All together now

It’s been a tough battle, taking the best part of two decades, but the world’s IT giants have finally woken up to the world of cloud-based collaboration for construction

by Paul Wilkinson

In 2017, cloud-based construction collaboration technologies finally hit the billion-dollar big time, with the December announcement that IT giant Oracle had offered a cool US$1.6 billion for Australian software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor Aconex.

Once the deal closes, some time in the first half of 2018, Aconex will become part of Oracle’s cloud services portfolio and, more specifically, its construction and engineering global business unit. This is built around Oracle’s 2008 purchase of project portfolio management specialist Primavera and the 2016 acquisition of construction contracts and payment management provider Textura.

Aconex was founded in Melbourne, back in 2000 – one of many start-ups focusing on collaboration in construction launched around that time and one of the few to survive when the dotcom bubble burst.

In fact, the idea of managing documents and drawings online, so that they might be shared between team members, goes back even further. For example, Plantation, Florida-based eBuilder was founded in 1995, while Reading, UK-based GroupBC (formerly Business Collaborator) dates back to 1998.

Construction gets SaaS-y Whether they survived or failed in the dotcom crash, these start-ups had tapped into a commonly expressed need in the construction industry: the need to collaborate. In other words, project delivery teams that were often fragmented, geographically dispersed, multi-disciplinary and multi-company needed better ways to manage design drawings, engineering specifications, contracts, photographs, change orders, requests for information and rebranded as Autodesk Buzzsaw. and other documents that were increas- In the UK, as well as Business ingly being held in electronic formats. Collaborator, so-called ‘pure play’ SaaS

So-called ‘project extranets’ allowed providers included 4Projects, Asite, BIW information to be loaded to secure, cen- Technologies, BuildOnline and Cadweb, tral repositories. From there, it could be plus smaller players such as accessed, viewed and downloaded, on a Collabor8Online, ePin, iSite and 24/7 basis, by authorised users and with Sarcophagus. In Europe, there was all interactions captured in the form of an Belgium’s BricsNet and Denmark’s Docia, audit trail. Most of these extranet plat- as well as Germany’s Conject and Think forms were accessible via standard web Project, both based in Munich. browsers, with viewing tools and web- Inevitably, in an over-crowded market, friendly file formats to avoid the need for consolidation takes its toll. The UK’s BIW proprietary software. A new extranet Technologies was the market leader on could be up and running quickly to sup- home turf during the mid-2000s, but was fatally undermined by the global financial crisis of 2008. It was eventually acquired by Germany’s Conject, which in turn was acquired by Aconex. Elsewhere, market consolidation saw 4Projects acquired by US enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor Viewpoint; BuildOnline merged with some US SaaS vendors before being bought by France’s Sword Group and then sold to iDoxowned McLaren Software; port a new project and billed on Trimble Connect Cadweb went bust. Germany’s a pay-as-you-go basis for the cloud-based RIB Software acquired Docia lifetime of the project, from its collaboration tool and Australia’s ProjectCentre. early conceptual stages to com- In the US, Autodesk bought pletion and handover. US start-up Constructware in 2006, but

The need among users to share design this and Buzzsaw were gradually superinformation online inevitably attracted seded by Autodesk’s BIM 360 product. the attention of AEC design authoring Bentley ProjectWise began, slowly, to giants, as well as start-ups. Bentley become an externally hosted SaaS prodSystems’ core collaboration product, uct, as did Newforma; and Trimble built ProjectWise, was launched in 1998, and a SaaS collaboration portfolio, Trimble was delivered as an on-premise, customer- Connect, on the back of Meridian hosted solution for most of its early histo- Systems (acquired in 2006), SketchUp ry. Autodesk, meanwhile, was an early (2012) and Gehry Technologies’ GTeam investor in spin-off company Buzzsaw. platform (2014). Meanwhile, Belgian com, which it subsequently acquired in CAD vendor Bricsys developed Chapoo, the wake of the dotcom crash in July 2001 recently rebranded as Bricsys 247.

Functional diversification But while there were plenty of vendor names for customers to consider during the early 2000s, the functional differences between the most commonly used file-sharing platforms were few and far between.

Most products essentially enabled collaboration, in the form of commenting and redlining of 2D documents and drawings, and supported some simple workflows

Over time, vendors have differentiated as a means to woo customers with new features and capabilities. These include:

Online Health & Safety Files: BIW identified the laborious (and usually retrospective) compilation of project handover documentation as an opportunity, and created a module that helped users assemble project handover information incrementally during design and construction.

