,” he said.

“Not only will our customers have the assurance of doing business with a larger, more substantial company, offering increased financial, human and technical resources, but they will also be dealing with a single national distribution organisation.

“This, along with a world-leading suite of products is a substantial differentiator that is unmatched by any of our competitors.

“And at the same time, through the on-going involvement of all the former dealer principals as shareholders, we will maintain our friendly, personal, hands-on service for all customers – from owner-operators and one-man survey companies, to the largest contractors, survey practices and public sector organisations,” he said.

“As individual dealers, they have always taken pride in delivering on their promises, on time to be the supplier of choice – and we will continue to do so as Position Partners.”