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 reports double-digit growth

Corporate News Company News

  • Revenue up by 11 percent in first half year
  • EBITDA margin of 23 percent
  • forecast for 2011 confirmed

Munich, July 29, 2011 – Nemetschek AG (ISIN 0006452907), Europe's largest vendor of software for architecture and construction, remained on a growth course in the first half of 2011: revenues increased by 11 percent to 79.1 million euros, and the operating result (EBITDA) rose from 17.6 in the previous year to 18.3 million euros. This is equivalent to an EBITDA margin of 23 percent, currency-adjusted, the operating margin was 24 percent.

Double-digit increase in license and maintenance revenues

Revenues from license sales increased by 10 percent in the first six months to 38.5 million euros. Revenues from long-term maintenance contracts rose by 13 percent to 36.5 million euros and thus made up 46 percent of the total revenue. In the foreign markets, revenues increased by 12 percent to 48 million euros and the proportion of foreign revenue therefore rose from 60 to 61 percent of the total revenue. In Germany, revenues increased by 10 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year to 31.1 million euros.

In the Design business unit, revenue rose by 8 percent year-on-year to 63.3 million euros. As a result of higher operating expenses, the EBITDA margin in this segment fell from 23 to 19 percent. The Multimedia segment was once again the front runner in terms of revenue and increased profit: Here, revenues increased by 56 percent to 7 million euros and consequently, the EBITDA margin rose from 34 to 51 percent. In the Build segment, revenues increased by 8 percent to 7 million euros, and the EBITDA margin was 34 percent (previous year: 37 percent). In the Manage business unit, revenues (1.8 million euros) and EBITDA (0.1 million euros) were at the same level as in the previous year; this unit is currently being restructured and recently acquired numerous new customers.

Earnings per share 0.94 euros

Despite the clear growth in revenue, the operating result (EBITDA) rose only 4 percent compared to the previous year to 18.3 million euros, which corresponds to an EBITDA margin of 23 percent. One main reason was a one-time foreign currency loss of 0.8 million euros. Currency-adjusted, the operating result was 9 percent higher than in the previous year, amounting to 19.1 million euros, with an EBITDA margin of 24 percent.

As a result of the announced growth and innovation initiatives, operating expenses rose by 10 percent from 60.7 million euros to 67.1 million euros. Personnel costs increased by 9 percent from 31.4 million euros to 34.3 million euros. This was primarily due to the changes made to the employee and salary structure at the Hungarian group subsidiary Graphisoft as well as a moderate increase in personnel in several Group companies. Other operating expenses rose by 15 percent from 21.0 to 24.1 million euros. The reasons for this included the foreign currency losses, higher dealer commissions and marketing costs, as well as additional costs for consulting services and external staff.

After amortization from the purchase price allocation of 3.5 million euros and positive net interest income of 0.1 million euros, the net income was 9.8 million euros, 7 percent higher than in the previous year (9.1 million euros). The good result in the previous year was characterized by one-time earnings of 1.6 million euros from the sale of 8 percent of shares in DocuWare AG. The earnings per share (group shares, basic) are 0.94 euros (previous year: 0.92 euros).

Cash flow for the period increases by 11 percent

In the first half of the year, the Group achieved cash flow for the period of 17.8 million euros, compared with 16 million euros in the previous year. Following the reduction of liabilities, the cash flow from operating activities was 18.3 million euros, compared with 20.3 million euros. Cash flow from investment activities was -3.2 million euros (previous year: - 0.9 million euros). At 2.7 million euros, investments in fixed assets remained largely at the previous year's level (2.6 million euros), but in the previous year, an additional 1.6 million euros flowed into the company as a result of the sale of the DocuWare shares. The free cash flow was thus 15.1 million euros, compared with 19.3 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, cash and cash equivalents were 26.1 million and therefore exceeded the remaining loan for the Graphisoft acquisition by 14.4 million euros. The equity ratio of the Nemetschek Group is 58 percent.

Outlook confirmed

The development in the first half of the year confirms the growth in revenue of 10 percent forecast for 2011. 'Revenues from license contracts are now increasing in double figures again, and these are the basis for future maintenance contracts,' stated Ernst Homolka, CEO of Nemetschek AG.

As expected, Nemetschek grew in Germany and abroad, with the focus on the foreign markets. According to new industry analyses, building output in Germany, France and Switzerland will grow more strongly in 2011 than expected, and Nemetschek should continue to benefit from this. In addition, the Group wants to grow significantly in all relevant foreign markets in the future. 'This takes time, but we need to lay the foundations for it now,' said Homolka. The opening of a Nemetschek branch in Brazil was just one step in this direction.

In view of the expected revenue growth on the one hand, and the growth initiatives that have been launched on the other, the Group continues to forecast an operating result (EBITDA) in the 40 million euro range for 2011, which would correspond to an EBITDA margin of around 24 percent. Net income should increase to over 20 million euros in 2011, as expected.

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