Teleo has retrofit machines in the fleets of John Aarts Group, Teichert, and Tomahawk Construction for remote-operated wheel loaders, crawler dozers, and dump trucks, respectively.
The Supervised Autonomy system keeps operators involved, having them remotely perform complex tasks that the technology cannot yet fully handle, according to the company.
“The construction industry is experiencing a growing skilled labor shortage,” said Vinay Shet, co-founder and CEO, in a statement. “We founded Teleo to help contractors supercharge their operators’ efforts by turning their equipment into semi-autonomous machines. By moving the operator out of the cab of the machine and into a command center, we’re also making the operator’s role safer, comfortable, and more accessible.”
Tomahawk, a Florida-based excavation and site development company, is deploying Teleo technology on 12 articulated dump trucks for land development of residential subdivisions, a retirement community, and commercial businesses. Remote operations are expected to begin in Summer 2023 with two machines in Naples, Florida, and Tomahawk will transition to semi-autonomous operations later this year.
“We have had two trucks sitting around for 10 months without operators in them,” said Scott Lyons, managing member, Tomahawk Construction, in a statement. “With Teleo, more people will be attracted to this job because they can run trucks from our office and save hours of drive time to and from job sites. Due to the current labor market, we know going forward we need to do more with less. I believe the Teleo system is the vehicle to make that happen.”
Teichert, a California construction and materials company, is retrofitting two crawler dozers. A 2012 Caterpillar D10T dozer arrived last year, and a 2022 Caterpillar D10T2 dozer will be deployed on site for work at the company’s sand and gravel mine near Tracy, California in Q2 of 2023.
The Teleo system is designed to operate day and night, and Teichert will be the first Teleo customer to launch night operations. The machine will be used to remotely push sand and gravel to an on-site processing plant.
“We believe Teleo’s technology can help a good operator become a great operator,” said Dan Campbell, head of engineering, Teichert Materials, in a statement. “The technology will improve the operator experience, making the job safer and more comfortable for our team members. The central command center also makes it easier for operators to go on breaks and creates a seamless and efficient transition between shifts.”
John Aarts Group, Canada, is the first company to leverage remote-operations to virtually load a concrete plant. A John Deere 624K wheel loader will be retrofitted to remotely load and unload materials in Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada, starting in Q2 2023. This role traditionally includes a lot of stop and go work, which results in significant unproductive time. The Teleo system increases efficiency allowing operators to focus on higher impact work, while also addressing a talent shortage that the industry is currently facing.
“Our goal with introducing Teleo’s autonomous technology is to further support our team,” said Ryan Aarts, CEO, John Aarts Group, in a statement. “There is more work to be done than there are operators, and Teleo is helping us to create opportunities for team members to do more of the meaningful work they like to do. We’ve always been early adopters of technology and we are partnering with Teleo to load our concrete plant because we saw an opportunity to increase efficiency.”
Source: Teleo
