Trimble

Trimble needs a solution to enable better collaboration and communication between coworkers remotely, instead of using paper / 2D to communicate with each other about 3D designs.

Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG), a China-based international construction group, was contracted for a $440 million expansion and land reclamation project for the Maldives Airport. The project involved extensive land reclamation work, mass excavation, fine grading, and precise runway paving and compaction. The expansion required the removal of four million cubic meters of sand from the inner lagoon adjacent to the airport. The project also involved the construction of a new 3800 meter-long and 65-meter-wide runway, a fuel farm, a cargo complex, and a new terminal. The project faced tight parameters and required streamlined data flow and communication across the build. BUCG sought to improve safety and productivity, optimize operations, and complete the project on time and within budget.

Dillon Transportation, a dry van transportation company, experienced significant growth since its inception in 1996. From a humble beginning with one truck and two drivers, the company expanded to a fleet of 125 trucks and 170 drivers and crew members. However, this rapid growth brought about a challenge. The owner, Donnie Dillon, found it increasingly difficult to keep track of every driver and truck in his fleet. He could no longer remember the specifics of each trip, which he previously kept in his head. The company needed a more sophisticated way of storing information about drivers and loads. They required a system that would allow employees to access the specifics of each trip easily. The challenge was to find a solution that could manage the growing complexity of their operations.

Streamline digital connections between people, processes, and equipment.Today, this pioneering company continues to lead the way in both talent and modern technology deployment to deliver some of the industry’s most complex projects. With over more than 30 3D machine control systems that are used on dozers, excavators, motor graders, and skid steers; 30 rovers and total stations; and 50-plus base stations, the company maintains one of the largest technology-enabled fleets in the Upper Midwest. 

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), the third largest municipal utility in California, provides water, wastewater, and electric power services. The SFPUC manages an extensive wastewater system that collects, conveys, and provides secondary treatment to combined sewage flows within the City and County of San Francisco. However, like many utilities, SFPUC faces challenges such as environmental compliance, climate variability, aging infrastructure networks, financial shortages, and labor efficiencies. The SFPUC's environmental monitoring program is driven by regulatory compliance, calibration of the city-wide hydraulic and hydrologic (H&H) model, establishment of repair and rehabilitation prioritization, and real-time operational decision support. Other factors include early warning from collection system to plant operations, pre-development monitoring for upgrades, and forensic analysis of wet-weather and storm effects.

Termotex S.A., an international company specializing in the design and assembly of industrialized insulating construction systems, was facing challenges in coordinating crews, deciphering blueprints, and matching 2D blueprints to the 3D construction at the site. The company had to rely on a project engineer and a quality control inspector on site, but this was often insufficient to avoid mistakes and clashes resulting from incorrect or outdated information. To overcome this, Termotex started creating Building Information Modeling (BIM) designs and switched to tablets instead of paper blueprints on the job site. However, the CEO, Andres Casanova, realized that a good BIM model alone was not enough to increase speed and precision in their construction projects. He sought a combination of technologies and new workflows that would enable automation and data-sharing from start to finish, and wanted to leverage mixed reality to better utilize their BIM models in the context of the actual job site throughout the entire construction process.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) was faced with the challenge of managing over 30,000 signs spread across more than 600 centerline miles of highway. The task of ensuring that the latest and best information was always available on this large inventory of signs was daunting. The PTC needed a system that could not only manage the sign inventory but also create work requests, interface with a third-party work order processing system, and keep the data on the signs current for better decision making. The challenge was further compounded by the need to capture and store more than 50 attributes for each sign.

The City of Austin Public Works Department was faced with the challenge of managing their extensive road network, which includes 7,582 lane miles of pavement and 450 bridges, serving nearly a million city residents. The city's primary goal was to increase resource productivity and maximize pavement life at the lowest cost to taxpayers. The annual cost of maintaining the city’s infrastructure was approximately $12M for capital improvement projects, $13M for street preventative maintenance treatments, and $6M for routine roadway repairs like fixing potholes. The city planners needed a system that would allow them to make more informed, data-driven decisions on when, where, and how to tackle strategic and operational challenges, thereby achieving the highest possible return on their road network investments.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LaDOTD) was struggling with the limitations of handheld devices used for capturing field work. The devices had limited functionalities and required manual operations to upload work status. This included physically connecting the devices to docking stations for data synchronization. These processes were not only cumbersome but also led to data loss or inaccuracies. The inefficiency of these devices was slowing down task completion, affecting the overall productivity of the field crews.

The New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) manages more than 25,000 lane miles of highway, nearly 3,000 bridges and culverts, 2,055 miles of railroad right-of-way, and 61 public-use airports. The department also oversees three international ports of entry, 32 rest stops, and 34 nationally designated scenic, historic, and recreational trails. NMDOT faced several challenges in optimizing its pavement treatment process. A primary concern was the operational challenge of developing and implementing the program throughout the state. The integration of the software with the department’s legacy pavement data-collection systems was another challenge. In addition, a significant challenge was the organization and management of statewide staff training.

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) was grappling with an outdated, in-house developed maintenance management system that was conceived in the late 1980s. While it was a pioneering system at its inception, mirroring the advanced features of the 1989 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo, it had become a bottleneck for the agency three decades later. The system was sluggish, had limited interfacing capabilities, and lacked robust reporting features. The agency was also burdened with numerous spreadsheets and manual paperwork required for job completion. The outdated system was not only holding back the agency's efficiency but also its ability to innovate and streamline its operations.