Trimble

Currently we are trying something new at Willmar Electric.  It is a new GPS base software and hardware that helps lay out our underground work.  The product we our testing is calld "Trimble."  Trimble is a brand name and they have several competators but we have elected to go with the Trimble product.

Right now we at the training phase of this new endeavor.  By the end of the week we plan to be in the field laying out the stub-ups for the DEC project in Lincoln.

You might be asking why are you moving in a new direction.  We see four main advantages to switching over to a method from our current tried and true system.

-Our friends within the industry that have already made the move to Trimble-like technology say they are saving 50% of their hours spent on laying out projects.

-It lowers the number of people we need on site during this stage of the project.

-It allows to get work done is a shorter time span.  Less pressure at fitting into to the seeming constantly shrinking windows we are given.

-It improves the accuracy of the work we do.  By using highly sophisticated equipment we lower the role that human error might play into what we do.

The person doing the Trimble training has seen contractors layout nearly 400 points per day!!!

You might be thinking that there has to be a catch.  There is a catch but it is something that is easily over come by most people.  You have to be organized and you need to be planning ahead.  Since the reason for the equipment is to increase productivity and accuracy it is important that you do a couple of things before you get started with Trimble.

You must make sure you set up your tolerances are set correctly and that you have set up your project specific data correctly.  Otherwise you will get bad information out of the system.

The people invovled in the training and the experimental project are excited to see how it works in the real world.  As we continue to move ahead we will keep you posted.