Driving technological innovation within building and design
PR O J ECT PA RT N ER S
Driving technological innovation within building and design Written by Catherine Rowell Produced by Craig Daniels
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We speak with Change and IT Director Sean Dewhurst about SSH’s rapid business growth, achieved whilst collaborating with key leaders in the technology sphere
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rom a small, local company, to one which has grown to five times its original size within five years is no easy feat for any business. With significant revenue growth and an aggressive transformation strategy, SSH has implemented cloud services and embedded innovative technologies, with an aim to continually expand its presence within the Middle East. “You need to build efficiency into everything,” explains Change and IT Director Sean Dewhurst. Upon joining the company in 2015, SSH was in need of a complete overhaul of its IT operations and processes. The company is keeping up with upcoming trends and keeping an eye on what will prove advantageous within construction and design. Through utilising cloud services, SSH has built effective strategies to cater to clients and operations, and continues to evaluate more and more options, such as Microsoft’s Azure Rendering for 3D modelling. SSH continually looks at how virtual, augmented and mixed reality will provide
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DIGITIZING THE CONSTRUCTION SITE
Shaping the future of building the Middle East with SSH International Consultants
Autodesk makes software for people who make things. If you’ve ever driven a high-performance car, admired a towering skyscraper, used a smartphone, or watched a great film, chances are you’ve experienced what millions of Autodesk customers are doing with our software. Autodesk gives you the power to make anything.
“As one of the early adopters of collaboration technologies like Collaboration for Revit and BIM360 Team, SSH is seamlessly connecting our various offices in the region.
As a proud supplier of technology to forward-thinking and progressive organizations like SSH, Autodesk is able to empower them as a leader in shaping the built environment and infrastructure of the modern Middle East, a region that demands exceptionally high standards of both quality and value. Through the conceptualization, design, construction and delivery phases, Autodesk software plays a vital role in helping SSH to raise their international and regional profile through innovation and proficient delivery of landmark projects.
We continue to work with Autodesk to explore even more ways to make SSH competitive in the markets we are operating in by researching disruptive technologies like augmented and virtual reality, computational design...among others.” Sean Dewhurst, Change and IT Director, SSH
Kuwait Children’s Hospital The SSH design team on this project called on specialized teams from across the globe, using Autodesk REVIT and A360 applications to empower international team collaboration and manage the vast amount of information and modelling required to deliver the world’s largest children’s hospital.
Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmad Cultural Centre Complex geometric forms inspired by Islamic architecture were used to create the textured outer skin of each building. Autodesk 3D Studio Max and REVIT were used to map out the eventual geometric forms, the Islamic-inspired patterning that covers them, as well as to compute the calculations needed to make such a structure work in the real world.
Al Salam Palace, Kuwait
Oman Convention & Exhibition Centre
Explore more: www.autodesk.com/BIM
Sheikh Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre
AutodeskMiddleEast
Autodesk and the Autodesk logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
“We try to pick up the innovations that are out there and bring them together to bring advantages to what we do. That’s where we have to be, especially in the technology space” SEAN DEWHURST Change and IT Director
a multitude of benefits, enabling the company to collaborate with prospective clients to develop built models and concepts. “We haven’t found the sweet spot yet for us, so we’re still exploring all of them. It’s a very interesting space at the moment,” adds Dewhurst. Increased Collaboration With Microsoft providing SSH’s main platform, SSH also work
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with local partner Diyar, who have become instrumental to the company’s delivery and development of the company’s Microsoft Azure capabilities. This has been augmented with cloud-managed solutions like Cisco Meraki which has provided greater visibility and simpler, consistent configuration across offices in all geographies. SSH’s main ERP platform (Deltek Vision) and HR platforms are being moved, so
that they will be based on Software as a Service (SaaS), rather than maintained as applications in SSH’s own technical domain. “We’re moving all the things that don’t really provide competitive advantage but can take up a lot of time, energy and money to manage and maintain, and then buy them back as services,” explains Dewhurst. “The economies of scale of the service provider outweigh the benefit of retaining them in house.”
In order to stay abreast of technological innovations, SSH has created a number of internal strategic groups to discuss new ideas to increasingly drive the business. Externally, the company uses any channel available to stay abreast of new products and services that might be of interest. “A lot of technologies emerge in in the consumer market, there aren’t many apart from augmented reality or mixed reality
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Bentley is Advancing Infrastructure
Bentley is Advancing Infrastruc Advancing infrastructure is now a world priority. We need high performance infrastructure that can meet the demands of a global population while preserving a vital and healthy environment for generations to come. Bentley’s mission is to provide innovative software and services for the enterprises and professionals who design, build and operate the world’s infrastructure — advancing the global economy and environment, for improved quality of life.