Security: Customers have always been anxious about the security, reliability and resilience of SaaS platforms, so vendors had to demonstrate compliance with standards such as BS7799. These days ISO27001 certification is usual, while Aconex is currently seeking approval under the US Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, FedRAMP, so that customers can support US federal government projects with advanced security compliance requirements.

Project financial control: To meet the needs of a key customer, BIW also developed a project cost control module that helped contractors capture the real-time impacts of project changes. Contract change management: Growing adoption of the NEC contract – conforming to the New Engineering Contract format championed by the Institute of Civil Engineers – also spurred competition between UK vendors. However, this is one area where specialist vendors, such as CEMAR (see box at bottom of page), have sought to create applications that complement, rather than compete with, platforms from cloud collaboration vendors. Equally, Aconex, US-based Procore and others are growing ‘ecosystems’ of partner solutions that plug in to their platforms.

Tendering: There has also been a rush to provide online support for issuing tender documents and receiving tender submissions; Asite’s platform, for example, includes extensive supplier spend management and procurement tools.

Mobile: Dramatic growth in the use of smartphones and tablets has seen a push to make SaaS platforms accessible from mobile devices. Some vendors developed solutions internally; others acquired mobile specialists. In 2014, for example, Viewpoint bought Mobile Computing Solutions and its Priority1 product, while Conject brought France’s Wapp6). At the same time, a new generation of mobile-first start-ups began to emerge (Basestone and Construction.pm in the UK, FieldLens and Plangrid in the US, and GenieBelt in Denmark are just a few examples).

Today’s BIM battleground Meanwhile, BIM has also become a key SaaS battleground. Asite was one of the first companies to invest in BIM-related developments, while Viewpoint benefited from involvement in government-backed research initiatives, including the BIM Digital Toolkit.

The UK government’s BIM programme put online collaboration at the heart of its push in March 2011, when it was stated that a ‘data management server’ would be required to collect and process information. According to a government report of that time, this data management server should be: “available 24/7, reliable, secure and intuitive to use. Its appearance and operation is to be similar to that of one of the existing ‘collaboration’ systems currently available in the market. Indeed it may be that during the mobilisation period we may engage the existing service providers to enable such a service.”

As a result, SaaS construction collaboration platforms have evolved from what used to be electronic ‘common paper environments’ to meeting the demand for ‘common data environments’ (or CDEs), by enabling the sharing of 3D modelbased information and workflows. (CDEs will be discussed in more detail in the March/April issue of AEC Magazine.)

In just a decade or so, then, the nature of software delivery in the AEC sector has changed profoundly with the emergence of the Cloud. IT departments no longer try to keep everything inside their firewall – savvy IT directors see the benefits of passing responsibility for data security and uptime to SaaS specialists, while AEC teams want sector-specific applications that will help them satisfy clients’ new digital demands.

As a result, the AEC sector is in midst of a digital transformation that is likely to be reflected in the AEC software sector, with new tools and cloud services emerging. Oracle’s big-money offer to Aconex, it seems, may just be the start of further rounds of investment and consolidation.

Contract change management

Increasing adoption of the NEC3 construction contract suite from 2005, both in the UK and internationally, saw extranet vendors and others rush to develop tools to manage and report on NEC3-related workflows including early warning notices, project manager’s instructions and compensation events.

4Projects and BIW were early leaders in this scramble, and in December 2010, both were appointed as licensed content partners by the NEC publisher, allowing them to incorporate NEC3 operational guidance into their applications.

However, this did not stop extranet rivals such as Asite, Aconex and Sword delivering contract change management modules as part of their wider platforms. UK contract specialists such as MPS, Sypro and Cemar also developed SaaS tools focused on the NEC suite.

The general interest in contract change management has also been good news for Cemar, where cofounder and CEO Ben Walker is also a member of the NEC’s drafting team for NEC3. Unlike many of the extranet providers, Cemar hasn’t diverted development resources to other emerging areas such as BIM or project cost control, but has instead remained true to its focus. Its strength in the contract change management area has led GroupBC to integrate Cemar’s workflow and reporting into its own common data environment, rather than try and compete with it.

Once logged in to Cemar, authorised users get a dashboard view of current projects, and can review key analytics about contract processes. While Cemar users might initially want to create notifications that resemble familiar paperbased correspondence (which it handles by way of PDF letter versions of all communications), Walker says they quickly gravitate towards viewing processes as events rather than as series of documents.

The analytics tools summarise recent and ongoing processes, while search tools can be used across processes to, for example, show the aggregated impact of weather events over time.

