Trimble’s Beijing airport construction contract extended with machine control

December 8, 2015 - By GPS World Staff

Artist’s concept of the new Beijing Airport terminal. (image © Zaha Hadid Architects)

Trimble has received a contract extension for Beijing’s new airport project. In April, Trimble won the initial bid to supply the project with a construction information management system. Based on the success of the solution to date, the contract has been extended to include additional machine control systems for soil stabilization.

Beijing’s new airport is projected to handle 72 million travelers, 2 million tons of shipping and 620,000 flights by the year 2025. It is a massive construction project with an unprecedented amount of civil aviation investment by the Chinese government. In order to construct the airport in a safer, more efficient manner, achieve transparent management, and maximize construction quality, the Beijing new airport project is using construction technology from Trimble to integrate construction and operations.

Artist’s depiction of the inside of the new Beijing Airport terminal. (image: Zaha Hadid Architects)

Trimble was chosen to implement a browser-based, locally hosted digital construction information management system for tracking and monitoring construction operations in real time. The Trimble solution allows users to create 3D constructible models, perform soil stabilization, automate construction processes and effectively manage information. Based on the successful soil stabilization results using Trimble machine control over the past four months, another 15 systems have been ordered.

“The research results for dynamic compaction have been extremely promising,” said Li Qiang, chief engineer of the Beijing New Airport Construction Office. “As a result, the project is pushing forward with a larger scale deployment to further the research into creating new methods and standards for airfield construction.”

“The Beijing new airport project is a significant win for Trimble, and we are very excited about the success of the project,” said Steve Berglund, president and CEO of Trimble. “The contract extension validates Trimble’s ability to provide innovative solutions that transform work processes by maximizing management capability, ensuring construction quality and improving productivity.”

Trimble’s machine control solutions leverage a variety of technologies, including GPS, construction lasers, total stations, wireless data communications, the Internet and application software. As part of the Trimble Connected Site strategy, these solutions provide a high level of process and workflow integration from the design phase through to the finished project, delivering significant improvements in productivity throughout the construction lifecycle, the company said.