Construction and GPS
GPS technology plays an essential and ever increasing role in the $537 billon United States construction sector.
The technology has become critical to improving the productivity, efficiency and safety of construction job sites. Increasingly, GPS technology is used in all phases of construction, including surveying and mapping, locating buried and overhead utilities, facilitating heavy machinery precision grading and excavation, enhancing material application and the final as built survey.
GPS technology enables better design and management of large construction projects, including infrastructure such as a railways and highways as well as commercial, industrial and residential buildings, shopping centers and housing.
Using GPS technology on the construction site improves worker safety, reduces project delays, reduces fuel consumption and improves efficiencies at each stage of the project. GPS technology is also used to prevent theft or misplacement of construction equipment, and provide real-time monitoring for equipment maintenance.
The productivity gains and reduced costs of construction using GPS technology are substantial. In a June 2011 report by Dr. Nam D. Pham, managing partner of NDP Consulting Group, "Commercial GPS in the U.S. and The Costs of Potential Disruption," Pham found that the 2007 annual benefits of precision GPS to U.S. civil engineering, construction and surveying, for labor was $32 billion; capital $10.6 billion; and affected input expenses $2 billion.
GPS technology is used to modernize and automate construction sites, machines and processes - transforming the way roads, railways, airports, buildings are constructed. State-of-the-art data and information solutions use cutting edge GPS technology to provide efficiencies and innovations that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. These systems provide geospatial content in virtually every product they offer, bringing traditional two-dimensional planning and modeling into a bright 3-D world.
The technology connects the worksite, providing accurate and often real-time geospatial information for surveying, estimating, engineering design, site preparation, controlling construction equipment such as excavators, bulldozers and graders, and much more. GPS-based solutions enable streamlined workflows, eliminate costly rework, and improve profitability across all phases of the construction life cycle.
Technology provides exact specifications for mechanical, HVAC, plumbing and steel - placing them in a parametrically correct 3-D model so that if, as is often the case, one element changes the problems that change causes, and the possible solutions, are automatically displayed.