Surveying Equipment Vendors: Our Worst Enemy

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

My boss recently got this press release in an e-mail from Leica:

Start Press Release

(Norcross, Ga., 25 January 2010) Leica Geosystems' will offer construction professionals the unique opportunity to experience the company's broadest range-ever of site positioning systems and machine control for concrete and general construction applications.

For non-technical construction professionals, Leica Geosystems will be introducing its new Leica Builder Series Total Stations designed to perform positioning, layout, or dozens of other daily construction-site tasks. To facilitate data transfer, some models feature a USB port and Bluetooth functionality - an industry first.

For construction professionals seeking an entry point for GPS technology, Leica Geosystems will be introducing the Leica GSO9. The GS09 is intended to be a simple and easy-to-use GPS positioning tool for site stakeout and positioning.

Also on display, the world-famous Leica RedLine family of Total Stations and GPS designed for experienced users to easily and cost-effectively improve site stakeout accuracy and productivity. Plus seamless interface with Leica Geosystems machine control solutions.

This year's event will be marked by the breath of Leica Geosystems' unmatched solutions for concrete pavers. Leica PaveSmart 3D "stringless" control system is now compatible with the widest range of paving machinery on the market. Solutions for mainline concrete slipform curb & gutter, barrier and fine-grade trimming applications will be displayed on all the major manufacturer's machines at their booth locations in the Central Hall. Improve accuracy, concrete yields, quality and profitability while completely eliminating the need to set stringline on jobsites.

From entry-level upgradeable PowerBlade systems for formation and subgrade leveling applications, to PowerGrade and PowerDigger 2D and 3D GPS systems for bulldozers, motorgraders, scrapers and excavator guidance systems, Leica Geosystems will showcase a complete product portfolio aimed at maximizing the return from your investment in heavy equipment automation.

End Press Release

Here is a related link:
http://www.leica-geosystems.com/en/Leica-Builder-Series_79388.htm

My favorite part of the press release is the sentence that says: "For non-technical construction professionals, Leica Geosystems will be introducing its new Leica Builder Series Total Stations designed to perform positioning, layout, or dozens of other daily construction-site tasks."

When I read that I was thinking to myself: If you are a "non-technical construction professional" maybe you shouldn't be using a total station.

I know Leica is just trying to make a buck, like all of the other equipment vendors, but I sometimes wonder if this effort to push surveying tech into the hands of non-surveyors may ultimately kill the profession as we know it.

What do you guys think. Is this a real trend I am seeing from our equipment vendors? If this is a real trend, is it a good thing for land surveyors? Is it a good thing for our society?

Please share your thougts with me. Hopefully I didn't just lob a case of TNT onto a camp fire. :]

The Sunburned Surveyor (PLS 8489)

[E_Page]

If the equipment vendors couldn't make money from all markets available to them, OUR equipment would be several times more expensive than it is. Imagine a non-robotic, non-servo, non-reflectorless 5" TS for $60,000, or a 2 unit RTK system for $250,000. In short, many of us would not be surveying because the cost of doing business would be too great.

But I get your point. The way to protect the practice of land surveying is not to hammer and denegrate the equipment vendors for making a living, but to be diligent in discouraging the unlicensed practice of land surveying through education of clients and public, and aiding in the enforcement of those laws. The former can be done directly or through the CLSA's various chapters and committees. The latter needs to be done by communicating and cooperating with the BPELS enforcement unit, and pressing for prosecution at the local level where appropriate (I know many jurisdictions' DA's have no interest in pursuing such cases as they pertain to licensing laws, but perhaps some might be more interested in these cases as torts of fraud).

Part of the educational effort might need to be ensuring that our vendors are aware of what their contractor customers may and may not legally do with the equipment they are buying.

[land butcher]

By doing their own layout the contractor is accepting liability that currantly lies with the survey company.
I foresee a lot of finger pointing between the design engineer and the contractors when the contractors lack of due diligence resulted in bad construction.
There was/is a construction company that hires outside companies to stake the building(s) on their projects but uses their on staff licensed surveyor to do all other layout. Putting the highest liability item on someones else's pocketbook.
If I was a designer and ever on the receiving end of a contractors finger pointing due to him using his own equipt/people I'm going right after the experience and training of his layout people. Same with the cops and accident scene topos

If it's a government contract, one which requires a CA PLS to provide/supervise the layout, it's moot. However, the private sector is a whole different ball of tacks.

I have brought up the issue of contractor construction layout using GPS in NV in the past during NALS local chapter meetings (2006-2007). NV code is basically the same in defining 'surv ey' activities. At that time, my cries pretty much fell on deaf ears. The excuse to delve further was either 'every one being to busy' to worry about construction staking activities by GCs, or 'we don't do' construction surveys - meh, who cares. Given present circumstances, I wonder how many of them would have been singing that tune now? Of course, with little construction activity here, it's probably moot.

