Skip to main content

Break into machine guidance without breaking the bank

January 10, 2024 Read time: 2 mins

Watch the video

You don’t get the name “The Dirt Ninja” without a serious obsession with all things heavy equipment and the technologies empowering what’s next for civil construction. For over a decade, Tom Gardocki, co-owner of New Era Excavation, has commanded hundreds of thousands of views on his YouTube channel—with a description that reads, "Anyone can run equipment, very few can operate.” Well said. Fact is, when Gardocki gets in a cab, he leverages iron with unrivaled precision, efficiency and swagger. Recently he got his hands on something that’s breaking new ground in the industry: Trimble Siteworks Machine Guidance. And when The Dirt Ninja put it to the test, it not only lived up to the hype—it became his personal recommendation to anyone looking to break into construction technology without breaking the bank.

Gardocki’s firm focuses on high-end residential and small commercial grading, excavation and utility installation in Southern New Hampshire and Northern Massachusetts. New Era Excavation invested in 2D grading systems in its earliest days, and today, most of the company’s heavy machinery is equipped with 2D and even a few full 3D systems. His latest foray into technology put him in the driver’s seat of a solution, purpose built for site and utility contractors like him. The Trimble Siteworks Machine Guidance Module is a multi-purpose solution designed to perform a range of common activities with ease, including site surveys, 3D machine guidance, in-field design and reporting.

“We’re a small company - just five people - so our success is all about efficiency on the jobsite. For me, that’s where technology comes in,” says Gardocki. Demonstrating the two-in-one workflow of Trimble Siteworks, he gathers site positioning data and then effortlessly moves the receiver and display from the survey pole into the cab to measure grade and start digging. This allows him to do the work of two people, while completing it safely and without delay.

“Over the course of the year,” Gardocki explains, “(with Trimble Siteworks) we can get more jobs done. Even if we got only one more job done, that could make all the difference and have the system pay for itself.” 

Watch the video

Content produced in association with Trimble 

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • What to expect at Trimble Dimensions 2024
    August 27, 2024

    At Trimble Dimensions, it’s your chance to learn what's new, what comes next, and lean into the innovations of right now.

  • Machine control innovations from Trimble
    November 8, 2016
    New advances in machine control systems are revolutionising the construction industry - Mike Woof writes Trimble is working on innovations for machine control to meet demand for highly sophisticated solutions, as well as for more simple equipment. Major developments in available technology will provide revolutionary advances in efficiency and productivity as a result.
  • Reality check: Topcon’s Aptix
    July 20, 2023
    The biggest challenge facing construction professionals and general contractors is disconnected data and/or siloed data sources. The recently launched Aptix integration platform has broken down these silos, explains Topcon’s Scott Langbein.
  • The future of autonomy
    January 13, 2023
    The panel of experts from Trimble and Dynapac discussed where the construction industry is on the path to autonomy at present, where it is heading, and Trimble’s overall corporate vision for the future. Trimble’s philosophy is that machine autonomy is about more than just controlling the machine. To move the industry forward, autonomy solutions must also turn real-time data into real-time information to optimise and coordinate the jobsite of the future according to Trimble. Providing full access to that data presents a challenge, but can be achieved.