HRH His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales officially opened the new state of the art headquarters of SITECH UK & Ireland customer, WM Donald.
Prince Charles formally opened the new headquarters of the 40-year-old family-run civil engineering firm and test-drove an innovative new automatic GPS system, Trimble’s Earthworks UTS supported (Universal Total Station) Grade Control Platform, fitted for the first time to a UK excavator. Using pioneering prism technology, the system enables operators to measure hard-to-reach and unsafe places up to two kilometres away and control the grade of excavation and finish with absolute precision, all from the comfort of the cab.
SITECH has been working with WM Donald for over a decade, supporting the contractor to incorporate the use of innovative design technology to meet and overcome the challenges in their construction projects, to transform how both contractors and machines are making use of the technology available.
SITECH is the UK & Ireland distributor of Trimble® technology for civil engineering and construction, the leading innovator of hardware and software solutions. The company recommended using Trimble’s Earthworks Grade Control Platform for Excavators to optimise accuracy of grading, especially on sites with unwieldy terrain, while radically improving operator productivity and reducing the risk of running into costly overtime.
The platform, which can be integrated into any manufacturer’s equipment, enables the operator in the cab to lock on and track passive prisms of key target points across a site, monitoring and controlling the data in order to take accurate dynamic measurements for stakeout and grade control.
With the capacity to collect data from 16 unique channels or target points across a site, the software can also differentiate survey crews and grade checkers from machines, eliminating down time caused by unnecessary interference.
With the promise of maximum accuracy and productivity, the Grade Control Platform can also work to tight construction tolerances, reducing wastage and improving efficiency when using expensive materials as well as eliminating the need to rework areas of the site. In short the platform means contractors are able to grade sites much faster and with more accuracy and less fuel than ever before.
Brian Core, sales manager for SITECH UK & Ireland explained, “Around 80 per cent of construction projects run into overtime. Contractors can save valuable hours by using Trimble’s Grade Control Platform; no longer having to walk the length and breadth of a site, and crucially ensuring site workers safety as a result of no longer having to navigate hazardous or unstable areas in order to measure them.”
WM Donald employee Willie Grant, 50, from Dyce, Aberdeen, was tasked with showing Prince Charles how to operate the excavator and was impressed with the future King’s skills at the controls. He commented, “He’d obviously worked a machine before because he knew exactly what to do and talked about how important automatic technology was for the industry moving forward.”