Autodesk University part 2

At Autodesk University in December, the company had the opportunity to show off a range of rapidly evolving cloud services and expand on its vision for the future, as Martyn Day describes in the second part of his report from the event

In the last issue of AEC Magazine, you combine BIM data with the capabili- increasing in complexity, too. Risk can our report on Autodesk University ties of cloud, everything gets pulled be better managed through digital tools. 2017 focused on new CEO Andrew together. Mangon’s mantra, then, is ‘con- Autodesk has been developing some Anagnost’s vision for the company, nected BIM’ – and not just for digital powerful generative design tools, which as well as the emerging Forge develop- aspects of projects, but also for the physi- combine machine learning (a branch of ment platform, which is intended to trans- cal ones, too. Artificial Intelligence or AI) with the form the way that developers create add- Moving on to customer examples, power of the cloud, to optimise complex ons for Autodesk products and that cus- Mangon highlighted the Grand Paris designs based on real-world design critomers access services and data. Express, encompassing 200Km of new teria.

We also looked at some of the work done railway and 68 train stations, with 90% Augmenting human capabilities, comto flesh out Autodesk’s cloud architecture of it underground, due to be completed puters can explore tens of thousands of and online services. While this multi-year by 2030. Mangon commented that this design options and come up with a wide process has sometimes seemed protracted, £20 billion project is the first of its kind range solutions. As Mangon puts it, these confusing and even incoherent, at this to use BIM from start to finish and has kinds of capabilities mean that, “We can year’s Autodesk University, it finally felt involved 36 architectural and civil firms do more and get better results with less.” as though all the pieces were coming developing horizontal and vertical mod- A case in point is Dutch design build together, with the Autodesk BIM 360 plat- els in Civil3D and Revit. The team has firm, Van Wijen, which has not only form looking impressive in demonstration. used the models to optimise designs, tak- embraced modular, factory-based design For the AEC keynote at the event, Nicolas Mangon, vice president of AEC strat‘‘ The real benefit of the cloud lies in connecting and construction, but is also using generative design for land developegy and marketing, was first up on stage. He began by highlighting some of the everyone, maintaining one version of the truth, reducing duplication and errors and delivering ment work in urban neighbourhoods. By defining backyard technologies – among them on-demand experiences size, sunlight, views and geolocation, infinite computing, big data and remote sensors – that are allowing us to live our ing into account escape routes, the ’’ optimum use of land parcels, the company has been able to increase the quality of its work lives differently, always connected and results of fire/smoke analysis and the and reduce time to market. All this is more in control. best locations for safety equipment. based on software running iterations to

As he pointed out, these technologies Meanwhile, Dubai’s stunning Museum find the best designs for customers, while have huge implications for the AEC mar- of the Future by Burro Happold, con- maximising the amount of housing on ket. They will increase automation, assist structed by BAM, has been developed each plot. design and planning and enable digital using end-to-end digital workflows. In And in a case of ‘eating its own dogfabrication and construction. particular, using Autodesk BIM 360 food’, Autodesk used generative design to

But while we may be in the midst of a Field has helped to achieve a 65% reduc- optimise the layout of its new offices in technological revolution, automation is tion in rework. The building explores the Toronto. First, the company got feedback not a silver bullet. Today’s federated future of science, technology and innova- from office workers as to how they wantAEC process is still fragmented and tion and is intended to serve as a plat- ed to work. Then, it fed a range of comcomplex and software that deals with form where the latest inventions and pro- peting criteria into the system – variables one issue at a time can’t adequately solve totypes from up-and-coming start-ups such as daylight, buzz, productivity, all the multiple problems it is bound to and the world’s technology giants can be views, workstyle, acoustics and proximiencounter, due to the fragmented way demonstrated and tested. ty to bathrooms/kitchens. The system that the industry works. then generated a range of floorplan lay-

A more holistic solution must be found Modern-day designs outs that met the criteria. and this is where BIM comes in. At the While the AEC process may be complex Generative design is also finding uses in centre of the BIM process is data and, if in itself, modern-day designs are civil engineering. Complex grading can be

rapidly assessed by applying geometric constraints, giving immediate feedback regarding volume of material to be moved and cost, for example. This enables ‘optioneering’ and potentially means that projects have a less negative impact on the environment, while offering the best return on investment. And all this can be achieved before construction even starts

On-site safety, too, is becoming increasingly important and with Internet of Things (IOT) advances, construction sites generate more useful data than ever before. One of Autodesk’s hot developers, Smartvid.io, uses AI to scan video and images of construction sites in order to locate workers, materials and equipment. It’s now possible to connect Smartvid.io’s intelligent solution to BIM 360 Field and BIM 360 Docs, where photographs and videos taken on site can be analysed to locate materials, flag missing safety equipment, identify people and point out potential hazards in less than 90 seconds. working, upstream and downstream in AEC, from design to fabrication and construction and on to operations and maintenance.

