Category Archives: Construction/BIM
Taxi!
Major work on JFK airport’s system of taxiways gets a boost from a contractor’s 3D milling capability. Ranked #16 on the list of the world’s busiest airports, New York’s JFK airport handles nearly 59 million passengers and 1.4 million tons of cargo annually. The area designated for warehouse and storage facilities to accommodate all that...
Professional Service or Commodity?
A Surveyor’s Thoughts on the QBS Process Editor’s Note: This month’s installment of Field Notes was submitted by James Nicolau IV, PLS, on the merits of using the quality-based selection (QBS) process to select surveyors for construction-staking services beyond where it is required under the Brooks Act (Public Law 95-582). When the QBS process is...
Mexico City’s Transportation Revolution
Using drones, lidar, and BIM, enterprising surveyors and geospatial engineers designed and constructed the city’s first high-speed train system. Editor’s Note: Lessons learned from a problematic rail project in Mexico City prompted an initiative to pull out all technological stops for a subsequent new rail line. An innovative, tech-savvy firm that had demonstrated its capabilities...
A New Line
Midway through a large and complex transportation project, a team of Belgian surveyors successfully adopted a new class of instrument. Hardware and software modernization doesn’t always yield immediate benefits for enterprises, and sometimes taking a particularly big leap or risk comes at a premium in time and labor. But sometimes everything goes smoothly. Our July...
Monitoring a Historic Bridge Replacement
A survey manager describes how monitoring improved construction processes for the replacement of an 85-year-old bridge connecting Illinois and Iowa. The Savanna-Sabula truss bridge added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999, carried passengers along U.S. 52 and Illinois 64 over the Mississippi River, connecting the towns of Savanna, Illinois, and Sabula, Iowa....
The Case for Software Training
Getting the most value from construction software means knowing how to thoroughly use it. Gone are the days in the construction industry when a smart owner/operator and his backhoe could handle most projects. Back then, measurements were close approximations, and quality was achieved through the skills and experience of the hired contractor. Today, contractors and...