Saving Time and Working Independently With New Piling Solution

Author: Karina Lumholt

As part of a five-year-long construction project widening and modernising the highway ring outside of Berlin, Germany, the international HABAU GROUP contracted Arkil A/S, one of Denmark's largest contracting companies. Arkil Fundering is tasked to prepare the soft base course with concrete piles, ensuring the ground layer is able to carry the weight of the new highway lanes.

Specialised in foundation and marine works, Arkil Fundering has been working for five months on the project piling 3,500 piles to stabilise the soft and sanded ground. Arkil Fundering and its German subsidiary, Specialtiefbau, worked with two piler rigs equipped with the new Leica iCON iRP3 machine control solutions with Leica MC1 software.

“We don’t need a surveyor to stake out the piles manually,” says Till Leve Rüscher, project manager. “We can now drive an average of 25-50 piles per day depending on the length of the piles and on how soft the underground is,” says Leve Röscher. “The machine control solution allows us to save 5 to 10 minutes per pile.”

Till Leve Röscher works as project manager at the construction site in Berlin.

With the automatic stroke registration of the piling solution, the team saved time by not having a surveyor measuring manually on the pile.

Finding piles automatically

René Vestergård works as a machine operator in Berlin.

A ground stabilisation project like this begins with the examination of the underground soil by a geotechnical company. Arkil A/S performed test piling for the geotechnical experts, who then calculated the coordinates of the piles in a pile pattern and sent these coordinates directly to the MC1 software.

The 3D location of the piles is displayed on the machine’s in-cabin machine control panel. The new software enables the operator to use the cylinder view or the split-screen view that displays the piles with colour codes and a bullseye view. The user-friendly graphic guides the operator to navigate the piling machine’s tower into the correct position.

René Vestergaard, machine operator at Arkil A/S has been working with the new iRP3 solution, explains his workflow, “I find the pile number on the pile pattern overview and the machine control solution finds the nearest pile automatically using the Auto Snap functionality. Before machine control, a physical peg could be easily displaced when working in soft sand. Now, I don’t lose time while waiting for a surveyor with traditional surveying equipment, and I can easily move to another place on site if something goes wrong with a pile,” says Vestergaard.

Sending data files from Denmark to machines in Germany

Mads D. Raunskov works as head of department (Pile Driving/Drilling & Tunneling) at Arkil A/S.

The introduction of the MC1 software for rigs includes the connection with Leica ConX, a cloud-based web interface for sharing and visualising project data.

Mads D Raunskov, head of department at Arkil A/S, explains the advantage of digital connectivity, “The piler team can now work independently. We can send data files from Denmark to the machines in Germany, and the operator can start working immediately.”

Machine operator, Jan Vedel works in the heavy construction industry for more than 30 years and operates piler rigs for the past four years. He benefited from the remote support through Leica ConX several times. In case he needs remote help, a teammate back at the office in Denmark can directly access the control panel on the machine and support Vedel.

After driving a pile into the ground, the operators log each pile in the iRP3 solution. Then, the information is sent via ConX to the office, generating a piler report that serves as as-built documentation.

Jan Vedel has 30 years of experience in the heavy construction industry.

The machine control solution for piler rigs enables foremen and machine operators to work independently and productively as a team on a heavy construction site even far away from the headquarter.