The Shire of Esperance in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia is constantly on the look out for new technology and solutions that can make life easier for the surveyors working on the creation of new roads and maintenance of existing roads.
This led Paul Farmilo, Technical Officer – Fleet to the Tiny Surveyor line marking robot from Position Partners, which he saw as the ideal instrument to increase the efficiency and reduce the mundane tasks for the surveyors working on the creation and maintenance of the Shire of Esperance road network, which is the biggest in Western Australia at over 4,000 kilometres.
Why the Tiny Surveyor?
Mr Farmilo was initially drawn to the Tiny Surveyor line marking robot because he was looking for new ideas and technology that could assist in making the surveyors jobs less mundane with the large volume of road marking they were expected to do across the Shire of Esperance.
“If we could take that mundane part out of the process we could make it a lot more efficient for the surveyors,” said Mr Farmilo.
“Now they basically do a digital map and send a package of the file to the Tiny Surveyor. You can send one guy out with the line marking robot and just set the road out, just let it go! It’s efficient, it’s more accurate and takes out all the time consuming, tedious bits at the start.”
The autonomous nature of the Tiny Surveyor was also really attractive to Mr Farmilo and the ability to get his surveyors off the road.
“It’s good technology, it’s new technology and it’s shown savings, so it was worth having a trial and worth the investment,” said Mr Farmilo.
“Not only that, but everyone embraced it straight away, which was unusual!”
Tiny Surveyor increases efficiency and safety for surveyors
Since implementing the Tiny Surveyor, Mr Farmilo has found improved accuracy, increased efficiency and safety for the surveyors have been the main benefits.
“Generally, accuracy is improved and the efficiency has definitely been improved because you’re taking off all that walking with tape measures and two people,” said Mr Farmilo.
“It’s also improved safety as well because you don’t have people walking on the roads. If anything is going to get hit by traffic it’s the robot and not a person!”
Service and support essential to purchasing decisions
Mr Farmilo noted that the support and training offered by a technology provider was an essential part of his decision-making process.
“We’ve had the team at Position Partners out to the training and after that session the team were ready to run with it,” said Mr Farmilo.
He has also found that the team at Position Partners offers him solutions that will work best for his project and specific application.
“What I really like is that they recommend what will work for our project, not just what they want to make the sale. They have great follow-up too and make sure we have all the support we need,” said Mr Farmilo.
“It’s doing exactly what we wanted and we’re having no negatives from it. All the surveyors are really happy with it.”
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