Courtney King Plant Hire wins major project thanks to 3D machine control

"We wouldn't have won what is our biggest ever project without Leica Geosystems 3D machine control and the support we get from One Point Survey."

These were the words of Courtney King, MD of leading regional earthworks specialist Courtney King Plant Hire, when Peter Haddock met him onsite in Newquay. 

They were standing on what will be a new road opening up access to a major housing development as part of our 'South West Connected Tour' with Lee Knowles of One Point Survey.

This part of the project involved the careful placement and compaction of a huge amount of locally quarried material.

Courtney: "There is no room for error on a job like this as on this section in particular, we have to build up the road base to meet a new bridge.

"So it's a project we could only deliver by working to a model using 3D machine control on our Doosan 225 excavator and Caterpillar D5 dozer."

He added: "Since adopting the Leica MC1 system, we have had a lot of help from the One Point Survey team getting used to how it works. 

"This has involved training for the whole team, including myself, the operators and our support engineer. We have even involved the client in the process, which has been important to the management of the job.

"They now have direct access to the model and can see our 'as dug and dozed' progress each day, which is a great management tool.

"And if any changes to the model are needed, these can now be sent straight to the machine over the GPS network by our engineer, who doesn't even need to be onsite.

"It has literally changed how we work, and I have already added Leica onto two of our smaller excavators used mainly on our house building projects." 

Having been a plant operator for many years before starting his own business, Courtney is one of those people who is really passionate about the industry.

And it's great to learn how he continues investing in his business to deliver complex and challenging projects in the region. 

Look out for more interviews from our tour coming soon as Peter continues to follow the journey of contractors, plant hirers and engineers working with One Point Survey, which he first started in late 2019.