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 increases forecast for 2010

Corporate News Company News

  • Revenues up by 9 percent in first half of 2010
  • EBITDA margin of 25 percent
  • Forecast for fiscal 2010 increased

Munich, July 30, 2010 – In the first six months of 2010 Nemetschek AG (ISIN 0006452907), Europe's largest vendor of software for architecture, civil engineering and the building industry, managed to increase year-on-year revenues by 9 percent to 71.2 million euros. The EBITDA increased by 36 percent to 17.6 million euros and, for the first time in the company's history, the EBITDA margin was 25 percent. The group thus exceeded its own forecasts. The net income rose from 4.7 million euros to 9.1 million euros. The cash flow from operating activities amounted to 20.3 million euros, up from 13.6 million euros in the same period in the previous year.

License sales up by 18 percent

Compared with the first half of 2009 the group managed above all to increase revenues from license sales: these increased by 18 percent to 34.9 million euros. However, in the first six months of 2009, at the height of the economic crisis, they had suffered a severe drop of 21 percent. Revenues from maintenance contracts increased in the first half of 2010 by 5 percent to 32.1 million euros - thus continuing the positive trend from 2009. In the foreign markets, which were particularly affected by the crisis in 2009, the group also managed to increase revenues significantly: they increased by 14 percent from 37.8 million euros to 42.9 million euros. The German market remained pleasantly stable with an increase in revenues of 3 percent to 28.4 million euros.

The Design and Multimedia business units in particular showed significant growth: in the Design segment revenues rose by 10 percent to 58.4 million euros. The Multimedia division even managed to increase its revenues by 29 percent to 4.5 million euros. With revenues of 6.5 million euros the Build business segment remained roughly at the same level as in the previous year (6.7 million euros). With sales of 1.8 million euros the Manage unit also posted a result similar to the same period in the previous year (2 million euros).

EBITDA margin of 25 percent

Thanks to the increase in revenues and ongoing cost discipline, the group achieved an EBITDA of 17.6 million euros (previous year: 12.9 million euros) in the first half of 2010. This is equivalent to an operative margin of 25 percent - up from 20 percent in the previous year. At 60.7 million euros the operating costs were only marginally higher than last year (59.0 million years). This is largely attributable to revenue-dependent cost items such as an increase in dealer commissions. The operating profit (EBIT) amounted to 12.9 million euros compared with 8.1 million euros in the previous year. The financial result is marked by a special effect: the sale of 8 percent of the 30 percent holding in DocuWare AG (Germering) resulted in a gain of 1.6 million euros.

The net income thus amounted to 9.1 million euros, up from 4.7 million euros in the previous year. The earnings per share (group shares, undiluted) are 0.92 euros, compared with 0.48 euros in the same period of the previous year.

The good result of the first half of 2010 is also reflected in the cash flow: the cash flow from operating activities increased by 6.7 million euros to 20.3 million euros. The cash flow from investment activities amounted to -1.2 million euros, compared to -2.3 million euros in the first half of 2009. The free cash flow thus amounted to 19 million euros. Despite a dividend payment (4.8 million euros), loan repayments (5.3 million euros) and interest payments (1.2 million euros), the liquid assets of the Nemetschek Group increased by 7.4 million euros compared with December 31, 2009. They thus exceeded the remaining loan amount from the Graphisoft acquisition (27.0 million euros) by 3.8 million euros. Nemetschek AG's equity ratio is 50.3 percent (December 31, 2009: 49.9 percent).

Forecast increased

'After the significant drop in revenues in the first half of 2009 we are on the right track to recapture lost ground,' says Ernst Homolka, CEO, Nemetschek AG. 'The first half of 2010 was more successful than we had hoped for'. He added that this was all the more remarkable considering that Euroconstruct, the construction industry's research association, predicted a further decline in economic output in the European construction industry in 2010.

Nemetschek AG was thus increasing its forecast for 2010 overall - despite the ongoing presence of several economic uncertainties. Instead of a growth in revenues of 3 to 5 percent the group now expects revenues to increase by 7 to 9 percent. With this background and with a marginal increase in the cost level, the company is aiming for an EBITDA margin of around 24 percent in 2010. 'That would be the highest margin ever achieved by Nemetschek - even in the boom year 2007 it was only 23 percent,' emphasized Homolka.

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