The theme for the 2010 Trimble Dimensions event of Converge, Connect, Collaborate was the focus of the welcoming address by Steve Berglund, president and CEO of Trimble.
When addressing connection, he took a look at the progression of the speed of travel and communication, where we’ve reached the upper limits of communication at the speed of light as of 150 years ago. Berglund asserted that the capacity of information that we’re able to transmit is the parameter that is of greatest interest, with the bandwidth progressing exponentially, and getting better. What Trimble is doing, transporting large amounts of data with field-centered applications, wouldn’t have been possible five to 10 years ago.
Access to large amounts of information, with ubiquitous connectivity is the focus of Connected Site, that ranges across Trimble’s business areas. Trimble looks at construction as an information flow, and an information problem, working to tie all phases of the lifecycle to one information flow. In agriculture, the same concept applies to the concept of the Connected Farm, tracking, mapping, analyzing and monitoring for greater efficiency. The idea of prescriptive agriculture, and viewing agriculture as an information process, transforms the farm. The Connected Forest is a relatively new concept of just a few years ago, and is moving more closely into the enterprise. The idea is to reduce the capital of a logging operation by 20%, and reducing the environmental impact. An evolving business idea that is being pursued is the Connected Waste Process, with the idea to improve both financial and environmental outcomes, applying the same concepts as construction, agriculture and forestry to the waste disposal field.
On the subject of convergence, Berglund defined the concept as reaching the same conclusion at the right time and right place, using the right information. Trimble has done more than 50 acquisitions over the past 10 years, and faces their own convergence issue. They’ve learned that it’s neither automatic or easy, but the strategic nature of the acquisitions to bring in new domain expertise to provide a full solution or to establish a beach-head for a new market opportunity, mean that there’s purpose instead of just a desire to grow.
The obstacle to convergence is complexity, but Trimble sees the answer as integrated solutions. The points of handoff of information are often the points of failure, and Trimble is focused on eliminating handoffs and instead creating a platform for data management and sharing.
Ten years ago Trimble was a GPS company, they first added other positioning technologies to become a position company, that evolved into a productivity company with solutions addressing areas of efficiency, and now they are a provider of integrated solutions. The keys to this integrated state is a sufficiency of data, data that can be trusted (integrity), data that is accessible, data that is timely, and data precision that removes any doubt. The real value add that is created by the company is the ability to quickly integrate to meet business process deficiencies.
On the positioning side, Trimble is staying in tune with the proliferation of satellites for higher accuracy and position, that is improving position even past the maturation of the GPS system 15 years ago. They have strategic partnerships in Russia to stay in tune with GLONASS and in China to stay in tune with COMPASS. Augmented position is a focus, with strategic acquisitions that enable the continued position accuracy even without a view of the sky in such places as mines. Their recent acquisition of a RFID sensor company allows them to tag and track items such as tools as well as supplies, knowing what is on the construction site when.
On visualization, Trimble’s acquisition of Definiens is important for its ability to interpret and derive information from imagery and ultimately laser scans. With laser scanning, and the positions of millions of points, making sense of this data is the most important challenge. The area of focus is on software to make sense of all the data.
Collaboration was discussed in terms of their global organization, and need to work together effectively. There are 4,000 people, in 70 offices, and in 24 countries. Their challenge is mirrored in the work of the global companies that they serve, balancing the mutual interest and providing flexibility, to meet shared goals. Trimble provides, and is developing new tools, to promote collaboration.
Trimble’s Connected Community is an architecture to allow a large number of people to work on a common project. Construction management, infrastructure planning, agriculture, security, disaster management, and even political campaign management are all areas where these existing and developing tools could be applied. Each has a significant field component, and this is largely where Trimble shines.
Trimble is hard at work in transforming the way that work is being done to eliminate the confusion of the past.
