Heavy Equipment

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Beyond the Gear

As a Heavy Equipment Operator, you might only think about the equipment that is used to build such amazing things. Who is to say what gear is required and what work it is scheduled to complete within the provided timeline while at the job site. It is the process behind the scenes of a project that is more interesting to me than the actual operation of equipment. The following information are just a few aspects of a project site that I want to be a bigger part of and why.

The first aspect of a project is to know what needs to be built. If your project is to build a road, to connect point A to point B, what is required. In order to design this road, it requires a site survey and surveying equipment. You will need to visit the project site and gather as much information that is required. Some of the information that you are looking for is the current soil state (whether the soil is in a bank form, loose form or a compacted form), the soil shape and the gradation of the soil. These three pieces of information has a tremendous impact when calculating the estimations for the project. Once the gathered information is collected you can move onto the next stage of the project planning process which is organizing.

The above picture features a MCT (Medium Crawler Tractor) with a ripper attachment on the rear. This ripper attachment contains three shanks and are lowered into the earth to ripper up the material. This is used when the blade of the dozer (or MCT) is less effective due to the hardness of the earth.

When you enter the organizing stage of the project process, you can start to build a flow chart. There are many factors that need to be addressed when building a chart. You must identify the construction requirements, limitations and restrictions. An important step in the organizing process is staffing. Developing a personnel roster is vital to the process as it will also effect the calculations of the estimations that will be drawn up. The estimations will be effected due to the operators experience level with the assigned tasks.

The above photo features three MCTs working on a job site. There are cones placed out on the site to indicate where the dozers are pushing material to. This information is provide from the surveyor.

The next few processes of the project are focused more on actual project management. This is where an individual will conduct the directing, controlling and executing of the project. The experience that these last few stages provide to you is essential for a project manager. In these stages the project manager must issue the orders to the chiefs and team leaders, request support from any external companies in the form of transportation, fuel, oils, as requirements needed. You must also deliver daily safety briefs and bench marks, and periodically supervise crews and teams. All of the previously mentioned stages provide exceptional experience that will help with a furthered career in the Marine Corps as well as the transfer to civilian contracting if that time comes.

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Benefits of adding Lean Six Sigma to your Resume

You might be wondering what Lean Six Sigma is. The Lean Six Sigma website states that “it is a fact-based, data-driven philosophy of improvement that values defect prevention over defect detection. It drives customer satisfaction and bottom-line results by reducing variation, waste, and cycle time, while promoting the use of work standardization and flow, thereby creating a competitive advantage. It applies anywhere variation and waste exist, and every employee should be involved.” I have had the opportunity to work with Lean Six Sigma in my previous job, however I had forgotten about it, until recently when the Marine Corps sent me to a short and quick introduction to this program.

So what are some benefits for you? Well, lets start with money because that is what most of us if not all of us love. There are different levels that the program calls “belts,” there is the yellow belt, green belt, black belt, and master black belt. With a yellow belt an individual could earn up to $65,000 for an annual income. A green belt has an annual income of $95,261; a black belt is $126,551 annual income. The last belt is significantly more, is it $205,000 annual income. However, one has to earn each belt to progress to the next, and there are fees included in taking the courses as well as the exams. However, it seems totally worth it to me, because of the program itself helps the flow of a company. The money is not the only thing that interests me with this program, I did not realize the true impact that it could make to a job. I had a ton of ideas on how to improve my job however I did not understand the process of how to implement those ideas into a process.

If you are the type of person that has tried to improve your company’s processes and policies but direct supervision of your position has denied your ideas for whatever reason than look into Lean Six Sigma. These are special employment opportunities where you and maybe a team of other certified belt holders review the current progress and adapt the company to preventing waste. I did this at my previous job before I joined the United States Marine Corps. It was a car dealership where we purchased vehicles from auction and rebuilt them for a resale. There was a lot of waste in this process as the stages of the vehicles might be far away from the building and employees would have to walk further to get to the next vehicle. We fixed this by moving certain stages closer to the building, preventing employees from walking too far. The extra time that was spent of walking was not spent on a little more work or diagnosis of a problem the vehicle was having.

