Communications Capabilities: Case Studies

Write Results has delivered quality in-depth content and project management to our clients. Examples include:

• Commercial geospatial technologies, construction, public works industries
• Easy-to-use operating instruction manual, foodservice industry
• Thorough analysis of machinery purchase decision, construction industry
• Sharing success stories in greater Green Economy penetration, refuse industry
• Demonstrating energy savings in IT facilities, distributed power generation
  
  

Case Study 1: Getting the word out about commercial geospatial technologies

Increasingly, surveyors, contractors and municipalities are relying on advanced geospatial technologies to perform tasks such as precise takeoff, as-built surveying and geospatial information system (GIS) development.

Three articles about these technologies that Write Results developed and got published in several industry trade magazines for Topcon Positioning Systems stand out:

• The most important U.S. airport improvement project in 2010 was resurfacing the Bay Runway at New
York’s John F. Kennedy Airport—the nation’s third-longest at nearly 14,600 feet. When the runway was closed in early 2010 for four months, delays at JFK also caused delays throughout the entire nation’s commercial air-traffic system.

To get the runway operational as quickly as possible, Sylmar, Calif.-based general contractor Tutor Perini
hired Intercounty Paving Associates, LLC, Hicksville, N.Y., to save time and money on the grading, milling, and concrete paving by drastically reducing the need for grade checking using conventional staking methods. Intercounty used Topcon’s Millimeter GPS+ system, which was unveiled in 2009 and uses laser beams sent from remote stations and GPS signals from GPS base stations and satellites to achieve grading accuracies within one-quarter inch.

Millimeter GPS+ combines GNSS and laser. In addition to GPS receiver/antennas mounted on construction machines, the system uses a laser transmitter that sends out a wall of laser light; the contractor can link up to four transmitters for a total reach of 8,000 horizontal feet. The PZL-1 transmitter can operate multiple machines equipped to accept its signals. The GPS component of the system plots the location of the machine while the laser component guides the grader to position and elevates the blade precisely by calculating the vertical angle from the laser up to a sensor on the machine, providing a vertical correction.

This would be the first time that multiple milling machines would employ the system simultaneously. Write Results was on location to record the historic event by interviewing key Intercounty personnel and recording this high-profile event photographically.

Magazine placements

Aggregates & Roadbuilding

Airport Business

Construction Equipment, top page 13

Construction Equipment Guide

Equipment Today

Modern Contractor Solutions

Utility Transportation Contractor

• In fall 2011, Write Results profiled the use of high-speed laser scanning that was used on the structural steel for a "Guitar Wall" structure in the new Music City Center in Nashville. This 162-foot wall at the north end of the main structure rises out of the main roof and resembles the body of a guitar from a bird’s-eye view. The metal panel wall encloses the grand ballroom on the ninth floor. From a surveying perspective, however, the radius walls created a major challenges for steel contractor Schuff Steel Atlantic as far as ensuring that the steelwork was located where the official site survey dictated. Given the design of the radius walls, determining the X, Y and Z dimensional locations of every quarter-inch of the steel beams using conventional surveying equipment would have been too costly. So Schuff used Topcon GLS-1000 and GLS-1500 laser scanners to generate point cloud data that were used to ensure that the steelwork was erected at the correct locations. A failure to do so would have caused the other building trades to construct their structures in the wrong locations, too. On the construction site, Write Results profiled the use of the GLS-1500 scanner to generate point cloud data, as well as the project superintendent's overlay of 2D and 3D building models of Schuff's as-built survey onto the entire building information model to ensure correct steelwork positioning. The resulting article was published by several high-profile industry media outlets.

Magazine placements

The American Surveyor

ForConstructionPros.com

GIS Café

Tennessee Surveyor

 • In spring 2010, Write Results visited GeoNav Group International’s operations in Durango, Colo. GeoNav was launching an ambitious initiative—recording the location, dimensions and physical attributes of every piece of equipment constituting rural utilities throughout the United States.

To meet this challenge, GeoNav had recently adopted Topcon Positioning Systems’ new IP-S2 vehicle-mounted mobile mapping system. The IP-S2 instantaneously collects a tremendous volume of physical and location data points as the vehicle travels down the road, representing an exponential increasing in efficiency compared with traditional manual collection methods.

The system achieves this by employing three redundant positioning technologies with 360-degree digital imaging and laser scanners. It consists of a dual-frequency, dual-constellation Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver that establishes the geospatial position of the vehicle; an inertial measurement unit that tracks vehicle attitude (pose); and external wheel encoders that capture odometry data from the vehicle. Integration of these technologies creates a three-dimensional position for the vehicle and provides accurate tracking in challenging or denied GNSS environments. A high-resolution digital camera provides 360-degree images. A laptop computer inside the truck uses a Web browser to communicate with the IP-S2.

Utilities incorporate the geospatial data into an electric model that utility staff can use to pinpoint parts of the territory affected by an outage. Also, many utilities need to determine where fence lines highway boundaries are relative to right of way. If a highway needs to be widened in the future, a utility with assets alongside the highway would already have the data and could determine relocations easily. Also, a utility could keep tabs on which wires have trees nearby, and budget accordingly.

Write Results accompanied GeoNav management and field personnel within a local utility territory for a demonstration of the system. Onsite interviews and photography were used to develop an article that was published in several industry trade publications and used in the client’s marketing efforts.

