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Highway contractors with the right tools will have a competitive advantage bidding for projects when the Oregon Department of Transportation next year introduces a new bid document option.

Those tools include automated machines such as bulldozers, graders and rollers, and guidance systems that allow workers to plug in digital plans and follow them exactly to engineers’ specifications. That ability to model a construction site in 3-D is a cost-saving advantage that can help a company submit a lower bid.

Construction Information Modeling for highway and road construction is similar to Building Information Modeling for vertical construction. The 3-D technology is starting to take off in Oregon and around the nation, said Ron Singh, ODOT‘s chief of surveys and geometronics manager.

ODOT has long had a policy of releasing only 2-D plans and then providing data so that highway contractors could build their own models. However, beginning Jan. 1, 2015, ODOT will require its engineers to release plans in 3-D, Singh said. He has been pushing for the change for years.

“We’re talking about ways to automate construction,” he said. “To do that, we have to employ new ways to survey, design in 3-D, and take that data and put it into the model.”

Most highway contractors do not have equipment necessary to operate in 3-D, Singh said, so ODOT will continue to release 2-D plan sets. But highway contractors with 3-D tools will be able to more accurately estimate costs and bid for less.

“What’s going to happen is those contractors with the technology will have less risk, and their bids will come in lower than somebody who doesn’t,” he said. “The message to contractors is that you need to get into this business of automated machine guidance because you will be able to estimate your quantities better and you will be able to build better. If you don’t, you will probably have competition from those that do.”

For highway contractors with GPS and other technologies, the change by ODOT will mean improved cost estimates and better finished products, said Alan Aplin, vice president of Woodburn-based Kerr Contractors.

“Any company who owns GPS also owns software to view the 3-D model so they can see things,” Aplin said. “The state’s giving us the data so we can better visualize what we’re building. We will perform a more accurate estimate and be able to build a faster job.”

Singh was among state and national transportation leaders who gathered in Corvallis last week to discuss the future of construction that the new ODOT policy will help support. The “Design to Paver” conference drew representatives of 20 transportation departments from around the country, and spotlighted innovative technologies.

Oregon is one of about 13 states that is designing in 3-D and building projects using 3-D models, said Bryan Cawley, construction management team leader in the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Infrastructure. The FHA, he said, is trying to encourage the use of intelligent construction technologies such as LIDAR, which is used to produce 3-D models.

“Contractors who take advantage of more advanced equipment, including guidance systems, GPS and land-based laser survey equipment, will work more freely and in a more productive mode,” he said. “There is more precision, decreased waste and a better overall product.”

The modern construction site, as Singh calls it, will be built from a 3-D engineered model, have automated machines and be connected by a series of servers updating information in minutes, he said.

K & E Excavating, a presenter at last week’s conference, has invested $2 million in automated equipment over the last 10 years and should realize increased savings when ODOT begins offering documents in 3-D, K & E President Kerry Kuenzi said. The firm has built its 3-D foam models using data it has requested from ODOT.

“The biggest thing is production greatly increases 鈥� by around 50 percent,” he said. “Because it’s like we have our own set of plans in the cab. There is no guesswork. You are not waiting for somebody outside of the machine telling you where you are at.”

Getting started with automated GPS systems requires about $100,000, said Ken Shersty, vice president of Portland-based PPI Group, which sells automatic grade-control systems in Oregon and Washington. That investment would pay for a grade-check package with a base and rover system as well as an automated machine, he said. Those tools allow a contractor to design precisely and access information inside the cab while work is being done, he said.

“They just have to realize that if they’re going to compete in tomorrow’s marketplace, they’re going to have to make the investment,” he said.

More information on intelligent construction systems and technologies is available at .