Collaboration par excellence

Example: Hasselt City Hall, Belgium — The building of the new municipal administration center in Hasselt, Belgium, demonstrates how seamless collaboration in building projects can minimize risks and save costs from the design phase all the way to commissioning.
A joint project of several brands of the Nemetschek Group.
Nemetschek brands involved: Allplan, GRAPHISOFT, Solibri

Pioneering planning and project execution with Open BIM

“The end-to-end use of BIM solutions constitutes genuine added value for all stakeholders in the building process
because it enables seamless and efficient collboration”
Steven Hendrickx, Head Architect in Hasselt

Large-scale, highly complex building projects in particular require ongoing, reliable and efficient coodination between all stakeholders – both internal and external – across disciplines and between companies. Therefore, in association with other market players, the Nemetschek Group is promoting the Open BIM data standard. This is a universal, collaborative approach to designing, constructing and operating buildings based on open standards and workflows It makes it possible for project stakeholders to collaborate, even if the type of software varies from user to user. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) interface has established itself as an open standard and is therefore of central significance.

Sharing and evaluating data throughout the entire product life cycle saves time and money and improves quality. The administration of data is key to this digital transformation, for it is only possible to take full advantage of the potential if each stakeholder can access the data that he or she needs at any given time. This begins with a realistic BIM building model, which is an essential prerequisite for a genuine 5D workflo. This model is no longer limited to just 3D construction data; it also includes data concerning the dimensions of time and costs.

Seamless collaboration exemplified by the Hasselt City Hall

Under the management of the architect team comprising Jaspers-Eyers, MASS Architects and Michel Janssen, a new municipal administration center is being built in Hasselt. The complex, consisting of a renovated building section and a new building, provides approx. 17,000 m2 for the city administration and social services as well as offices. The architects and their most important partners are using Open BIM software solutions for the entire construction process. Three Nemetschek solutions are being implemented for this project: Archicad from Graphisoft for the design and planning of the architects, Allplan Engineering for civil engineering, and the Solibri Model Checker for the BIM quality control carried out by the construction company.

From the beginning, all information concerning the building project is contained in the digital building model – from the draft to implementation – including all design details, desired materials, fire protection requirements, acoustic properties, insulation and building structures, and administration. This constitutes considerable added value for all stakeholders compared to the old standard model, which was purely 3D. Thus, this improvement ensures more than just seamless collaboration between all those involved. The complex project can be turned over to the municipality – the proud building owner – with the required quality, on time and within the specified budget.

Hasselt City Hall is groundbreaking – in terms of design, planning and project implementation.

Independent and yet consistent

Steven Hendrickx, the head architect in Hasselt, recognized four decisive factors with Open BIM over the course of the successful project:

  • Individual partners design their model with their preferred BIM software, and with their own templates. Outstanding collaboration is ensured, though, thanks to a common, uniform standard which is specified in advance.
  • The division of labor is defined at the beginning of the project. Data on statics, for instance, have an essential impact on the architecture and structural design. Data on heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, on the other hand, are also important but don’t generally flow directly into the architecture. These data, for example, can be sufficiently analyzed with the BIM solution for quality assurance from Solibri.
  • Design changes in one area don’t necessarily affect the plans of all the others involved in the project. The architecture and the building stage are inherently the most closely linked.
  • The expertise of the staff, i.e., extensive holistic knowledge of the various building disciplines, is also critical for the success of the project.

Two examples of the advantage of precise planning

In Hasselt, the construction company was commissioned with excavation, among other tasks. An assessment of the amount of sand that needed to be removed was done based on a cal culation using conventional 2D planning methods, which yielded a result of 800 cubic meters. The engineers used the Solibri Model Checker based on Open BIM and the data provided by the architects and arrived at a figue that was just half this amount, i.e., 400 cubic meters of sand. This shows how exact the work with Open BIM solutions can be.

The steel struts to be installed are another example: With the interface function IFC Exports from Allplan, it was possible to use the BIM model to automatically calculate which steel struts needed fieproofing. All it took was a mouse click to obtain precise results, right down to the running meter. In projects that don’t use Open BIM solutions, these calculations are made by manually entering the data from 2D drawings in Excel or some other software and then recalculating and evaluating the data for use in quotations and planning, a process that is susceptible to error and one that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. These errors often go undetected until the actual cost planning is already completed. In the case of the Hasselt City Hall,  it was possible to avoid such errors from the outset.

Converting to Open BIM pays off

As is the case with any change, it takes a certain amount of time for companies and employees to accept BIM as the norm. The best way, according to Steven Hendrickx, is to start out by planning smaller projects using BIM. The experience thereby gained will make it possible to complete successively larger BIM projects. The advantages of collaborating through Open BIM are obvious: The entire workflow is much simpler for all project stakeholders, and building projects are completed within time and cost budgets.