Magazine placements:

Geospatial Solutions (online)

PowerGrid International

Rural Electric

GIS Café (online)

American Surveyor

Case Study 2: Instruction manual makes foodservice programmable timer easy to learn

Ametek NCC of West Chicago, Ill., a provider of engineered electronic control products for foodservice among other industries, launched its next-generation Atlas 2000 programmable timer in early 2010 and
needed to have an operating instruction manual developed in order to bring the device to market.

Write Results provided a complete solution, from consulting with the client on the look and content of the manual, working with an illustrator on instructive drawings, laying out the manual, and working with the client on a thorough publication review process. We obtained a prototype of the new device and ran it through various operations, recording information in both words and drawings. The finished product consisted of easy-to-follow, bullet-pointed step-by-step instructions—much to the client’s liking.

Instruction manual

QuickStart Guide


Case Study 3: Technology improvements save costs—and the world's most precious resource

Water utility managers increasingly rely on Automatic Metering Infrastructure (AMI) to increase billing efficiency and accuracy, and monitor water distribution network integrit. Write Results recently developed a feature article that focused on how water utility managers are making increasingly effective use of AMI data for the January-February 2012 issue of Water Efficiency magazine. First, Write Results interviewed several AMI technology experts on how technologies are changing to allow utilities to better leverage the data for sound resource conservation. Two success stories included two of America’s largest and oldest cities: Boston and Detroit. In-depth interviews revealed that the Boston Water and Sewer Commission has used AMI to cut its non-revenue water from as high as 20 percent-plus to less than 10 percent in the past 10 years. Along with other measures, AMI also has helped the commission to reduce water purchases by 26 percent since 1993. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department began to implement AMI in the late 1990s and uses AMI data to improve customer service and improve training for its work crews.

Case Study 4: Unique insight into one of a contractor’s most important capital investments

The backhoe loader is arguably the most versatile construction machine because it combines a compact front-end loader and a mini-excavator. Grading & Excavation Contractor magazine asked Write Results to
develop an article including important concepts for contractors to consider in order to make as informed a purchase decision as possible on model and specifications in order to derive maximum value over the life of the machine.

Write Results exhaustively interviewed a wide range of industry experts, from contractors to backhoe manufacturers to equipment rental company managers. The sources provided specific, thorough details about every aspect of these machines’ design and operating variables.

The result of this in-depth information-gathering is a highly educational article that contractors can utilize as a guide to making a major capital investment. Write Results added a sidebar with more useful concepts that contractors can use in deciding between buying and renting these workhorses.

This piece was the cover story in Grading & Excavation Contractor’s January-February 2009 issue, which was displayed at The World of Concrete in Las Vegas, the largest annual construction trade show in North America.


Case Study 5: Profiling greater participation in the “Green Economy” via recycling diversification

Though relatively recession-proof, the municipal solid-waste industry was adversely impacted by the severe economic downturn that began in December 2007. Specifically, many MSW operations that had developed

significant revenue streams from recycling and selling construction and demolition (C&D) byproducts saw those streams restricted by the sharp reduction in new housing construction.

The article informed readers of MSW Management magazine that some MSW operations were not only holding their own but actually thriving by diversifying their recycled product lines. Examples of products recycled for new uses include gypsum (reused in portland cement), carpet (used in industrial absorbents), carpet padding, porcelain, glass for aggregates, wood chips (used for fuel in plants such as paper mills and cement kilns, landscape mulch, and animal bedding), wood pulp for recycled paper, alternative daily cover (ADC) for landfills, electronics, sheetrock, tires, and roof shingles.

Write Results spoke with five different C&D material recyclers who use equipment from four different manufacturers to process the inputs into these new outputs. The sources gave comprehensive overviews of their operations, which they designed for efficiency, low maintenance, and profitable operation.
The article provided readers with a key strategy for weathering a severe economic storm— keeping an eye on emerging new markets for their products and responding by investing in new capital to get involved in those markets.


Case Study 6: Making IT facilities more sustainable

A fact of the e-communications revolution that the public at large is not aware of is the energy consumption at data centers. The Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the amount of power consumed by these facilities in 2006 was double the amount in 2000. The U.S. Congress responded by passing a law requiring EPA to conduct a study of the rapid growth of energy consumption in data centers and the agency recommended several energy-saving measures for improved operation, best practices, and the state of the art in a subsequent report.


In an article published in Distributed Energy magazine, Write Results reported on three companies that successfully reduced their data center power consumption. The magazine is read by managers of distributed generation (DG) facilities—which produce and distribute power from facilities located “off the grid”—and this article demonstrated that DG can play an integral role in reducing energy consumption at these facilities.

The project profiles included Sun Microsystems’ combining two data centers into one in Broomfield, CO, a move expected to save the company 1 million kWh of electricity per month and an estimated $1 million in energy costs annually. Design strategies, in the largest data center consolidation project undertaken in the company’s history, included minimizing the raised floor space and optimizing chilled-air distribution. The Santa Clara, CA–based company opened the facility in January 2009 and reduced total floor space by about 75%, eliminated $4 million in costs with the raised-floor reduction, saved more than $1 million in electrical costs, reduced its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 11,000 metric tons per year, and was expected to cut its corporate carbon footprint by 6 percent.

This piece was published in the July-August 2009 issue of Distributed Energy.