Industry comment

APPLICATION HEAVEN

Eight areas in which LSS has made an impact

1. GEOMATICS (LAND SURVEY)
Chris McGinty of Oakes Survey Services offers his thoughts on his use of LSS as a land survey and modelling tool.
"Oakes Survey Services have been an LSS user since 1994. During that time we have always aimed to utilise the most up to date survey hardware and software and have been at the forefront of any new technologies as they have hit the market. Over the years we have been LSS software Beta testers and have made several suggestions for improvements to the LSS system. We have tested the software extensively in an attempt to eke out even more performance and efficiency and when the new 3D visualisation option went to test in June 2000 we were keen to recommend the new facility to our clients. We were the first LSS user to utilise raster image draping on a live contract and we have produced stunning fly-throughs for a wide range of clients in the years since. We even produced an animated fly-by of a 4km section of the Yorkshire coast near Whitby, showing the ebb and flow of the tide for a study of coastal erosion."

2. CIVIL ENGINEERING
LSS user, David James, Senior Engineer with Alfred McAlpine Civil Engineering (Western Division) recently worked on a major contract which involved the reconstruction of a runway and taxiway at RAF Fairford. This was a £50 million Design & Build job in joint venture with SIAC, from designs by Burks Green. It involved breaking out approximately 215,000 m³ of existing blacktop and concrete and replacing it with almost 290,000m³ of mostly Pavement Quality Concrete. LSS was used for recording daily 'as-built' levels and monitoring breakout quantities.
"We were provided with just the design outline and strings where the slope grades change. What we did was drape the 2D bay-layout design outline onto the 3D string model within LSS in order to provide the necessary information for the 3 paving machines employed on the site. While much of the job has been built to the original design levels, there are two zones where we had some flexibility, depending on the amount of material we had available to us following the recycling of breakout material. Having LSS on-site allowed us to raise or lower surfaces very easily to increase or decrease the amount of fill required. By zoning the site in this way we were able to produce one volume report which included all elements of the site.”

3. DREDGING
Imagine an object the size of a football pitch, but 200km high. Well that's the amount of material measured by Ballast HAM, dredging and marine contractors, using the LSS terrain modelling software from McCarthy Taylor. Ballast HAM have used LSS on over 50 large scale projects since 1996 and crossed the magical 1 billion cubic metres mark during the autumn of 2001 and still counting.
The fast modelling capabilities of LSS are much in demand, especially when dealing with large data sets. Coupled with unique design and analysis options, LSS provides the complete solution for many involved with measuring or altering the earth's surface.
The company was recently involved in a joint venture on the world's largest land reclamation project which involved the dredging and pumping of approximately 200 million cubic metres of sand to reclaim 1000 hectares of new land at Jurong in Singapore. LSS was key in helping Ballast HAM win the tender for the contract through its ability to determine volumes quickly and accurately, and its power as a comprehensive design tool.
LSS is used primarily at the tender stage by Ballast HAM for a wide range of projects, including New harbour developments, Land reclamation, Existing harbour extensions, Breakwaters, Maintenance, Beach nourishment, Borrow area management, Subsea pipeline trenches, Subsea pipeline protection fills and Outfall and other trenches.

4. PLANNING
Adrian Charters of Aggregate Industries has been using LSS as a design and planning tool for many years.
“A 3D visualisation of a large extension to a limestone and shale quarrying complex in County Cavan was compiled. Key viewpoints were taken to show the effectiveness of the proposed planted screening bunds and extraction and progressive restoration phasing of the scheme. The local mineral planners thought the flythroughs were extremely useful and have requested the applicant to provide a PC at the County Planning Offices for the public and other statutory bodies to use the LSS Vantage 3D flythroughs during the consultation period.”
“In my view the most important advantage of the 3d flythrough is to allow any non specialist or member of the public to view a planning proposal in a way that requires no extrapolation of 2D data in the form of contours shown on a plan (something we do every day and are therefore comfortable with). I have also noticed that members of the public like the fact that they can flythrough a familiar landscape (even find their houses!) in LSS 3DVantage and satisfy themselves that screening, planting and restoration proposals of the scheme do in fact minimise the visual impact from views that are locally important to them.”

