3 dr — how to win more business with drones

1
How drones can help you win more bids
How to win
more business
with drones
Success stories from Arcadis, Paric, and more

2
“The details that a
drone can collect
vary by the project,
but they’re the kind
of efficiencies that
can ultimately be the
difference between
winning a bid or not.”
Jeremiah Karpowicz
Executive Editor
Commercial UAV News

Table of contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
4
6
8
10
11
13
15
17
21
Introduction
Fast, detailed topographic surveys
Volume measurements & earthworks
Capture as-builts easily and quickly
Progress updates from the sky
Case study: Arcadis
Case study: Paric
Case study: Ninox
Conclusion

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Introduction
One of the biggest challenges for any construction or engineering firm is bidding on
projects and winning new business. Now, more than ever, it’s no longer enough just
to be qualified for the job: you need to prove that you’re able to do it better than
anyone else, and show that you can make use of the latest technologies to save
time, money, and reduce risk.
Drones have emerged as a key tool to help you do just that. While drones have often
been used to create marketing imagery and video as part of the bidding process,
that’s just the beginning: in this book, we’d like to highlight some of the ways that
innovative construction and engineering firms are pioneering new use cases for
drones to differentiate themselves, create compelling bids, and ultimately win more
business.
But, before you dive in, keep this in mind: winning more business isn’t just about
having the drone—it’s more about what you do with the data that it collects. Getting
the most out of your drone data, and ensuring it fits with your workflows and is
accessible throughout your organization, is what can truly set your business apart.
By doing this successfully, many of our customers—like the ones featured in these
pages—have not only won the first bid, but they’ve also built strong, long-lasting
relationships with their clients and improved their reputation in the process. We’d
like to help you do that too, and this book can help you get started.
As always, thanks for reading. Now, let’s take off.
— 3DR

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Use cases

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Fast topographic surveys
One of the most common use cases for drones in AEC—both in
the bidding process and during actual projects—is performing
topographic surveys.
The reason is simple: compared to traditional surveying, drones
have reduced the cost of performing a topographic survey to next
to nothing: you can easily fly a prospective jobsite and capture high-
resolution imagery in a matter of minutes, regardless of whether it’s
10 acres, 100 acres, or more. Then you can process these images
in the cloud with ground control points, and create an up-to-date
surface model of the actual topography of the site.
By going out and performing this survey, you can give yourself a
head start in the bidding process by getting a better understanding
of the existing conditions of the site—including viewing contours and
determining drainage and runoff concerns—without having to rely
on out of date information.
This helps improve the accuracy of your bid, giving you a better sense
of what material and labor costs will be necessary, without having
to bring in a third-party firm and perform a costly, time-consuming
manual survey.
Quickly determine site elevations
View contours with the click of a button

7
“Our drone has allowed us to gather valuable
information about a property quickly and cost
effectively. This information is then used to assist
ourclientsinthepreliminarydesignoftheirproject
including site orientation, construction feasibility
studies, and preliminary grading calculations.
Having this information allows the client to make
crucial project decisions before investing a lot of
money into engineering studies.”
Mitch Zanelli
Redhorse Construction
San Francisco Bay Area, California

8
Volume measurements
When you’re bidding on a project, it’s crucial to know as much
as possible about the site and its features to ensure you can put
in an accurate proposal. Oftentimes, one of the biggest areas of
uncertainty concerns the existing earthwork quantities on-site.
Without proper documentation and accurate volume calculations,
it can be difficult for earthwork contractors and engineering firms
to understand site conditions and plan their earthwork costs
accordingly when preparing a bid.
That’s why the industry is turning to drones: engineering and
construction firms are flying them over prospective jobsites and
getting volume measurements in a matter of minutes. This helps
them quickly and affordably determine grading calculations and
create accurate cut and fill analyses—and show these deliverables
to the client—without having to spend the time or money involved in
surveying the site with traditional methods.
For example, Arcadis, a global engineering consultancy, recently won
a project to use Site Scan, 3DR’s drone data platform, to perform
volumetric calculations on the Orbital Highway construction project
in Qatar. They were initially the lead designer of the Orbital, and then
won the opportunity to perform a drone survey of the highway. With
Site Scan, they collected millions of points—which helped create
far more accurate volume calculations compared to a traditional
survey—while making their field workflow 10X more efficient.
See how Arcadis did it
Arcadis, a global
engineering consultancy,
used Site Scan to win a
project on the Orbital
highway in Qatar,
performing volumetric
calculations and improving
survey time by 10X in the
field.
Go to the case study >