BIM 360 developments Sarah Hodges, Autodesk director for BIM 360 presented on the developments around this product, clearly the subject of a big product push at this year’s University. Using an example of the KPF-designed China Zun Tower in Beijing, Hodges recounted how designers and construction teams used BIM 360 to create the 524metre monster skyscraper in China’s capital. The building has one of the largest concrete-filled cores ever, which required 256 trucks and 96 hours to pour. The building was so complex, in fact, that many parts were fabricated and assembled offsite. Using BIM 360 to coordinate the construction, the firms involved racked up 80% fewer changes on the project, identified Autodesk has made a strategic investment 5,000 issues prior to construction, and in this developer and so we can expect to avoided 6,000 issues on site. see more AI capabilities online soon. One of the key inhibitors to collaboration

IoT solutions for construction are grow- is that, due to the way teams work and softing, in fact – especially in wearable sen- ware has been developed, teams stay dissors for workforce safety. These sensors connected and data lives in silos. Software provide real-time information on workers developers are now trying to break down involved in slips, trips or falls, alerting these barriers by producing common data site managers as to the ‘who, when and environments (CDEs), which are basically where’ of a specific incident. If a site needs databases for 2D and 3D models and docuto be evacuated, all workers can be alerted ments that provide a single source of truth. simultaneously and tracked in real time. Strategy firm Boston Consulting Group Autodesk believes that the Revit model in has identified that, if the AEC industry the cloud can act as a model connected to were to adopt full-scale digitisation in nonIoT sensors. Mangon also suggested that residential construction, it could reduce Navisworks might be used for visualising annual global costs of engineering and conIoT data in real time or for struction by between 13% to looking at historical reports. 1 The Grand Paris Express project 21%, amounting to a $1.2 tril-

For Mangon, all these features 200km of lion saving in a $10 trillion capabilities naturally feed new railway and 68 industry. off Autodesk’s cloud solutrain stations Last year, Autodesk introtion and common data plat form, BIM 360, which pro 2 Dubai’s Museum of the Future by Burro Happold, duced BIM 360 Docs to add to the other BIM 360 servicvides connected ways of constructed by BAM es Glue, Field and Ops. All

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3 Designers and construction teams used BIM 360 to create the China Zun tower, a 524m monster skyscraper in Beijing 4 Grand Paris Express tunnel 5 Dutch design build firm, Van Wijen uses modular, factory based design and construction techniques for land development in urban neighbourhoods

these applications, while using the cloud, were not initially connected and in many ways didn’t really deliver on the vision of a holistic solution. This year, Autodesk has made a considerable number of improvements to the individual components, but more importantly, has connected everything up to create a seamless experience, a true ‘one-stop shop’.

Hodges described the advances made as so significant that they represent “second-generation BIM 360”. Data no longer needs to be uploaded into different applications and BIM 360 shares information across the whole project.

The new platform of BIM 360 builds on the base of project data, with Forge and Analytic layers, and then offers tools for Design, Pre-construction, Execution, Handover and Operation.

Recognising that there are many types of applications used in a project, Autodesk has launched a new Connect and Construct Exchange, a one-stop shop where customers can find integrations with apps that work with hosted data within BIM 360 from partners and authorised Autodesk developers.

Assemble Systems was highlighted as one of these developers: its tools now work with data hosted within the BIM 360 environment. These enable construction professionals to condition, query and connect their data to key workflows.

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including bid management, estimating, project management, scheduling, site management and finance.

In the next few months, Autodesk plans to bring out a beta version of a cost management system from BIM 360 and is prepping its machine learning development, Project IQ, to move into the mainstream. Project IQ has analysed 225 projects and over 30 million issues that have gone wrong in real building projects. This analysis has helped it to learn from mistakes made and better able to predict outcomes. Construction managers get alerted when Project IQ identifies potential problems, enabling workflow changes to be made that mitigate risks and preempt issues before they arise.

Collaboration for Revit is extremely popular, being used in 144 countries housing 100,000 models and sharing 1.6 million Revit updates a month. Hodges highlighted how this is set to get a refresh with an ability to handle all project data with no upload or download and no more PDFs. It will enable isolated views in real time, Mechanical, Electrical, Architectural and in a centralised model in the cloud. There will be developments in package transmittals from individuals and teams, all to the common data environment.

