Founded in 1947 as a small, family-owned paving company in State College, Pennsylvania, HRI, Inc. has grown to become a major contractor working throughout the Commonwealth as part of a large multinational corporation, Colas USA. Their construction operations consist of asphalt paving, heavy and highway construction, structures, utilities and treatment plants, site work, and more. With six hot mix asphalt plants, they provide a variety of bituminous products for numerous state and local agencies and private contractors, with the majority of their construction projects being done with PennDOT.
Kory Fish is entering his 13th paving season as a Project Manager in their Western Region Paving Operations and has been with the company since his Project Engineer internship in 2007. He works with the Paving Superintendent and Project Engineer to get projects setup, coordinated, and built within budget. Kory also sets up the FleetWatcher shifts and monitors them throughout the day to track truck & equipment locations, utilize the real-time data to monitor progress and make adjustments, and help troubleshoot any e-ticketing questions.
Their Parent Company, Barrett Industries gave them the opportunity to pilot the program in PA one year ago and they “immediately jumped on it. I have been involved with our paving operations since my internship and have seen it evolve from daily handwritten timesheets that were faxed in, to using laptops and now iPads. Technology is exponentially advancing around us and with constricting budgets and tightening specifications, we as an industry need to evolve as well by taking full advantage of all the tools that exist.” Having used a couple different systems prior, they have been having very “pleasing results” so far. “It has been working great for its current use, the GPS mapping is fantastic. From an operational standpoint, our Foremen love the app because it allows them to see when a ticket was produced, where the truck is in transit, and how their operation is progressing minute by minute.”
When asked how has the service been? “The service and support has been fantastic, 11 out of 10. There are a lot of great people working for Earthwave that are knowledgeable, prompt and courteous. One situation that comes to mind this year: Our first DOT project coming out of C-19 lockdown, we needed to utilize the E-Ticketing feature and it was realized very early on that the JMF number was not on the tickets. I called up Nik and explained what was needed and by the end of the day, they had it included.”
Now that the team is familiar with the software, they are “looking forward to future developments to solve some of their current limitations.” With one year under their belt, Kory has been very pleased: “fantastic product, exceptional customer service, and a plethora of useful data!”