Topcon Fills Niche in Job Site Management with Topcon Tierra

Tag : Agriculture Machinery Component
In construction job site management, the key to increasingproductivity, effectively managing assets and improving profitpercentages is communication - between people, between machines.

In the construction business, mastering the art and science ofcommunication is paramount to success, in a boom economy or duringan industry-wide slowdown.

In the construction communications community, the new buzzword istelematics, a word that means the sending and receiving ofinformation via telecommunications.

But in the fast-paced world of telecommunications technology, itmeans much more than that.

Telematics opens up an entirely new world of communication . . .from transmitting individual pieces of information from big iron tothe job trailer, from machines to the home office (no matter whereit's located on the globe), or even from machine to machine.

Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) has made a giant leap into thetelematics marketplace by forming a new Telematics Business Unit,headed by Mark Bittner, senior vice president. The telematics teamhas hit the ground running with a targeted solution for theconstruction and agriculture markets. Within the first 60 days ofoperation, TPS had mobile control and monitoring equipmentinstalled and operating with key customers at five test sites -three in the United States and two in Europe.

Topcon's emergence as a global player in the telematics business isthe result of a joint venture with Divitech S.p.A., a telematicssolution provider based in Turin, Italy. The joint venture companyis Tierra (TM).

Established in 1997, Divitech is an experienced softwaredevelopment and management company with a global footprintproviding analysis, design, realization and installation of fleetmanagement systems, as well as value-added, web-based solutions.

"Topcon Tierra(TM), along with its myriad application is theproduct of the TPS telematics business unit," Bittner said. "Ituses advanced GPS technology to form a two-way, web-basedcommunications system with unlimited commercial, core-to-clientapplications.

"Topcon Tierra takes information available from any piece ofmachinery - regardless of age, make or model, analog or digital -and sets up two-way communications, transmitting data about thetracking or operation of the vehicle, plus behavioral aspects ofthe machines," Bittner said.

He described Topcon Tierra as a "tool to increase productivity andreduce costs, allowing users to access a 'window' into machineoperations from anywhere in the world, via the web."

Gianluca Fiori, founder of Divitech and a pioneer in webapplications for job site management, said, "Telematics will becomethe decisive factor in job site management information in thefuture. With Topcon Tierra telematic service, what you do at themachine will be available from a remote location and all that youdo in a remote office will be directly available on the operatingvehicle.

"In this way you can have complete monitoring and control of allphases of every job," he said. "Adopting and utilizing the besttechnology for a business will help every operator increaseproductivity and profitability like never before."

Topcon has been "working hard to get into this market segment,"Bittner said, "and now we're doing it in a substantial way. It's amajor priority for Topcon Positioning Systems and a key componentof our managed services offering."

Construction companies worldwide are looking "to Topcon to givethem a total management solution to better track and analyze theirentire operations. With Topcon Tierra, we are giving them the samearound-the-corner solutions in the telematics area that we have inmachine control."

The beauty of the Topcon Tierra system is that "it literally putsyou in the passenger seat of every single machine on virtuallyevery job site, anywhere in the world."

Bittner described Topcon Tierra as a "return-on-investment-basedsolution, guaranteeing each customer measurable time savings inmachinery upkeep and repair, in man-hours expended and in increasedproductivity. Companies realize measurable productivity increasesand real return-on-investment from day one. The payback is inmonths, not years.

"It's a total solution for every construction firm, big or small,allowing for you to stay competitive through improved operations."