St. Kilda Development - C&R Developments - Topcon Machine Control

C&R Developments / Topcon Machine Control

The St. Kilda development, on the leafy outskirts of Cambridge in the Waikato, has proven something of a 360 degree project for Topcon, with ground works contractor C&R Developments, St. Kilda development director Matt Smith and surveyor Pete McLachlan from Cogswell Surveys all utilising a combination of Topcon’s Machine Control technology and survey instruments to get the project underway.

For Nick Ross of C&R Developments – the company tasked with not only building an extensive roading network through the large site, but also complex earthworks such as a multi-benched swale drain and two feature wetland areas – Topcon Machine Control technology on Komatsu PC200 and PC450 excavators and a Caterpillar D7H dozer increased the speed at which his team could work.

“We actually started the project without any Topcon gear. It was a laborious process because we had an 80 ton excavator digging the big swale drain and a 20 tonner coming in behind trimming. Then the surveyor would have to follow through and the 20 tonner would retrim.

“We took the step of kitting out the 20 ton machine with Topcon gear and that gave us fantastic accuracy, which meant we could pull the 80 tonner out and we no longer needed a surveyor on site every day. Then we put machine control on a 45 ton excavator which made the 20 tonner redundant because the 45 ton machine can do all the loading and trimming at the same time.”

Nick says that the technology has meant less manpower required on-site, but faster turnaround time on key tasks.

Even experienced operators such as C&R’s David Southcombe – whose PC450 supports Topcon gear – says that the technology has helped speed up trickier aspects of the work, particularly the swale that runs down one side of the property.

“The terraced edges of the swale made that a tricky build, but the accuracy of the Topcon Machine Control system took away any operator uncertainty. Prior to installing the gear, if the surveyor couldn’t get onsite for whatever reason, the entire day’s productivity suffered.

“But because of the system’s accuracy, the surveyor only needs to measure and monitor every few days. It gives the operators the ability to work independently, which is great,” says David.

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In addition to the machines utilising Topcon Machine Control technology at the St. Kilda site, C&R Developments also runs a Caterpillar D11T with Topcon Machine Control at the Taharoa iron sand works, near Kawhia Harbour. Here, says Nick, the operator benefits from knowing exactly where he is in relation to the buried feeder.

“At Taharoa the guys are pushing sand into a buried feeder – essentially an enormous hole in the ground. The system tells the operator how close he is to the feeder, because the last thing we want is a machine halfway down a hole.”

Once the sand has been processed, it then moves to a stockpile yard, where more feeders are sited.

Nick is especially pleased with the plug-and-play nature of the Topcon system, ensuring that the company can utilise the technology across a variety of different brand name machines, with C&R Development’s grader fleet possibly the next to be kitted out.

“You don’t need Topcon gear to grade a quarry road, but we’ll soon have a lot of finishing work coming up and the finishing quality that Topcon provides is second-to-none, so we’ll need to look at putting the gear on one of our graders.

“As far as our other machines go though, if we were to buy a new excavator or dozer from now on, we’d stick Topcon machine control straight on it without question.”

Matt Smith, the developer of St. Kilda, says that the Topcon Machine Control technology gave both him and the contractors a better way of working. As he points out, flat sites are anything but easy to develop.

“From a constructability point-of-view, the swale and the wetland areas were extremely difficult to replicate. The swale has three or four different angles to it, while the wetlands feature several benches and batter slopes, intrinsic to the design because of hydrology and safety considerations. Simply put, string-lining and pegging just weren’t working.

“We figured there has to be a better way, so we met with Synergy and talked to them about what we were trying to achieve. Within days of getting the Topcon gear fitted, I could see we’d definitely made the right decision,” Matt says.