Rummel Construction’s Master Plan for Technology-Enabled Efficiency
Customer Profile: Founded in 1996, Rummel Construction, Inc. is a 580-person, heavy civil construction company working on projects throughout the Southwest. As a mass earthmoving company, Rummel performs work across many market segments, including commercial and mining.
Business Challenge: Take advantage of technology to drive productivity on mass earthmoving projects.
Solutions:
- Trimble Earthworks Grade Control Platform
- Trimble Siteworks Positioning System
- Trimble SPS Series Universal Total Stations
- Trimble Stratus
Benefits:
- Improved efficiency by ~30%
- Safer operations
- Ability to take on more work
“Around 2007, Rummel was going through a strategic shift. In prior years, the company had been largely focused on residential earthmoving jobs. That changed quickly in 2007 with the economic downturn. “When residential work dissipated, we moved to more commercial and mining work, and then to heavy civil and highway work. That move really facilitated our interest and investment in technology,” said Tindell.
With help from SITECH Southwest, Rummel was introduced to Trimble’s machine control family of products.
“We tried the Trimble GCS900 3D Grade Control System on a rental dozer and motor grader on a roadway slope repair project in Page, Arizona,” said Tindell. “Our operators said that it was pretty user friendly, and by the time we were done we were so impressed that we decided to purchase several platforms.”
Today, Rummel has grade control systems on a large majority of its equipment, a fleet that numbers in the dozens, as well as about 21 base and rover kits for surveying.
“We transitioned to six Trimble Earthworks systems in the last few years for motor graders and just got our first Earthworks-equipped dozer,” confirmed Tindell. “Even better, three of the motor grader systems are mastless, which is amazing for both flexibility and safety.””
“When asked about training on the rovers, grade control systems or associated software, Rummel says it’s been pretty much on-the-job.
“We’ve never sent operators to a class, or anything—we’re just too busy,” he said. “That’s where our relationship with SITECH Southwest has been terrific, especially with the new Earthworks systems. They provided a manual for the routine operations, but they’ll show up on our jobs and walk us through more advanced stuff, depending on if we’re working on a road alignment or a community development.””