Apr 9

Written by: Cianbro News
4/9/2008 7:00 PM

Syracuse, NY

SYRACUSE —Using $50,000 worth of GPS technology, one Destiny USA contractor has managed to mark 3,000 foundation-drilling locations on the Destiny construction site for the mall expansion. The use of the GPS technology has essentially made the task a one-man job, saving the contractor time and money, says John Quinn, a project surveyor with Cianbro Corp. Maine–based Cianbro is the project manager for the Carousel Mall expansion project. It is utilized as a sub-contractor for the foundation surveying, called pile-driving marking. The use of global-navigation, satellite- system technology, commonly known as global positioning systems (GPS), in the construction industry is growing as contractors learn the benefits of the tool for tracking vehicles and equipment, dispatching crews and supplies, and mapping job sites. This is according to the Winter 2008 Construction Industry Adviser, produced by CPA and consulting firm, Dannible & McKee, LLP, based in Syracuse. “Technology is changing. GPS has helped us tremendously with productivity, which is profitability,” Quinn says. “The savings is tremendous, maybe weeks it has saved.” He could not provide cost-saving totals. Normally, it takes two or more surveyors working together to plot and then physically mark the location of each steel beam that’s driven 150 to 300 feet into the ground, Quinn says. Quinn began the pile-driving surveying project in July 2007 by himself. He now has an assistant helping him. Since July, Quinn has plotted the locations of 1,200 piles using a GPS system acquired by Cianbro when Quinn began working for the company in July. He says it took some convincing, but Cianbro purchased a $50,000 Topcon GPS for Quinn to utilize during the pile-driving process. “I came onto the company in July, and when I got to the site and looked at it and [knew] I was by myself it was the perfect opportunity to introduce Cianbro into purchasing a GPS system,” Quinn says. Without the GPS tool, Quinn contends that at least two people would be needed to perform his job. On the job site, one person marks the locations and the second person directs him to it. “Each of these [markings] has to be in an exact location. My job is to place all of these,” Quinn says. “It all looks real easy on paper. But when you’re out in the field, you don’t see gridlines and you don’t know where you are in relationship to the chart.” With the GPS tracking tool, Quinn can see exactly where he is in relation to the pile-driving location he is plotting at all times. Construction of Destiny USA, a proposed environmentally friendly entertainment and retail center adjacent to the Carousel Mall began in spring 2007. The first phase of construction, costing about $540 million, consists of adding almost 900,000 square feet of space to the mall’s existing 1.5 million square feet. TO READ this copyrighted story from the Business Journal News, please click and follow the link.

Business Journal

New York, NY

http://www.cnybj.com/fullstory.cfm?article_id=6743&return=frontpage.cfm

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