We are beginning to see data from real world projects that offer tangible evidence of the benefits of an integrated BIM+geospatial full lifecycle approach for construction projects. A few firms such as Parsons Brinckerhoff, Atkins Global, and several Dutch firms including Arcadis and Royal BAM, in the construction sector realized a number of years ago that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. Recently Autodesk, arguably the market leader in BIM design software, has been signaling its commitment to geospatial + BIM integration, joining other firms in the construction software industry in improving construction workflows involving BIM and geospatial data and applications.
The BIM and geospatial interoperability challenge is the latest symptom of the broader problem of integrating AEC and geospatial workflows, that has contributed to low productivity in the construction sector. Fashioning AEC and geospatial data into an efficient data flow from planning through design and construction to operations and maintenance has been an ongoing challenge for owners for decades. The Between The Poles blog is over ten years old and one of the persistent themes from the very beginning in 2006 was the challenge of integrating CAD and GIS data and applications into efficient workflows (some examples; 2006, 2007, 2008 ).
A few firms such as Parsons Brinckerhoff, Atkins Global, and several Dutch firms including Arcadis and Royal BAM, in the construction sector realized a number of years ago that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. It has been shown that BIM+geospatial integration provide greater value to projects that involve not just design and construction but also operations and maintenance. A leader in this procurement space, Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch transportation authority, began offering design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) projects a number of years ago which has motivated private Dutch engineering and construction companies to adopt an integrated geospatial+BIM approach to construction. For example, the firm Royal BAM Group nv/BAM Infraconsult adopted integrated BIM + geospatial because of market developments including more complex construction assignments and an increasing demand from customers for service provision throughout the entire life cycle of a project. AECOM, which is a US$18.2 billion a year firm in the construction sector and has been ranked for eight years running it has been ranked #1 in Engineering News Record‘s “Top 500 Design Firms”, uses BIM + GIS on design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) projects including the external campus of Denver International Airport, and to lease management at Orlando, Hong Kong, and South West Florida international airports.
Major firms in the construction software industry such as Hexagon, Trimble, and Bentley have integrated geospatial + BIM to varying degrees in their approach to construction for years. For example, Bentley decided fifteen years ago to support real-world coordinate systems in all of their products including Microstation. Bentley calls this capability geo-coordination and it provides a location-aware foundation which facilitates workflows that require integrated engineering and geospatial data and applications. According to Bentley geo-coordination adds value for asset performance with a very high return on that investment. Integrating CAD and GIS into an efficient workflow for records management (aka network documentation) has been a challenge for utility and telecom operators for decades. While utility and telecom operators have found ways to address this problem, it is rare to find the benefits for these systems quantified. At Year in Infrastructure 2019 iForte Solusi Infotek presented concrete benefits of a records management system integrating CAD and geospatial worklows that has been in operation for several years for managing their fiber optic networks in Jakarta and on the rest of Java. For these activities iForte estimated that it has realized a return on investment of 203% over three years. The primary benefits of the new system were realized in planning, network maintenance and sales, and there were a number of intangible other benefits.
Over a year ago Jack Dangermond and Andrew Anagnost announced a partnership to build a bridge between Autodesk and ESRI technologies. I have reviewed the technical progress that the two companies have made in furthering interoperability between the AEC and geospatial worlds which suggests that the new relationship between Autodesk and ESRI appears to be being translated into concrete actions. There is a considerable distance to go yet, but there are grounds for optimism that there is a commitment to BIM and geospatial interoperability so that in the future workflows that involve both AEC and geospatial data and software will be able to surmount the CAD+GIS barriers that have represented major inefficiencies for the construction, utility and other sectors for decades.
Further evidence of a serious commitment to furthering efficient integrated BIM and geospatial workflows is provided in a recent article in Geospatial World by Nicolas Mangon, Vice President of AEC, Business Strategy & Marketing at Autodesk, has acknowledged that "there is a growing recognition in the collective AEC industry that geography provides a common language for collaborating on projects." Furthermore, "bringing GIS technologies and BIM processes together provides a broader and deeper understanding of infrastructure in the larger context of the built and natural environment by integrating information and content." Expanding on the recently announced Autodesk and ESRI partnership, Mangon says that "Autodesk is bringing that knowledge from manufacturing to AEC and our ESRI partnership allows us to improve the way we create spatially accurate digtial representations of the physical. Our current plan is to expand the integration further into our detailed design applications like Civil3D but also connect GIS data into out cloud BIM platform." This is an important statement from the market leader in BIM software and suggests that the days when architects, engineers, and construction contractors work with an isolated 0,0 coordinate system are numbered.
This is another signal from a major player in the BIM design space of a serious commitment to overcoming the BIM/geospatial integration challenge and ending the decades long clash of tectonic plates between the AEC and geospatial worlds that has contributed to low productivity in construction, utilities, telecommunications and other industries. It will also an important first step toward the development of maintainable near real-time digital twins of urban infrastructure.
Subscribe
Comments