We talk a lot about ‘quality’ here at Solibri. What is quality and why does it matter? How do you offer quality and how do you change the perception of quality in the construction industry? It was for this reason that we sat down and discussed such issues with Jaakko Jauhiainen, Sweco’s Business Development Director. Jaakko understands the term ‘quality’ and why it matters. In fact, Jaakko and his colleagues don’t just talk quality, they have learnt to utilize BIM, technology and quality as a foundation for creating design and business processes in the Europe’s largest engineering company. In this article, we discuss two major projects where quality thinking has made a difference. We also discuss the latest tools they employ – one being of particular interest – the Sweco CAVE.
Sweco employs approximately 14,500 people globally. They employ 2000 people in Finland alone covering all design disciplines. Sweco can offer the design and management of large scale projects like hospitals, public buildings and for example industrial, infrastructure and commercial projects. Jaakko explains their methodology: “We are able to offer turnkey services to our clients including architectural design, engineering, BIM coordination and both design and construction management in huge projects. Sweco has truly seized the advantage to offer all that is needed. We have successfully used Sweco’s design process for example in the new Kainuu hospital project in Kajaani, Northern Finland. The hospital project emphasizes how focusing on the idea of requirements, quality and an eye for the life cycle cost allows for an effective use of tax payers’ money”.
The new Kainuu hospital is interesting in several ways. Solibri Model Checker has been used throughout the BIM process to verify that the design meets the necessary project requirements. Sweco also employed the use of a CAVE (Computer Aided Virtual Environment). CAVEs are making a huge difference in how design development is done, and the design intent is communicated to all stakeholders and building owners. Solibri has recognized this need and will release a software extension to better support such environments. Jaakko explains more about project: “A lot of work was done for this hospital before a single brick was laid. We started by creating both technical and functional requirements for spaces and technical systems and define the project scope. We then designed critical and repeating spaces that support the treatment process and guarantee the successful operation of the hospital and the patient safety. We involved all the Sweco design disciplines and other stakeholders – from the nurses, maintenance staff to even taxi drivers who visit the building on a daily basis. When you know you have covered every functional and technical need in your design you go into building design. The CAVE itself is quite useless unless you know how to use it during the design. For this, Sweco has created the Sweco@Co-creation design process”.
The CAVE was used to communicate the new hospital design to its staff. It isn’t easy for the average customer to understand how a space will be utilized with a 2D drawing. However, when you use a CAVE, things are very different. The customer can walk through the space and see every element that will go into it. They can really understand how they will work in their new ‘work’ environment. The imaging in the CAVE is 1:1 scale and stereoscopic producing a true feeling of a spatial space. In Kajaani the CAVE is used extensively. For one week we hosted 130 people in the CAVE.
“This planning process and technology really works. I remember that one aspect of the hospital design was the need for 32 electrical sockets per patient place in the children’ intensive care unit. The design team didn’t believe us and called saying there must be an error in our requirements model. We arranged a tour in a hospital and showed what kind of equipment is needed. We also had another success in the intensive care unit. The space requirement stated by the staff was 25 m2 per patient. When the staff was taken to the CAVE in the very early design phase they realized that the space, and the whole ward was too big. The new design saved some 150 m2 and this in turn led to a saving of 150,000 euros in the investment cost. In addition, the smaller ward could be managed with less on-site around-the-clock personnel, saving much more during the use phase. None of this would have been possible without BIM, the Sweco Co-creation design process and the utilization of the latest technology like CAVEs” explains Jaakko.
Sweco has recently completed the construction management of their new head-quarters in Central Helsinki. They previously had 8 offices around the capital area and the decision to move was made in an effort to centralize and benefit from a modern office location and space. “Managing your own project was a case of ‘putting your money where your mouth is’. We extensively used BIM throughout the design and construction process and used the CAVE to help convince our staff of the improvements and benefits of relocating. The immersive experience of the CAVE really helped our own staff understand what we were doing. We put the emphasis of the eight-stage project on design co-ordination and I am proud to say we had a 100% clash-free building before construction”. Because the model quality was so good, BIM was used in procurement and wireless tablets replaced traditional drawings for HVAC installations on site. The team also managed to squeeze six months – required by the investor - from the original building schedule.
Sweco takes inspiration from other business areas in their process and design planning. Sweco’s methodology would be equally happy in a manufacturing or gaming company. “We have a ‘lean’ approach to our work. We do the right things at the right time. We get progressively more detailed as time moves on. BIM and quality control enable you to brake the design into sections. If you do a good job, you can freeze the design and move forward which means you save money and maintain timelines.”
Jaakko is enthusiastic about the future. He sees more CAVEs and the Solibri Model Checker being used in more projects. He sees virtual and augmented reality as really interesting developments to ‘bake’ into their processes. In short, Sweco has one eye on the future and understands that quality means meeting both the functional and technical requirements as well as contributing to sustainability. It means you plan, execute, measure, continually update your processes and learn best practices from other industries. By doing so, you can offer turnkey solutions that match the client’s needs and expectations. Sweco has only just begun to help define the future of construction. I look forward to seeing what they do with it.
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:
SWECO
