Levelling the cement playing field

Author: Jia Jia, June 2016 

Not all Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) partnerships are created equal. When the Shandong Roadway Machinery Manufacturing Co., LTD, a firm specialising in production of machinery used in horizontal concrete placement, was looking for a competitive advantage for the company’s high level applications, it turned to Leica Geosystems iCON and other construction solutions. Finding a trusted partner, Roadway was able to equip its best-selling concrete paver, the Screed RWJP14, with a laser guided solution that enhance the concrete flatness and improves the customers productivity and efficiency.

A new way to smooth

The first opportunity the firm had to use this new combined technology was for the concrete paving of an 8,000+ square metre parking deck in the Yantai Economic & Technological Development Area of the Shandong Province, China. Equipped with the Leica iCON iGD2 machine guidance system, the operator of the RWJP14 laser was able to more accurately and efficiently control height and slope of the screed for the concrete levelling. The screed was placed correctly at millimetre accuracy, enabling the concrete paving at the exact grade needed. This resulted in a drastic reduction of labour and material costs.

In conjunction with the Leica Rugby rotating laser, the exact flatness of the project was ensured within an acceptable tolerance for the project. Used for altitude datum, the tolerance came in at less than 3 mm.

Compared with the traditional method of using an aluminum alloy level where the contractor would have had to manually level the entire project, the use of the iCON iGD2 and Rugby enabled significant time and cost savings in labour. With this digital means of measurement, the construction material and quality control cost are also greatly reduced when recheck measurements are made unnecessary.

“The Leica iCON iGD2 has a bigger screen than others, allowing us to directly see the working status of the machine,” said Zhou Zhe, Roadway technical director. “This gives our operators more confidence in their jobs. And, with the Leica Rugby, we are seeing the highest accuracy and efficiency we’ve ever had.”

Explore next chapter: Inaugural partnership pays off

Story: Levelling the (cement) playing field
Chapter 1: A new way to smooth
Chapter 2: Inaugural partnership pays off