5. WASTE MANAGEMENT
Brett Waste Management, Onyx UK, Premier Waste Management, Shanks Waste Services, SITA Products & Services, Viridor Waste Management and Waste Recycling Group to name just the waste companies using LSS for survey, design, volumes, planning and restoration. Add to this a long list of consultants providing services to these companies and it all adds up to a significant market presence.

6. QUARRYING AND MINING
Once again, the list of LSS users in these sectors reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of mineral extraction. Aggregate Industries, Foster Yeoman, Hanson Aggregates, Lafarge, RMC and Tarmac. From the field of mining we have AMEC Mining, Crouch Mining, Glebe Mines, GM Mining, I&H Brown, LAW Mining, Scottish Coal, Taylor Woodrow and UK Coal. With planning permission becoming ever more difficult to achieve, so LSS becomes vitally important as a multi-purpose modelling and analysis tool. Many of these organisations use LSS across several different disciplines ranging from land survey, geology and estates through to landscape architecture. The exchange of data between these departments is vital and the ability to use a single application is a major factor in their decision to choose LSS.

7. EARTHWORKS
Long renowned for its volume calculation capabilities, LSS was recently employed on the 74km section of the Eurolink rail line from Fawkham Jct to the Channel Tunnel in Folkestone. Over 20 million m3 of earth was excavated and LSS used throughout by C A Blackwell and Morgan=EST.
The first UK toll motorway opened in December 2003 and it runs for 43km around the northern outskirts of Birmingham. Its construction involved over 1.3million m3 of topsoil strip and 16.7million m3 of cut & fill. CAMBBA were the contractors and they used LSS throughout the project for earthworks monitoring.
At the time of writing the largest earthworks operation taking place in the UK is for the new Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. It involves 6 million m3 of cut & fill and the contractors are once again relying on LSS for their calculations.
However, not all projects are this large and most LSS users are involved with much smaller quantities than these. And where a stockpile measuring no more than a few metres high is concerned, just a few tens of cubic metres either way can make the difference between profit and loss on a contract.

8. THE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH
Edmund Nuttall Limited is one of the UK's leading civil engineering contractors and part of the European Construction Group, Hollandsche Beton Groep nv (HBG). John Gaskin, Applications Planning Engineer has been using LSS since 1989 and told us how LSS helps in the day to day monitoring of his most critical sites.

"We use LSS on four types of contract. Firstly, on contaminated land and land reclamation contracts, where the material being moved is expensive. Secondly, for sea defences when armouring is used and precision is required. Thirdly, for road contracts where the earthworks element is significant, and finally for estimating purposes, to help determine a commercially advantageous bid for fixed price contracts.”

In describing how he uses LSS, John says. "LSS is a worthwhile, powerful system. An 'Expert' system, easy to use once you know what you are doing." In this respect, he says that it is like AutoCAD, but in many respects is easier to use. John has adopted a 'best of breed' approach to his engineering design and monitoring needs, which means that he uses a number of tools to achieve the results he needs on what are invariably complex jobs. He uses LSS for survey and earthworks monitoring and design and praises the system for its precision and ease of use. With so many different systems in use, John in particular benefits from the data conversion facilities that LSS offers. When asked what he believed to be the single most important benefit of LSS, John said.
"The major benefits of LSS are that you always know what is happening on quantities.”
In illustration of this, Edmund Nuttall worked on the British Airways Prospect Park contract. It involved the excavation and transfer of 2million m3 of material, half of which was landfill. The remediation of the site included transfer to parkland, and the preparation of 15 hectares for the new BA Combined Business Centre. In spite of the quantities involved, no materials were imported or exported.

Everyone talks about quality of service and guaranteed response. However, at McCarthy Taylor we believe that we give the best possible level of support to our users, but don't take our word for it, just read what John Gaskin thinks. "It's not very often that we have problems, and even less often that there's anything wrong with the software, but when we need help the support is very good.”

