The not-so-surprising secret to running a successful surveying firm

Author:Angus W. Stocking

PLS的David E. Titcomb在美国缅因州的法尔茅斯经营一家小但繁荣的调查业务。由大卫的父亲罗伯特·P·蒂科姆（Robert P. Titcomb）于1969年创立TITCOMBAssociateshas two offices, employs three professional land surveyors and six field crews, and has provided services to hundreds of clients in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, including numerous engineering firms and the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT). Among the company’s key business decisions has been an unwavering commitment to providing excellent service and using best-in-class technology. It’s a forward-thinking strategy that often requires making significant investments — the sort that give many small business owners pause. But David Titcomb takes a different view.

“我们一直在寻找如何使客户的生活更轻松，”he says.“For example, we’re one of the few surveying firms in our region that works in MicroStation as well as AutoCAD, and MaineDOT and a lot of engineering firms prefer to work with us because they get files in the format that’s best for them.”

在高质量可交付成果上实现更快的周转是Titcomb Associates旨在提供更好的服务的另一种方式。为此，该公司在与解决方案提供商缅因州技术资源协商后，最近投资了两项新技术。一个是Leica GS18 T GNSS接收器，被称为世界上最快的RTK ROVER，另一个是Leica Nova MS60多站，它将激光扫描仪和一个机器人总站组合在一个平台中。根据Titcomb的说法，这些投资以可预测和出乎意料的方式获得了回报。

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GNSS that’s twice as fast… and safer, too

TheGS18 tGNSS漫游者是most technologically advanced receivers on the market。It’s both the fastest RTK rover and the first to provide the first true“无铅”杆溶液—that is, the GS18 T uses GNSS and惯性传感器制造一个天线，总是知道它在哪里而且，重要的是，杆的末端在哪里。它在使用前不需要校准，在阅读之前不需要钢筋，而且是万无一失的磁性干扰。

对于Titcomb而言，这些功能加上“信任因素”，在考虑投资时比价格重要得多。

“Dad started with a Wild theodolite, so we’ve always had a trust in Wild and now Leica Geosystems instruments—they’re bulletproof. So I trusted this receiver to be as fast as advertised, and I knew that speed would pay off for us.”

Project Manager Nicholas S. Elliston, PLS, says that has definitely been the case.

“我们已经看到与GS18 T能够在以前的接收器上收集其他星座和频率的区别。现在，我们在以前无法使用RTK的地方获取数据 - 这是一个改变游戏规则的人。”

鉴于缅因州的特殊条件，尤其如此。

“我们显然在这里有很多树木，我们对可以使用以前的RTK解决方案的位置有了很好的认识，而且通常在树覆盖中，我们做不到，”Elliston adds.“With the GS18 T, more often than not, we can. That means we don’t have to go back with a total station, and, of course, saving trips is a big-time saver.”

但这不仅是better coverage and faster readingsthat make a difference. According to Elliston, the无校准杆是节省时间在自身。

“Not having to take those couple of seconds to plumb a rod—for every single shot—speeds us up by 20-30 per cent。And it makes an even bigger difference when we can tilt the rod to get a shot right on the point we want—for example, building corners or the line under a guardrail. We get accurate locations without extra measurements or offsets or coming back with the total station. When all these factors are considered, there are projects we’re now doing in half the time compared to previous methods.”

A surprise benefit to the tilt rover was safety.

“我们在缅因州收费公路上进行了许多道路测量，”Elliston explains.“I’m often working near live traffic, and now I can be a step farther away just by leaning the pole out and taking the shot without plumbing up. The increased speed is great, of course, butworking more safely is probably the biggest advantage。”

显然，对更高级的GNSS接收器的投资对于Titcomb Associates来说是一个很好的投资，paying off with faster work, more effective work in Maine forests, reduced total station work, and greater safety。The firm leveraged the new receiver’s superb performance even more by making a further investment in an echosounder kit for bathymetric surveys.

“We connected the GS18 T to the echosounder and now we’re able to collect one shot every second when doing bathymetric surveys,”TITCOMBsays.“It’s pretty slick!”

What about the Nova MS60? It was a bigger bet on another advanced technology. Did it work out for this relatively small surveying firm in Maine?

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The payoff of a scanning total station

When asked if he had any concerns before investing in a MultiStation that was nearly twice as expensive as a really good robotic total station, Titcomb is frank.

“Sure—it’s an expensive option for our relatively small company, and I had questions about our field crews being able to get the most out of it.”

那么，是什么说服了他参加比赛？

“My father was always convinced that a survey company needed to be able to gather a lot of information in the shortest time possible because, well, time is money. I agree with that, and I’ve also decided that we’ll only buy robotic total stations now because they give us so much flexibility and power,”TITCOMBexplains.“所以，首先，MS60 is a great, and very fast, robotic total station。Adding scanning to that made sense for us. It lets us do work we couldn’t do before, ismuch fasterfor some projects, and, most importantly, I already knew that there was some work we were doing that would be更安全with a scanner.”

这项工作他考虑道路项目,one of Titcomb Associates’ largest areas of focus. The company regularly surveys bridges, roadways and intersections for a number of engineering consultants.“For interstate or turnpike projects, they’ll always close lanes for us, but there are some places, like on ramps, where it’s just really hard to do a lane closure and make it safe,”explains Titcomb. Now, in those situations, Titcomb crews set up the Nova MS60 well off the road and use the scanning capabilities to perform afast, accurate topographic surveywithout getting anywhere near traffic.

在调查桥梁时，扫描的安全益处更为明显。

“We used to be up on ladders, near traffic, when we surveyed bridges,”TITCOMBexplains.“It was very unsafe. Now we’ll never have to do it that way again.”

Instead, his crews can simply scan the entire bridge deck in just a几分钟的精度比以前更高and from a safe vantage point on the ground.

Aside from roadway and bridge projects, Titcomb Associates keeps the Nova MS60 busy with standard engineering and architectural support projects. The firm realised early on that most of their clients don’t really care how data is gathered, and very few in their region wanted a point cloud as deliverable. But the MS60, used as a scanner, can do most of this work—topos, as-built surveys, roadway cross sections, site monitoring, building interior surveys, etc.—速度远远超过传统的测量,所以他们rately and more safely, while gathering far more data。一个重要的方面好处是能够使用Leica Caintivate软件查看现场的点云数据，以确保机组人员在回到办公室之前捕获了所需的一切，从而消除了回程旅行。

“If we can do all that,” says Titcomb. “Then it doesn’t matter if the client knows that we’re using a scanner—we’re still getting a lot more quality work done and making money at it.”

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A solid approach to business

Commitment to quality and to always working with the latest technology is not for the faint of heart, and it is not necessarily the right strategy for every survey firm. But for Titcomb Associates, it’s a strategy that has proven itself over nearly five decades and made the company one of the most trusted surveying specialists in New England, USA.

“It’s like my father used to say—'You have to spend money to make money,’”TITCOMBsays。“In our experience, that’s true. Spending money on advanced equipment from a reliable source has always worked out for us.”

The company regularly surveys bridges, roadways and intersections for a number of engineering consultants. Titcomb crews set up the Nova MS60 well off the road and use the scanning capabilities to perform a fast, accurate topographic survey without getting anywhere near traffic.

The safety benefits of scanning are obvious when surveying bridges and overpasses. Instead of climbing on ladders to obtain the data, crews can scan the entire bridge deck in just a few minutes with greater accuracy and from a safe vantage point on the ground.

能够使用迷人的软件查看现场的点云数据，可确保机组人员在回到办公室之前捕获了所需的一切，从而消除了回程旅行。