CONCLUSION

Consistent standards and open interfaces in par-ticular are essential for successful building projects. Stakeholders need solutions that can “work together” for all and any individual tasks being performed. Seamless collaboration between humans and machines: This is ensured with Open BIM, and backed by the brands of the Nemetschek Group.

Reference projects on this topic:

Nemetschek continues to grow

Corporate News Company News

  • Revenue up by 9 percent in first nine months
  • EBITDA margin of 24 percent
  • forecast for 2011 confirmed

Munich, October 28, 2011 – Nemetschek AG (ISIN 0006452907), Europe's largest vendor of software for architecture and construction, saw a 9 percent increase in revenues in the first nine months of 2011 to 117.9 million euros. Compared to the previous year, the operating result (EBITDA) rose by 5 percent to 27.9 million euros, representing an EBITDA margin of 24 percent.

Recurring revenues from maintenance contracts rose by 13 percent

In the first nine months, revenues from license sales rose by 6 percent to 56.7 million euros. Revenues from long-term maintenance contracts increased by 13 percent to 55.3 million euros; they thus made up 47 percent of the total revenue. In foreign markets, revenues rose by 9 percent to 70.5 million euros, making up 60 percent of the total revenue. In Germany, revenues increased by 8 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year to 47.5 million euros.

In the Design business unit, revenue rose 8 percent to 95.0 million euros. The EBITDA margin in this segment was 21 percent, compared to 22 percent in the previous year. The Multimedia segment was the front runner in terms of revenue and increased profit: Here, revenues increased by 32 percent to 10.1 million euros and consequently, the EBITDA margin rose from 38 to 46 percent. In the Build segment, revenues increased slightly by 2 percent to 10.1 million euros, and the EBITDA margin was 33 percent (previous year: 38 percent). In the Manage business unit, which is currently being restructured, revenues (2.7 million euros) and EBITDA (0.3 million euros) remained at the previous year's level.

Earnings per share 1.38 euros

The operating result (EBITDA) rose by 5 percent compared to the previous year to 27.9 million euros, which corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 24 percent. Operating expenses increased by 9 percent to 100.1 million euros. Personnel costs rose by 8 percent to 50.9 million euros. The main reason for this was a change to the employee and wage structure at Hungarian subsidiary Graphisoft, as well as a slight increase in personnel in several group companies. Other operating expenses rose in the first nine months by 14 percent to 36.1 million euros: In addition to the foreign currency losses incurred in the first six months, this is primarily due to the higher dealer commissions resulting from the increases in revenue, as well as higher marketing and sales costs generated by several product launches.

Net income stood at 14.2 million euros, 4 percent higher than the previous year's value, which was marked by a one-time gain of 1.6 million euros from the sale of 8 percent of shares in DocuWare AG. The earnings per share (consolidated shares, basic) was 1.38 euros (previous year: 1.37 euros).

Cash flow for the period increased by 12 percent

In the first nine months, the Group achieved cash flow for the period of 27.4 million euros, compared with 24.5 million euros in the previous year. Because of advance tax payments and the reduction of liabilities, the cash flow from operating activities was 24.8 million euros, compared with 27.6 million euros in the previous year. The cash flow from investment activities amounted to - 4.0 million euros (previous year: - 2.0 million euros). At 3.5 million euros, investments in fixed assets remained largely at the previous year's level (3.7 million euros), but in the previous year, an additional 1.6 million euros flowed into the company as a result of the sale of DocuWare shares. The free cash flow was thus 20.7 million euros, compared with 25.6 million euros in the same period of the previous year.

After a dividend payment of 9.6 million euros and loan repayments of 7.8 million euros, the cash and cash equivalents were 31.4 million and therefore exceeded the remaining loan for the Graphisoft acquisition by 19.7 million euros. The equity ratio of the Nemetschek Group is 60 percent.

Outlook confirmed

The development in the first nine months confirms the growth in sales of around 10 percent forecast for 2011. So far, the group has experienced only a marginal weakening of the business climate in some foreign markets and in project business. In Germany, the group was able to grow strongly and expects this trend to continue. At the start of October, the construction industry association HDB (Hauptverband der deutschen Bauindustrie) revised its growth forecast for 2011 from 4.5 to 7 percent.

The group confirmed its forecasts for the current fiscal year. Unless the underlying conditions significantly worsen in the very near future, Nemetschek still expects an operating result (EBITDA) of around 40 million euros, equivalent to an EBITDA margin of around 24 percent. The liabilities resulting from the Graphisoft acquisition will be almost completely eliminated in 2011, meaning that the group's interest charges will also fall further. As a result, the net income for 2011 will probably increase to more than 20 million euros, as forecast.

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