Industry Comment
768Kb PDF Document APPLICATION HEAVEN Eight areas in which LSS has made an impact 1. GEOMATICS (LAND SURVEY) Chris McGinty of Oakes Survey Services offers his thoughts on his use of LSS as a land survey and modelling tool. "Oakes Survey Services have been an LSS user since 1994. During that time we have always aimed to utilise the most up to date survey hardware and software and have been at the forefront of any new technologies as they have hit the market. Over the years we have been LSS software Beta testers and have made several suggestions for improvements to the LSS system. We have tested the software extensively in an attempt to eke out even more performance and efficiency and when the new 3D visualisation option went to test in June 2000 we were keen to recommend the new facility to our clients. We were the first LSS user to utilise raster image draping on a live contract and we have produced stunning fly-throughs for a wide range of clients in the years since. We even produced an animated fly-by of a 4km section of the Yorkshire coast near Whitby, showing the ebb and flow of the tide for a study of coastal erosion." 2. CIVIL ENGINEERING LSS user, David James, Senior Engineer with Alfred McAlpine Civil Engineering (Western Division) recently worked on a major contract which involved the reconstruction of a runway and taxiway at RAF Fairford. This was a £50 million Design & Build job in joint venture with SIAC, from designs by Burks Green. It involved breaking out approximately 215,000 m³ of existing blacktop and concrete and replacing it with almost 290,000m³ of mostly Pavement Quality Concrete. LSS was used for recording daily 'as-built' levels and monitoring breakout quantities. "We were provided with just the design outline and strings where the slope grades change. What we did was drape the 2D bay-layout design outline onto the 3D string model within LSS in order to provide the necessary information for the 3 paving machines employed on the site. While much of the job has been built to the original design levels, there are two zones where we had some flexibility, depending on the amount of material we had available to us following the recycling of breakout material. Having LSS on-site allowed us to raise or lower surfaces very easily to increase or decrease the amount of fill required. By zoning the site in this way we were able to produce one volume report which included all elements of the site.” 3. DREDGING Imagine an object the size of a football pitch, but 200km high. Well that's the amount of material measured by Ballast HAM, dredging and marine contractors, using the LSS terrain modelling software from McCarthy Taylor. Ballast HAM have used LSS on over 50 large scale projects since 1996 and crossed the magical 1 billion cubic metres mark during the autumn of 2001 and still counting. The fast modelling capabilities of LSS are much in demand, especially when dealing with large data sets. Coupled with unique design and analysis options, LSS provides the complete solution for many involved with measuring or altering the earth's surface. The company was recently involved in a joint venture on the world's largest land reclamation project which involved the dredging and pumping of approximately 200 million cubic metres of sand to reclaim 1000 hectares of new land at Jurong in Singapore. LSS was key in helping Ballast HAM win the tender for the contract through its ability to determine volumes quickly and accurately, and its power as a comprehensive design tool. LSS is used primarily at the tender stage by Ballast HAM for a wide range of projects, including New harbour developments, Land reclamation, Existing harbour extensions, Breakwaters, Maintenance, Beach nourishment, Borrow area management, Subsea pipeline trenches, Subsea pipeline protection fills and Outfall and other trenches. 4. PLANNING Adrian Charters of Aggregate Industries has been using LSS as a design and planning tool for many years. “A 3D visualisation of a large extension to a limestone and shale quarrying complex in County Cavan was compiled. Key viewpoints were taken to show the effectiveness of the proposed planted screening bunds and extraction and progressive restoration phasing of the scheme. The local mineral planners thought the flythroughs were extremely useful and have requested the applicant to provide a PC at the County Planning Offices for the public and other statutory bodies to use the LSS Vantage 3D flythroughs during the consultation period.” “In my view the most important advantage of the 3d flythrough is to allow any non specialist or member of the public to view a planning proposal in a way that requires no extrapolation of 2D data in the form of contours shown on a plan (something we do every day and are therefore comfortable with). I have also noticed that members of the public like the fact that they can flythrough a familiar landscape (even find their houses!) in LSS 3DVantage and satisfy themselves that screening, planting and restoration proposals of the scheme do in fact minimise the visual impact from views that are locally important to them.” 5. WASTE MANAGEMENT Brett Waste Management, Onyx UK, Premier Waste Management, Shanks Waste Services, SITA Products & Services, Viridor Waste Management and Waste Recycling Group to name just the waste companies using LSS for survey, design, volumes, planning and restoration. Add to this a long list of consultants providing services to these companies and it all adds up to a significant market presence. 