Construction activities are always looking for the next best, cheaper way. In a way, it's what has driven the survey community to adapt to and implement these new technologies, and that process will continue for generations. The more pressing issue is the frightening degree of complacency: if the profession (ie the PLS) does not police and enforce the very laws that we hope will guarantee or promote our future usefulness, then in the words of Mr. Smith: "Hear that sound? That is the sound of inevitability, Mr. Anderson. That is the sound of your death"

[land butcher]

This profession needs to study the ways Drs and Lawyers protect their turf and increase their area of control.

[mpallamary]

We are no longer "Masters of Measurement." Those days are gone forever. We, as a profession (and not as an industry) need to develop a new business model. Everyone can measure and they can do it very good. I can position with my phone sufficient for rough recon. My handheld Magellan WAS enabled does a great job for a lot of the things I do. It is only going to get better.

My grandchildren are great at pushing buttons.

If there are any surveyors out there who intend to grow their business on positioning and measurement, good luck. Burger King is hiring.

We have lost GIS, we are losing GPS and because the ability to measure is now in the hands of children, it is over. Moms use GPS now. See: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3933670

Most of the so-called trade based magazines are financed by vendor products and that drives the content. GPS is just another tool and it is finding its way into Mom and Pop toolboxes. It is in my car and on my phone and on my computer.

There is a revolution going on and we must decide how we are going to handle it. I know what I am going to do and it has very little to do with measuring things. That is the reality. When this recession is over, most will not recognize the landscape. Our field activities are being automated. You haven't seen anything yet! Smell the coffee. The pent-up demand out there for these new tools is mind boggling. Once the R&D money startes flowing, it is coming out. Chips are cheap. One person can do more than 10 surveyors could do 25 years ago. The business of layout and measurement is pretty much obsolete. It is history and it is rapidly becoming ancient history.

We either adapt or we disappear.

Don't drink the Kool-aid.

[Sunburned_Surveyor]

I believe Mr. Pallamary is correct in his perspective. I'm glad that someone else in our profession can recognize this huge change that has already started. (Can you say "machine control" and "mobile laser scanning"?)

I'm going to talk about this very topic at my upcoming workshop on GIS at the CLSA conference in Reno. I will discuss the need for new business models and the importance of migrating as a land surveyor from a role primarily as a spatial data procuder (measurement maker) to a role primarily as a spatial data manager.

However, I don't think we've "lost GIS" quite yet, and I hope to convince my audience of this. If you are going to be at the conference I hope you will consider coming to my workshop. It is a topic I care very much about, and it is a discussion that I believe is very important to the survival of our profession. I know not everyone that attends will like what I have to say, but I hope a few will come away with new ideas on how to survive the changes in our profession in the next decade or two.

The Sunburned Surveyor (PLS 8489)

P.S. - I've got a preview of my conference materials online. This includes the audience outline. (http://www.redefinedhorizons.com/introduction_to_vector_gis_for_land_surveyors.html )

[mpallamary]

Amen! And then again, Amen!

I have a scheduling conflict and will be back east that week. Good luck and thanks for your efforts!

[Willard Hall]

standing on a lip of a canyon with my Dad and some of my brothers, watching a four man survey crew measuring with a new type of technology, the EDM. I think I was 10. I found it neat but really I was happy that I didn't have to cut line for everyone down thru the large patch of poison oak. I didn't care about the oak since I am not allergic, but my brothers didn't look to happy. The party chief told my Dad that you better get with this new technology since surveying was going to become obsolete. Why heck, you can measure anything to the 100 th of a foot!! After a couple of years there will be no more surveyors since after measuring it once, there is no need to measure anything again.

I think that was in 1966 or 1967.

Well, I still have to find monuments that no one else can find. I still have to resolve major and minor differences on the plans on all my projects. I still have to lay out paving passes even though they have GPS controlled machinery since the vertical is not +- .02. I still have to resolve vast problems that the terrain model has caused since the model will not allow proper grading to occur. Of course, I have to set stakes for the visualization of the site to become apparent to the Superintendant and the other trades.

See, when you work in the field as a Licensed Land Surveyor every day, you realize that your knowledge and experience will never be replaced by these tools. These old and new tools are exactly what they are, means for the Surveyor to accomplish his job.

Heck, I was told back in 1993 that I was the first to take delivery of a Geodimeter 4002, very light weight on the rodman's end. I also had a laptop in the field at the same time. This changed the way as well as the amount of work I could accomplish in a day by myself, more than a conventional two person non robotic crew. Many surveyors where still using guns that you had to use your 41 or 48 to figure the horizontal and vertical distance.

I had every single surveyor and vendor, except one, tell me I would be broke in a year, That didn't happen.

I have always embraced new technology and use it as a tool.