Advancing infrastructure is now a world priority. We need high performance infrastructure that can meet the demands of a global population while preserving a vital and healthy environment for generations to come.
Find out more at: www.bentley.com
Bentley’s mission is to provide innovative software and services for the enterprises and professionals who design, build and operate the world’s infrastructure — advancing the global economy and environment, for improved quality of life.
Find out more at: www.bentley.com © 2017 Bentley Systems, Incorporated. Bentley and the “B” Bentley logo are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly-owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
Going Digital for Infrastructure Bentley Systems has helped firms accelerate project delivery and improve asset performance by supporting projects with innovative software and services for over 30 years. As engineering firms seek a digital strategy, the term “going digital” is being realized as infrastructure professionals take advantage of digital engineering models that contain inherent data about how an asset was designed, which can then be shared, consumed, and analysed by other software and processes. Leveraging a cloud computing platform enables a connected data environment that digitally connects and converges people, processes, data, and technology to yield significant results.
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Another exciting aspect of going digital is the technology and the proliferation of reality modeling, which fills the gap of not having a digital engineering model in the first place. Capturing existing site conditions with the use of digital photographs or point-cloud data – across infrastructure project delivery and asset performance is now widely adopted by infrastructure professionals. Reality modeling describes the potentially continuous capture of infrastructure assets’ as-operated conditions for processing into engineering-ready reality meshes, and their “enlivening” for immersive interaction. These models can now be referenced throughout the full lifecycle of an infrastructure asset, improving performance, safety, and sustainability. For many years, through reality modeling digital photos have been processed into 3D models, but its capabilities have evolved to offer available point clouds from laser scanning that can be combined with available photos, as “hybrid inputs,” for reconstruction into a reality mesh.
This enables the capture of assets in a digital format, further converging the virtual with the physical and offering new potential. A reality mesh can also be seamlessly used within engineering CAD environments, enhancing BIM methodology as digital engineering models can improve the context of reality capture with greater understanding of 3D collaborative software as the necessity for engineering design gains value. Going Digital for CAPEX For capital projects, a digital workflow can take advantage of better decision making with immersive design and collaboration in construction. For engineers, going digital can mean some new activities, such as conceptioneering – the process of creating various iterations of a design discipline with engineering content, at the beginning of a project, to constructioneering - the process of bringing engineering data directly to the field to drive construction workflows and construction equipment, during construction while leveraged in operations. It can also mean inspectioneering – the process of bringing as-operated and continuously surveyed, engineering reality meshes into digital engineering environments, enabling engineers to inspect and evaluate infrastructure assets from any location. And, lastly, to optioneering, which is the process of creating multiple iterations of a detailed infrastructure model and/or its subsystems in such a way to enable “what-if” scenarios and evaluate design trade-offs with the aim of producing an optimal engineering strategy. In these cases, we use the digital model to make better operations and maintenance decisions. These are all examples of going digital, and Bentley is providing the solutions for our users to get there.
PROVEN, CONNECTED, AGILE, FUTURE-PROOF Deltek is the trusted Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) partner of SSH and over 12,000 other leading engineering services firms. Streamline your key business processes including business development, project and resource planning, financial management and reconciliation. Deltek’s integrated project-based ERP software seamlessly connects people, processes, and information. Discover more > www.deltek.com
Deltek is SSH’s ERP of choice
1,500 The total number of SSH employees
that aren’t really in the consumer market yet, and are only in the enterprise space,” comments Dewhurst. “We try to pick up the innovations that are out there and bring them together to bring advantages to what we do. That’s where we have to be, especially in the technology space.” To further increase collaboration, SSH is specific about calling vendors partners, especially as the company increasingly works with them to innovate. For example, the company works collaboratively on the technology design for all its offices with BIOSME who provide quality technology infrastructure management, to high standards and strong service levels agreed prior to an outsourcing agreement which both parties signed in December last year. SSH has also developed its partnership with Autodesk, which was historically a transactional relationship, in order to increase collaboration and find potential uses of augmented, mixed and virtual reality technologies and other areas of innovation that Autodesk are bringing to the market. Explaining that transactional relationships no longer hold any real value, Dewhurst adds that there are mutual benefits to explore different technologies and work together on practical applications. “We’re not one of the big players in the industry globally, but nonetheless we are trying to work with them at the leading edge. We try to work with all our vendors more strategically, who then become
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partners. I think it’s very important and the industry understands that these value-add relationships are far superior for both parties.” Continual Challenges Whilst SSH is perhaps less likely to be subject to a cyber-attack than some, it is always something the company keeps in mind. Upon joining SSH in 2015, Dewhurst immediately appointed an Information Security Manager, and has been behind the