6. QUARRYING AND MINING Once again, the list of LSS users in these sectors reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of mineral extraction. Aggregate Industries, Foster Yeoman, Hanson Aggregates, Lafarge, RMC and Tarmac. From the field of mining we have AMEC Mining, Crouch Mining, Glebe Mines, GM Mining, I&H Brown, LAW Mining, Scottish Coal, Taylor Woodrow and UK Coal. With planning permission becoming ever more difficult to achieve, so LSS becomes vitally important as a multi-purpose modelling and analysis tool. Many of these organisations use LSS across several different disciplines ranging from land survey, geology and estates through to landscape architecture. The exchange of data between these departments is vital and the ability to use a single application is a major factor in their decision to choose LSS. 7. EARTHWORKS Long renowned for its volume calculation capabilities, LSS was recently employed on the 74km section of the Eurolink rail line from Fawkham Jct to the Channel Tunnel in Folkestone. Over 20 million m3 of earth was excavated and LSS used throughout by C A Blackwell and Morgan=EST. The first UK toll motorway opened in December 2003 and it runs for 43km around the northern outskirts of Birmingham. Its construction involved over 1.3million m3 of topsoil strip and 16.7million m3 of cut & fill. CAMBBA were the contractors and they used LSS throughout the project for earthworks monitoring. At the time of writing the largest earthworks operation taking place in the UK is for the new Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. It involves 6 million m3 of cut & fill and the contractors are once again relying on LSS for their calculations. However, not all projects are this large and most LSS users are involved with much smaller quantities than these. And where a stockpile measuring no more than a few metres high is concerned, just a few tens of cubic metres either way can make the difference between profit and loss on a contract. 8. THE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH Edmund Nuttall Limited is one of the UK's leading civil engineering contractors and part of the European Construction Group, Hollandsche Beton Groep nv (HBG). John Gaskin, Applications Planning Engineer has been using LSS since 1989 and told us how LSS helps in the day to day monitoring of his most critical sites. "We use LSS on four types of contract. Firstly, on contaminated land and land reclamation contracts, where the material being moved is expensive. Secondly, for sea defences when armouring is used and precision is required. Thirdly, for road contracts where the earthworks element is significant, and finally for estimating purposes, to help determine a commercially advantageous bid for fixed price contracts.” In describing how he uses LSS, John says. "LSS is a worthwhile, powerful system. An 'Expert' system, easy to use once you know what you are doing." In this respect, he says that it is like AutoCAD, but in many respects is easier to use. John has adopted a 'best of breed' approach to his engineering design and monitoring needs, which means that he uses a number of tools to achieve the results he needs on what are invariably complex jobs. He uses LSS for survey and earthworks monitoring and design and praises the system for its precision and ease of use. With so many different systems in use, John in particular benefits from the data conversion facilities that LSS offers. When asked what he believed to be the single most important benefit of LSS, John said. "The major benefits of LSS are that you always know what is happening on quantities.” In illustration of this, Edmund Nuttall worked on the British Airways Prospect Park contract. It involved the excavation and transfer of 2million m3 of material, half of which was landfill. The remediation of the site included transfer to parkland, and the preparation of 15 hectares for the new BA Combined Business Centre. In spite of the quantities involved, no materials were imported or exported. Everyone talks about quality of service and guaranteed response. However, at McCarthy Taylor we believe that we give the best possible level of support to our users, but don't take our word for it, just read what John Gaskin thinks. "It's not very often that we have problems, and even less often that there's anything wrong with the software, but when we need help the support is very good.”