I have GPS and Robotics. I will use scanning in the future, etc. But in the end.....I still have to do the same type of work I did when I was a kid. The experience by the construction trades in the field is and has not ever been there.

Willard Hall
PLS 6788
1298 Navel Place
Vista, CA
760.758.7725

[mpallamary]

Excellent post and observations.

[Rob_LS]

Just like many surveyors, equipment vendors are trying to weather this economy any way they can - If you look for the good they are doing, you can look to one equipment vendor in particular who has donated equipment to university, college, and high school surveying programs and commited to helping a CLSA chapter fund construction of a Calibration Baseline.
Thanks CSDS!

[Stan_K]

It has been a few years since I was involved with annual conferences, but I doubt the numbers have changed much. The Vendors exhibit fees pay about 60% of the total conference costs. They are also one of the largest contributors to the various auctions.

The State annual conferences would probably disappear without the vendors. Something else to consider.

Stan

[pls7809]

Vendors definitely are not "the enemy". Who are we to say who they do business with?

[bruce hall]

enemy and he is........."

[Ian Wilson]

enemy and he is.........

....some other guy. Not me. I wasn't there! You can't prove it.

We need to wake up and smell the coffee. Much of the technical end of land surveying is going away. (Hurray!)

What's left is the professional end. (Hurray!)

.

[thomasacto]

Haha - Thanks Rob! Just to add my two-cents: CSDS has always focused on providing land surveyors with the tools that they need, and we cannot dictate how our manufacturers develop and market their equipment or solutions.

I think that with the advent of the BIM industry, the manufacturers are creating tools that look and act very similar to what is used within the surveying industry - but still, these professions are not "surveying." They have used different tools and techniques to accomplish the same tasks in the past, the manufacturers are simply creating sensors and tools for them to carry out these tasks more quickly, precisely and efficiently now and into the future.

On another note - I have always considered the professional land surveyor to be the "lawyer of the land" - and have clout over these newer, emerging industries (GIS, BIM, etc.) - the technology will always be evolving; becoming easier to use, less expensive, etc. - and without saying, there has always been a bit of tension between the worlds of GIS and Land Surveying... now we can argue all we want to about who should be able to do what, but the reality is that GIS/BIM/Layout/Machine Control isn't going away - and those in the land surveying industry who have embraced GIS (and now BIM and some of these other sub-markets) seem to be staying busy as they recognize that they have the aforementioned "clout," being the licensed professionals... those who have fought it are now trying to decipher unreasonable specifications written by GIS professionals with little-to-no surveying background...

So to summarize this hastily-churned reply: don't let the "sensors" being developed by these manufactures create an illusion that the land surveying industry is being diminished by way of technology; but at the same time, embrace GIS, BIM and the other emerging technologies - if you can incorporate these solutions into your business, you are innovating and growing your range of services (again, with the clout that you have as a land surveyor)...

Just my $0.02!

[thomasacto]

PS: mpallamary! You are absolutely right, and Mr. Sunburned Surveyor - it was nice chatting yesterday... You are on the right track as well with your perspective on GIS & Land Surveying.

[mpallamary]

An added thought and one for clarification. I think the world of the vendors is one wherein they provide revenue for the conference and other activities. They also have familes to feed. As an old newspaper reporter friend of mine once said about newspapers, "They'll write anything as they buy ink by the gallon."

The vendors supply us with tools and I am thankful for that. It is up to us to decide what to use and how to use it. As the cost of technology is reduced, manufacturers are able to install a GPS in a golf ball. Technology is cheap. real cheap. This trend will continue. Whereas for years, surveyors were able to distinguish themselves as being "Masters of Measurement," that can no longer be said. Those were the days when it took exceptional skill to run a 1/10000 closure with a steel tape and a plumbob in subzero weather conditions during a snowstorm. It used to take 3 to 4 crew members days to run a tight closed traverse on an average control network. That was 30 years ago. Today, one person can do this in less than a day's time. In terms of man or person hours, 30 years ago, it took 4 persons working at 8 hours a day for 3 days for a total of 96 person hours to run a traverse. It took another 8 hours to manually run the closure and do the adjustment. We used to do this without calculators and computers and this work was not on state plane coordinates. We are at 104 person hours. Compare that with the 8 it takes today and that will get us on state plane coordinates. We can thank technology for that. The direction we are heading is inevitable. I love technology. So does my 7-year old granddaughter. She is more competent at a computer than a lot of the old school types out there are. And there are a lot of old school surveyors everywhere. What is wrong with this picture?

