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Tag: job site

  • Komatsu adds Smart Construction Drone and Field to line-up

    Komatsu adds Smart Construction Drone and Field to line-up

    Image: Komatsu
    Image: Komatsu

    Heavy-equipment maker Komatsu has added two new “smart” products to its job-site solutions for construction contractors, Smart Construction Field and Smart Construction Drone.

    Smart Construction Field

    Komatsu has partnered with Moovila, an experienced provider of project management software, to develop Smart Construction Field, a mobile app that allows contractors to easily record job site activity and analyze operational efficiencies in near real time.

    Reports generated by Smart Construction Field can track daily job-site conditions. Task progress can be broken down by labor, equipment and materials, including machine utilization and fuel distribution, receipts, timecards and subcontractor work. Regardless of equipment brand, Smart Construction Field can collect machine data from an entire fleet.

    Smart Construction Drone

    Smart Construction Drone survey technology collects accurate topography, including quantities for production tracking and billing, without personnel walking the job site to do a manual survey.

    Contractors can gather and analyze data throughout each project phase with topographic surveys that incorporate hundreds of thousands of data points. With the capability to take still photos from up to 400 feet above ground level or under bridge decks, Smart Construction Drone can be used as pre-job verification or to keep stakeholders up to date.

    Smart Construction Drone is designed to work with Smart Construction Dashboard. Built to combine data from multiple sources into one comprehensive picture, Smart Construction Dashboard combines 3D design data with aerial mapping and intelligent machine data, allowing contractors to confirm quantities and visualize job-site progress.

    Smart Construction Dashboard is powered by the 3D visualization power and geospatial accuracy of Cesium, a platform that visualizes, analyzes and shares 3D data.

    Both Smart Construction Drone and Smart Construction Field are part of Komatsu’s Smart Construction solutions, an umbrella of smart applications created to help construction customers optimize their business remotely, and in near-real time.

    “When the Smart Construction group came in, they integrated everything, and the transition felt seamless,” said Kevin Hawkinson, vice president of operations, A.W. Oakes & Son. “Now, we can take the data, transfer it to the machines, get data back from the machines to the office, and utilize all of that information across the board for bidding, customer reference and billing.”

  • Skycatch and Komatsu Australia partner to boost efficiency with high precision

    Image: Skycatch
    Image: Skycatch

    Komatsu Australia and Skycatch Inc. are partnering to boost the efficiency of construction, mining and quarry sites across Oceana with the High Precision Package.

    The High Precision Package is also known as Komatsu’s Everyday Drone Solution, a key component to the Smart Construction workflow.

    The Everyday Drone contains the Explore1 high-precision UAV, the Edge1 integrated GNSS base station and edge compute module, and the Viewer, an online data visualization and analysis tool, packaged into a commercial-grade kit.

    Photo:
    High-precision package. (Photo: Skycatch)

    The Everyday Drone allows a user to experience time to data without needing ground control points (GCP), and the ability to seamlessly integrate precision aerial data into their Smart Construction Workflow.

    In common construction workflows, the time to data using traditional surveying methods could take weeks until project stakeholders can view or analyze their job site data. With the Edge1, customers are able to leverage a seamless GCP free workflow that consistently delivers sub 50-mm accurate data, in arbitrary or local coordinate systems within 30 minutes, saving countless hours and labor costs.

    “We are now using the Everyday Drone at the start of projects to collect whole site information for pre-tender and bidding capability, comparing against 3D design surface to provide fleet and project managers real, accurate information viewed in the Smart Construction Application,” said Aaron Marsh, national technology solution expert manager, Smart Centre, Komatsu Australia. “This allows them to work out their cut and fill volumes with accuracy from the beginning, and enables the project tender team to select the right machines for the project optimising fleet recommendation and empowering the team to make the right, data-based decisions from the start.”

    “Skycatch is proud to offer a better way of accessing precision data on-site. With traditional methods, the solutions are piecemeal, cumbersome, and time-consuming,” said Christian Sanz, Skycatch founder and CEO. “Now, customers are able to make informed decisions about changes to what was planned and what is actually happening on site in near real-time, ultimately providing greater productivity, increased profit and reducing project risk from beginning to end,”

    Customers tested the receptiveness of the Everyday Drone Solution, said James Mackenzie, national remote support manager at Komatsu Australia. They first tested in civil construction, and then quickly expanded into quarry sites. Mackenzie was able to survey six quarries in five days for different customers, post-processed in the cloud, receiving the data back the next day.

    “Compared to a traditional survey, this is 100% more productive and efficient,” Mackenzie said. “By using the Everyday Drone, customers are no longer putting themselves in harm’s way, surveying around heavy machinery or climbing up unstable stockpiles at risk of twisting an ankle.”

    He also noted that customers appreciated the fast turn-around time, the ease of use, and the ruggedness of the products.

    “Skycatch’s ability to provide near real-time data throughout the entire project is vital, and being able to deliver that to the customer, supervisor and give project teams the ability to make decisions throughout the project easily with usable, accurate data is key to the success of the project as a whole, not just in siloed environments is priceless,” Marsh said.