To make this happen, Civil3D, Infraworks, Plant 3D and AutoCAD will all get collaboration plug-ins to be included in the project data. Hodges described this as true multi-discipline BIM.

Autodesk’s initial development of BIM 360 felt very ‘bitty’, but every project has to start somewhere. And today, BIM 360 looks and feels much more like the backbone for collaboration originally promised. Autodesk finally recognises that Revit isn’t the only data generator in town. Civil engineering has been welcomed to the party. It’s now possible to view all model data geolocated with intelligence in one environment which, since it’s on the cloud, means it’s everywhere. The ability to connect to third-party cloud-based services will become increasingly significant.

Conclusion It has been a long time coming, but Autodesk’s promise of what the cloud could do is being delivered in BIM 360. The AEC industry faces extreme challenges, not only from its federated composition and complex processes, but also from delivering high-risk, complicated assets in a world of low margins.

We don’t have to look too far right now to see what can happen when things go wrong onsite, and how quickly project overruns can kill huge beasts. Last year’s average profit on construction projects in the UK was -0.5%. If that were not bad enough, issues on site can lead to penalties in their millions.

When cloud first became a topic, we were all more focused on desktop applications going online. The real benefits, it turns out, lie in connecting everyone, maintaining one version of the truth, reducing duplication and errors and delivering on-demand experiences. The next phase will come as third-party cloud-based applications and machine learning tools integrate, analyse and drive through the benefits of being able to process big data.

In the next issue we will look at Autodesk’s predictions for the industry of the future, as BIM drives digital fabrication, mass customisation and modular design.

BIM Show Live 2018 preview

Every year, BIM Show Live provides AEC professionals with a showcase of new ways of thinking and emerging technologies – and this year’s event promises to be no exception

The AEC industry is in an era of unprecedented innovation, so while BIM Show Live has always aimed to be a showcase for new and emerging technologies, this year’s event is shaping up to more forward-thinking than ever in its embrace of the radical and the disruptive.

After several years in Manchester, the event is moving this year to Newcastle upon Tyne, an area rich in engineering and manufacturing businesses and home to the show’s founders, Space Group. The 2018 show will be staged in Newcastle’s The Boiler Shop, a unique venue in the city’s historic Stephenson’s Quarter, on Wednesday 28 February and Thursday 1 March 2018.

“We’ve been running the show now for six years, and each year, we never fail to present the new and the wonderful,” says Space Group CEO and BIM Show Live co-founder Rob Charlton. “Our industry is progressing at an accelerated rate and we believe at BIM Show Live that we have an obligation to bring our visitors the very best our industry has to offer for technology and digital construction, plus a view on what has changed year-on-year and what this means for future projects.” A full content catalogue As usual, the show will offer a blend of keynote speakers and seminar streams chaired by two of the BIM world’s most respected experts, David Philp, global BIM/IM consultancy director at AECOM and chair of the Scottish BIM Delivery Group, and Simon Rawlinson, head of strategic research and insight at Arcadis. Both have been with the show since it started in 2011.

David Philp will chair Day One of the event, after presenting his own thoughts on the state of the industry, while Simon Rawlinson will chair Day Two.

Over the course of the two days, four content streams will see presentations delivered by over 50 leading figures from a cross-section of the AEC industry. They include Martin McDonnell, chairman of Soluis and CEO of Sublime; Rob Jackson, associate director at Bond Bryant Digital; Grimshaw’s BIM manager Radu Gidei and BIM coordinator Carolina Pracz; Rebecca de Ciccio, managing director of Digital Node; and James Austin, product manager at Autodesk. why Anders Hvid, CEO and co-founder of Copenhagen-based innovation consultancy Dare Disrupt, will also appear as a keynote speaker.

His presentation will focus on exponential technologies, disruptive innovation and the future of society. “My talk is designed to take you past the hereand-now and provide you with a glimpse of what’s to come,” he says.

Another keynote speaker will be Aldo Solazzo, a computational design and digital fabrication expert who is the manager of Noumena, founder of Fab Lab Frosinone and director of Reshape.

Says organiser Rob Charlton: “Our keynote content will revolve around leading technological changes that will impact our industry. We have found exceptional forward-thinkers, researchers and experts who are willing to share their vision on how this tech will change the way we work and live over the next few years.”

BIM Show Live 2018 takes place on Wednesday 28 February and Thursday 1 March at The Boiler Shop, Stephenson’s Quarter in Newcastle Upon Tyne.