As technology becomes cheaper, in order to maintain a reasonable profit, the manufacturer has to move a lot of products. Who can blame them? You can buy a 42 inch plasma television for under $500.00. GPS is cheaper. Everyone has GPS and everyone can measure. My granddaughter loves to watch the "spaghetti farm" in my car. The "farm" is my GPS system and she knows how it works. I remember the first time she saw an old vinyl record. She was amazed and thought it was the largest CD she had ever seen. You can download and store 10,000 songs in an Ipod smaller than a candy bar. They'd make them smaller but you couldn't read them. Who needs a DVD when you can download the latest movie from the Internet?

My friends, technology is changing and because we have been traditionally an industry (profession?) that distinguished itself because of our extraordinary ability to measure, we have lost that important facet of what we do. They are building grading equipment loaded up with computers and GPS devices that are going to replace a lot of field layout people. They have cars that can park themselves. ATM machines have replaced thousands of people. How many people can remember the days before ATMs? Automation has arrived and we are being replaced at a very rapid pace. That is because the most rapid advances are being made in the positioning arena. Where are we and where are you? Geocache anyone?

As Albert Einsten once said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

It is time to wake up and smell the coffee. it is hot and it is strong.

[Willard Hall]

any; doctors orders.

I do not believe that surveyors are the masters of measurements more so than the other trades that I deal with on a daily basis. I know that Surveyors are the masters of problems that can occur for both Boundary Survey and Construction Layout

The real problem is that the PLSA is not being enforced.

To reinforce my point on my disagreement with the title of "Master of Measurements". When I was younger....

I was the instrument man, turned 90 degree angles and such while standing on the top of a wooden transit box. I had my own magnifying glass. I was five years old. My days in kindergarden and elementary school were interrupted by the need to go to the field to survey with my dad. When I was in my late fives, my younger brother took over the gun, I became the rear chainman. When the pull was long or the tape was the 300 foot road chain, he would hold my arm to give me added support.

I cut line and ran the crew on many Saturdays and Sundays(after church on Sunday). My dad would drop off two or three other brothers, and we would run section lines or boundaries through brush and orange groves. Many times we would stake curb and gutter and the other fixed works. I was in the fifth grade.

Heck, I sure wasn't anything special. What really mattered was the need to analyze the end result to make sure what was done was what was planned. My Father always verified the end result. He was the one with the brains. He was the licensed person.

When I applied for my License, the reply from THE BOARD was that I didn't have enough experience and that they could not figure out what a gopher to the Party Chief had to do with surveying. This written position has always led me to believe that the BOARD does not really understand what a Licensed Land Surveyor does.

It the same thing today and into the near future.

How does the inspectors know that the work is progressing properly. Just take the word of the grader or some one else I guess.

How about the soil tech. How does he know where he is at. Anyways, This tech is not needed since everyone can tell the bottom of competent material, a nuc gauge anyone can press those buttons and get a readout lickity split.

I see almost every day, I was going to say every day but every is a tough follow, I see the need for the surveyor in the field. I am concerned that the PLSA is not being enforced but am not worried that I will be replaced.

My main concern is how will anyone else replace me or others as competent Land Surveyors. There is just not enough apprentices that are available to learn the vast amount of knowledge that is required. The State of California, by not enforcing the PLSA, economically castrates the ability to transfer required knowledge and procedures used in the Land Surveying Profession by allowing others to locates fixed works and grading operations by pressing buttons without requiring any knowledge of the procedures required to recieve a competent result.

I know some will say that college will resolve the void of not enough trained professionals. I differ, the 18 caissions at Petco Park put in the wrong place because the college trained autocad office worker digitized the location and the construction crew who didn't know the importance of methods of calculations that have to be employed on building layout.
I know that the college trained Architect and Engineer who says the distance is a certain amount because the autocad drawing says it is but the distances do not close the proposed building are not the answer.

I also see the craziness in the GIS data base that have multiple elevations and locations for the same sewer manhole because they do understand that the datum changes every so often(this change I do not subscribe to). They do not understand how the recorded existing flow line of a sewer is 2.75 feet different than the present vertical datum shows.

The vendors are selling their equipment to others that are not California Licensed Land Surveyors. I don't like it but they can do as they please. They could still sell the same number of pieces of equipment if the surveyors did the layout instead of the grader or other contractor.

I can blame the vendors, the contractor or others. The real person to blame is myself and others in my professions who either accept carte blanche or partially that it is okay for the contractors to lay out their own work and allow GIS data bases to be compiled without an PLS as the responsible person. Remember, at the county, the citizen takes for granted that the GIS data base is gospel.

I do disagree with others concerning what is the right path for the future for the PLS. I know the correct answer is the legal application of the California Engineer and Land Surveyors Act.

Willard Hall
1298 Navel Place
Vista, CA 92081
760.758.7725

[mpallamary]

Willard, I believe you are correct. As one of the other forum contributors posted, "We have met the enemy and he is us." We control our own destiny and we have the ability to decide where we are going. You should consider writing an article and challenging the readers to respond to your position. Time permitting, I will consider it.