9
“Site Scan provided a better
depiction of our oversize
stockpiles compared to
traditional methods and CAD
software. It was a huge time
saver: we spent 45 minutes in
the field, as opposed to a couple
hours with a traditional survey.”
Gary Adams
Mine Planning Technician
Request a demo >

10
As-built surveys
When bidding on a project, engineering and construction firms often
don’t have the latest as-built data of the existing features of a site.
For projects that require renovations or modifications to current
structures, not having reliable as-built data can make it difficult to
understand the context of the site and put together precise, effective
bids.
Drones make it easy—and affordable—to create point clouds and
orthomosaics that reflect the actual conditions of the site and its
features. This can especially make the difference on BIM-mandated
projects: by turning a point cloud into a Revit model, for example,
you can prove to prospective clients that your firm is BIM-ready
while still in the bidding process. Coming to the table having already
captured the project with a drone—and turning it into actionable
data—helps put you one step ahead of the competition.
Also, to provide further value to your client after successfully
completing a project, you can use a drone to provide a final 3D as-
built of the finished structure so they have it for their records, which
is critical when performing maintenance or further renovations.
3D point cloud
3D mesh

11
Progress updates from
the sky
A common challenge for clients—especially on remote projects—is
getting frequent, detailed updates on the state of their projects. In
many cases, photos on the ground and even site visits don’t cut it:
clients need a comprehensive, dynamic view of their site to track
progress and keep projects on schedule.
Drones—with their unique aerial view and high-resolution imagery—
have become as a key tool to make progress updates simple,
affordable, and fast. You can fly your project daily, weekly, monthly,
for example, process the images into orthomosaics and 3D models,
and share them with your client with the click of a button.
This is a major differentiator in the bidding process: for clients that
are looking for this level of insight into their projects, being able
to offer regular progress updates can help set you apart from the
competition.
Flying the drone is just the start, though: drones may get you in the
door, but providing clients continual, secure access to your drone
data is what helps you add value and become a trusted partner for
many projects to come. This is possible through 3DR’s Enterprise
Atlas platform, for example, which enables you to give clients their
own read-only account so they can check in on your latest updates
whenever they’d like.

12
Case studies

13
Case study
Arcadis
10X
Increased productivity in
volume calculations
workflow
Orthomosaic in Site Scan
Manager with volume
calculations of stockpiles
shown
Construction is booming across Qatar, and Arcadis—a global
engineering consultancy with 350 offices across the world—is helping
make it possible. The company is leading infrastructure projects
across Qatar to help the country meet its ambitious development
goals, especially in preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup™.
While Arcadis was the lead designer of the Orbital Highway, a major
14-lane road in Doha, Qatar, their emerging drone operations also
presented a new opportunity on this project: their client wanted fast,
accurate volume calculations of the earthworks spread across the 46
kilometer roadway, and Arcadis wanted to use Site Scan, their drone
data platform, to do it.
The result
By using Site Scan instead of contracting a traditional surveyor,
Arcadis was able to make their earthworks process 10X faster in
the field and deliver far more accurate, detailed deliverables. They
set ground control points, flew the entire roadway with automated
drone surveys, and generated surfaces in Civil 3D to produce the
appropriate volume measurements. As Liam Kirk, Business Director
at Arcadis, said: “When it comes to ease and efficiency, drones are
taking surveying to a whole new level.”