I plan to take these courses to earn a belt or two or even more. I am a hand on worker, but if I can achieve earning a belt then I feel I would be a dual threat for a company. I feel in my opinion that most management did not spend a ton of time in the lower section of a work environment. They are the ones that see the big picture quicker and are promoted, but they are not the best subject matter experts. Again, this is in my experience and my opinion. For example, in the Marine Corps there is enlisted marines and commissioned officers. A new officer is a 21-24 year old that does not know how things work around a shop. They just learn how to lead and be in charge. The best officers that I have encountered are the ones that make the transition from enlisted to commissioned. However there are good fresh commissioned officers. This is what I plan on doing, I have one more semester left and I will be putting in a package to become a commissioned officer. If accepted, I will also take these Lean Six Sigma courses and earn myself a belt to help me lead my potential future shop in being the best that they can be, and helping myself be the best that I can be.

Drones in Site Surveys

Does a drone belong in the same field as bull dozers or excavators? What would its job be? How can something that flies be involved with steel heavy equipment?

It is hard to imagine, but drones could play a vital role next to heavy equipment. At least on the sity surveying and project management side of things. What a project manager goes out to the site to survey what type of work that needs to be done, one of the things he is looking at is the elevation of the area. There is techonlogy that can be attached to a drone that can ready the elevations of the area within the boundaries of your projects location. This will greatly help when planning the project because by identifying the highs and lows of the area you know where to add or where to cut the material.

A drone view displaying the highs (green) and the lows (red).

Having a drone do a site survey for heavy equipment can save a ton of money and speed up a lengthy process. Site surveying is a vital skill that trained professionals learn how to do, and although a drone is not going to do the calculations that are required to give a timeline on a project, it will help obtain the information quicker than it used to. These drones are much more accurate and much more cost effectiveness when it comes to estimates.

Comparing time and money of a superior drone (WingtraOne) with traditional Multirotor drones, helicopters and terrestrial laser scanners.

A drone can see the whole project at one time. When a surveyor walks onto his project, he can only see what is right there in front of him. With the use of drones, the surveyor can now view a project from above, providing a view of the whole project. Below is a photo from a drone of a most of a project that displays the highs and lows of the project. Now, could you imagine walking this whole site to measure in multiple locations to get the elevations? It would take hours and the information gathered would still be just an estimation which was not very accurate. With the drone gathering this information it provides much more accurate information to obtain a more accurate estimation.

Engineers in the Marine Corps

Did you just ask yourself, “The Marine Corps has engineers?” The answer is YES!

The United States Marine Corps has a huge engineering field, ranging in all sorts of military occupational specialties (MOS). Within these MOS options are metal workers (better known as welders), engineer equipment mechanics, small craft mechanics, Assault breacher vehicle/joint assault bridge (JAB) mechanics, engineer equipment operators, engineer equipment chiefs, engineer assistants, and combat engineers. Out of all of these options, an individual can cross train becoming extremely vital to the Corps.

Have you ever driven down the highway and actually looked at the road? Have you ever thought, “How does a road become a road?” What about driving along the coast and seeing a cargo ship out at sea and wondering, “How do things get loaded onto a vessel?” That is the job of engineers. Not the kind that design and build houses; but the ones that design and build roads, aircraft runways, helicopter pads; engineers that pick up and move shipping containers ranging in size from 20 feet to 40 feet in length. What about salvaging a fighter jet that may have crashed to return it to base?

There are other engineers that can turn muddy water into 100% clean, clear, refreshing water; or provide energy, heat, and/or air conditioning even in the most sever weather. Others can strategically build obstacles designed to maneuver the enemy into a trap or a less than fortunate situation; or reverse the obstacles to provide support and cover to protect the themselves from an enemy assault.

First focus on the Heavy Equipment Operators. The basic operator training will provide an individual with seven licenses to various equipment. An individual who has obtained these seven licenses could literally use them all to build a road in some way, shape or form. Although all seven pieces of gear can work to make a road or aircraft runway, there are four major contributers for these tasks.