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significant investment the company has undertaken in placing essential controls to mitigate potential risks. Dewhurst explains: “We continually evaluate risks and controls to try and strike the right balance. You can spend millions of dollars on cyber security and still get it wrong – nothing is ever totally secure – but you have to invest, and invest wisely.” The intellectual property the company has also does not hold the same attraction to cyber criminals as
How SSH achieved IT as a Service In the olden days….. It used to be that SSH bought its technology. They went through basically the same motions as every other company. They would go through the tried and tested motions for procurement that most companies follow in the Middle East. Check out the products and providers on offer, construct an RFP, vet the vendors, negotiate the contracts, implement the solution, train the staff and guess what? “Sometimes SSH got all the value it wanted and sometimes it just got a taste of it”. The majority of services ran from its HQ based in Kuwait. “Sometimes it had downtime sometimes it didn’t”. A few years ago SSH’s business began to really take off. The company started winning engineering contracts not just in Kuwait but across the Middle East; it opened engineering offices in Africa and rapidly expanded from 200 to almost 1000 users. The business had basically become a high growth dynamic business that had outgrown ‘the old way of doing IT’. For SSH, like for most businesses, the allure of a technology was the business outcome it produced, not the headaches and complexity that came along with that journey. SSH had two fundamental wishes from IT: • They wanted to get straight to the value • They wants that value to increase over time With this in mind SSH’s Technology leadership decided to embrace a new model of consuming IT, IT-a-a-Service, a stunningly simple model that
centers on the following value propositions: • Technology benefits with minimum IT involvement • Accelerated technology solution implementation • Variable, lower risk OpEx purchasing models • Supplier managed or optimized technology BIOS Middle East and CloudHPT, which has been building its business around providing ITa-a-Service for many years now, were able to provide SSH with an approach to consuming digital services using a hybrid cloud infrastructure allowing it to run every workload in its optimal place — at optimal cost and business performance. The solution consisted of moving some services like email and active directory to Microsoft Azure. However, SSH needed to run some applications on a cloud that was low latency for the Middle East, so these were positioned on CloudHPT (a BIOS Middle East cloud company based out of the UAE). In addition some of SSH offices required huge engineering files to be local, so a modern managed storage solution from NetApp was positioned for the branch offices. The above hybrid cloud solution, a cloud consisting of private cloud on premise, regional cloud from CloudHPT and Global Cloud from Azure needed to be managed. This was provided by BIOS Assured, a managed service provided by BIOS out of their NOC and SOC in Dubai. BIOS Assured provided daily operational support, infrastructures managed services and application services like SCCM. The entire IT-a-a-Service model was positioned with a fixed monthly cost against a set of SLA’s.
Office 1603, Boulevard Plaza Tower 1, Downtown Dubai, UAE T : +971 4 3789000 | F : +971 4 3789001 | info@biosme.com | Toll Free 800 BIOSME www.biosme.com
“We try to work with all our vendors more strategically, who then become partners. I think it’s very important and the industry understands that these value-add relationships are far superior for both parties” SEAN DEWHURST Change and IT Director
PARTNERS IN TECHNOLOGY Diyar is a leading regional System Integrator and Gold Microsoft Partner who Provides high-businessvalue solutions, Managed and Security services by embracing selected people, processes and partners.
www.diyarme.com Sales@diyarme.com
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other corporations, such as banks, but the company remains aware that it would have significant issues with delivering on its commitments to clients if an attack occurred. Transforming into a regionalised company has not been without its challenges. US products, such as Autodesk’s and Microsoft’s have been built with a western environment in mind, which have quick, easy and scalable access to the internet, incorporating big pipes and low latency. “Simple things like
latency, and the fact these products aren’t designed for low latency, alongside increasing bandwidth requirements means that they are not optimised for us in the Middle East,” explains Dewhurst. “One of the things that’s going to hold us back in this part of the world is the internet connectivity. It’s just not as good and it’s more expensive in comparison to the US and Europe and it introduces an extra challenge.” Disruptive technologies have also become an increased focus.
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Dewhurst discusses the creeping rise of 3D printing and modulisation, where these technologies will ultimately transform the entire industry. However, he notes that “on the creative side with concepts and design, this still requires human creativity to drive, although computing technology can enhance it. The computer is doing the heavy lifting on generating options on the parameters given, but it’s not driving the creativity yet.” Moving Forward The move to cloud has enabled SSH to undergo a cost-effective transformation, outsourcing operations to increase value and provide high quality services to clients. Aligned with the company’s cloud strategy, operations will become simpler and easier and collaborative partner relationships will enable SSH to become a leader in the Middle East. This will allow the company to further explore new and innovative technologies which will shape the future of construction and design.
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Office Suite 1102. Makeen Tower Tourist Club Area, Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates www.sshic.com