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Sitech machine control combats labour shortages

Alwoodley Civils can now offer cutting edge machine technology to construction companies saving them time, money and manpower after Trimble Technology partner Sitech UK and Ireland supplied and installed kit for its first ever machine rental.

The team at Sitech has installed and calibrated Trimble Earthworks UTS system machine control kit to a Bobcat T76 for Alwoodley. The system allows the machine to operate with UTS (Total station), GNSS (GPS) for 3D surfaces or laser for 2D surfaces, allowing the machine to work semi-automatically to create smooth, flat or sloped surfaces, and helps operators to cut to grade faster while minimising the risks to people on site among construction plant.

The Bobcat T76 is the first piece of machinery which the Leeds-based business has purchased as it expands into the machine rental market. Sean Wright, managing director of Alwoodley Civils said, “We’ve been going great guns with the Bobcat since getting it set up with machine technology from Sitech, as it saves so much labour – doing the job or four men – which is important in these times of labour shortages.

“The quality of the work is also massively improved through using the grading technology because it allows you to trim surfaces for roads, car parks floor slabs for example, to an extremely tight tolerance.”

The Bobcat will be supplied to developers and main contractors and marks an expansion by the business which began as a one-man operation in 2019 and now employs six members of staff offering pre, during and post-construction engineering services on roads, housebuilding, drainage, and infrastructure projects.

Sean added, “Our work is really varied and coming from a surveying background I’ve used Sitech for many years to buy lasers and stations and buying my own machine for hire was a natural progression for the business. Connected site and machine control technology make an enormous difference to project timescales, and Trimble has always been at the forefront of that. The equipment is robust, simple to use and if I need any support the engineer at Sitech is just a call away.

“Our business plan going forward will be to slowly expand our rental offer and hire some more operators for projects, as well as work on cross hire opportunities with other hiring companies,” Sean continued. “There aren’t many Bobcats out there at the moment in this country, so although we’re not looking at other machinery yet, we may begin to look at excavators and telehandlers in the future.”

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