14
v
“When it comes
to ease and
efficiency,
drones are taking
surveying to a
whole new level.”
Liam Kirk
Business Director
Arcadis

15
Case study
Ninox
3D point clouds created by
as-built drone surveys
Ninox based in Malaysia, uses drones and other technologies
to provide reality capture services to real estate, engineering,
construction, and architecture firms across Asia.
They had the opportunity to bid on doing an as-built survey of a
group of mixed-use properties in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They
proposed doing the survey with a drone because a traditional survey
presented a number of challenges, namely: the dense population
of trees made it hard to capture points on the ground, the unique
features of the buildings required additional time to survey, and
the fact that a manual survey would disrupt the day-to-day life of
commercial tenants and residents.
The result
James Hadden, Executive Director at Ninox, showed the prospective
client that he could survey this site 5X faster with a drone and create
a far more detailed point cloud than traditional methods. He also
explained that these sort of efficiencies—in time, cost, and safety—
could be extended to other projects in their portfolio as well. This
helped Ninox differentiate themselves and show what’s possible with
drone data. As James said, “This impressed our client, and ultimately
it helped us win new business with them.”

16
“We showed our client how Site
Scan can do as-built survey 5X
faster than traditional methods,
creating a detailed point cloud.
This impressed our client, and
ultimately helped us win new
business with them.”
James Hadden
Director
Ninox
Request a demo >

17
Case study
Paric
“Site Scan has become an
essential tool in our
workflow at Paric.”
Andy Leek
VDC Director
Paric
St. Louis, Missouri
Paric—an ENR Top 400 General Contractor (#165) and ENR Top 100
Design-Build firm based in St. Louis, Missouri—has long been on the
forefront of the latest advancements of construction technology.
They started using drones on active projects over a year ago, and
have been putting them to work in a variety of ways, tracking
progress during ongoing projects and sharing data across teams.
One of Paric’s most effective use cases for 3DR Site Scan—their go-
to drone data platform—is to enhance their bidding process to put
together more accurate and compelling proposals. For example, by
performing a drone survey and creating a 3D model of a prospective
jobsite, they not only gather up-to-date site information that enable a
more accurate estimation, but they can also easily put together a rich
visualization of what the end result of the project will be.
As Andy Leek, VDC Director at Paric, said: “Site Scan has become
an essential tool in our workflow. We use it to create point clouds,
merge them with 3D design files, and present a compelling
visualization of the delivered project while in the bidding process.”

18
“We use Site Scan to create
point clouds, merge them
with 3D design files, and
present a compelling
visualization of the
delivered project while in
the bidding process.”
Andy Leek
VDC Director
Paric

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“Drones are the future of our
industry—and we’re only just
getting started.”
Bobby Valentine
Firmwide Project Visualization Lead
Kimley-Horn

20
Conclusion
In this book, we’ve covered a number of use cases and success
stories about using drones to win bids. We hope you’ve found it
helpful as you explore bringing drones into your projects as well.
While drones are already making an impact on jobsites across
the world, this is really just the beginning: every day, innovative
surveyors, engineers, and builders are finding new ways to put their
drones to work, helping set themselves apart from competitors and
drive the bottom line for their business. We’re proud to be working
alongside them here at 3DR to help make this possible with Site Scan,
our drone data platform. If you’d like to learn more about Site Scan
and see how it works, visit www.3dr.com and request a free demo.
Want to reach us directly? We’d love to hear from you. Feel free
to email us at hello@3dr.com with any thoughts, questions, or
feedback.
Thanks for reading—happy flying!

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3DR is a leader in the commercial drone
industry, building products specifically for
engineering and construction professionals.
Our flagship product, Site Scan, is a complete
drone to data platform for surveyors and
AEC professionals. It’s the complete package
for businesses of all sizes and includes a
drone, software for the field and the office,
enterprise support, and the educational
resources you need to succeed.
For more information, visit 3dr.com
Request a demo >
Looking for more stories?
Check out our blog for the latest
from the 3DR newsroom >
Get ready for Part 107
Use the 3DR study guide,
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