Beyond BIM with Dassault Systèmes

The developer of Catia, a design tool in aerospace and automotive, has long held aspirations for the AEC sector. The move to offsite digital construction presents its best market opportunity, with Lendlease, Vinci and Bouygues now customers

If you have ridden in a car or flown in stagnated and the original aims of mov- road is not that different, and the increasa plane, the chances are it was ing to a model-centric process are still ing use of digital fabrication in AEC designed in Catia, the flagship CAD stuck in the ancient constraint of draw- means products like Catia and SolidWorks system of French software firm ings-based contracts and deliverables. are being used with the industry. Dassault Systèmes (DS). Many of the con- The vast majority of architects are still Vinci and Lendlease have been worksumer goods you also buy are designed in modelling with the sole purpose of creat- ing with DS for a few years to create another market dominating CAD brand of ing drawings. The future of the industry is expert systems to create highly detailed, DS, Solidworks. to model to fabricate and save an incredi- construction-ready models and codify

DS is an undisputed giant in engineer- ble amount of wasted time and effort in their internal processes. The latest firm ing and manufacturing, but when it generating resource hogging 2D drawings. to join the group is Bouygues comes to buildings and infrastructure, its BIM is also responsible for negatively Construction which has just signed a tools have really only been used in niche impacting design time, as buildings do new three-year deal to accelerate the projects, probably most famously cham- not require the level of detail or certainty research and development of new cloudpioned by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA). that the ‘Lego-based’ systems of BIM based, mobile enabled approaches to In these processes, Catia was selected impose. Here Rhino is king and it’s all building construction ‘virtual twins’. because of its ability to model at 1:1 scale, about the geometry. It’s worth mentioning at this point that connect geometry to downstream fabrica- The bad news for architects is that the Digital Twins, which is currently all the tion, and provide a common tool that malaise of development in their toolsets rage in our industry, is woefully behind allows architect and manufacturer to talk comes with the fact that these products, the use of Digital Twins in manufacturing. the same language. DS has long been watching the emergence of BIM. It was ‘‘ DS is fortunate that the AEC market is falling In short, DS is developing a tailored construction system for Bouygues to increase its actually one of the investors in Revit before it was sold to Autodesk. At the time, 2002, into its way of thinking - the workflows it has perfected in the engineering space are productivity, ensure compliance of designs and produce predictable output. By using it was one of the reasons becoming increasingly relevant DS’ cloud-based design prodAutodesk paid so much for Revit ($133 million), which had no user-base, as it didn’t want DS to such as Revit, are mature and from a ’’ ucts, the aim is to connect developers, architects, subcontractors, suppliers and operating comown a potential threat in the AEC space - sales perspective are highly penetrated panies within the same ecosystem, which having already lost out to acquiring and quite saturated. The software indus- DS terms its ‘3D Experience Platform’. Solidworks, which DS bought in 1997 and try is now looking for new gold seams to While construction is a horribly federatthen went on to dominate the mid-range mine, where they can add value and gen- ed process, Bouygues aims to use a single mechanical CAD (MCAD) market. erate additional revenue. environment to streamline the flow of

In the mid 2000s, DS CEO Bernard Construction is where the action is at, data within projects. Charlès certainly had aspirations to com- whether that be connecting up supply This is the typical DS ‘playbook’ in pete in the volume modelling market chains, managing data or having models aerospace and automotive, to get all the within AEC but little transpired from this which are more aligned to fabrication players to work in the same system. This initiative. In the last five years, DS’s inter- than showing design intent. It’s here that is far easier to pull off in something like est and activity in the space has slowly DS appears to be focusing, because it has aerospace where the owner is Boeing and and steadily increased, although it has a manufacturing-ready ecosystem of can drive this level of software consistenfailed to gain any significant penetration products that could be shaped to better fit cy through its suppliers. In the AEC into the volume market with the portfolio the needs of large construction firms. space, finding a significant owner that of Catia-based tools it has developed. Aeroplanes, ships and cars are just large can drive that through disparate supply

It’s pretty clear to anyone in architec- assemblies of geometry and manufactur- chains is frequently less straightforward. ture that the development of BIM has ing information. A building, a bridge or a As the industry moves to more design-

Working in Catia on a model imported from Revit

build projects, the owners of projects become clearer and have much more say in the discrete processes of suppliers. While DS can be proud of getting Catia into ZHA and even Foster + Partners, the attraction is primarily on the geometry capabilities of the modelling kernel. By working with Lendlease, Vinci and Bouygues, the whole DS ecosystem of products - modelling, simulation, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), collaboration, model management, production management, CNC etc. - can all be exploited.

Centred around the virtual twin (Digital Twin) Bouygues will use Catia from design to operation by ‘industrialising’ its project management, anticipating the various phases of a project and planning their on-site implementation in fine detail. Bouygues expects to see energy savings, reduction in errors, greater predictability, materials tracing and better waste management.

The knowledge that DS gains from its interaction with Bouygues and others feeds into the development of three configurations of its Catia-based 3DExperience platform, these will be “Integrated Built Environment,” “Inclusive Urban Future” and “Building Design for Fabrication.”

As DS continues with these high-level interactions with construction firms, it’s building up a knowledge-base and best practice approach which it can then productise. This will make subsequent engagements with construction firms successively easier and quicker. All this fits in with DS’ approach to other markets: sell to the top players and drive sales through the supply channel ecosystem. And, by avoiding the architecture part of the puzzle, it avoids the necessity to try and take on Revit, the 800lb gorilla in the volume architectural design market.

One cannot ignore that its main construction clients are also French. Vinci, Bouygues and DS are perhaps more inclined to work together due to proximity, language and culture. However, construction is global and these firms are global players which adapt to the language, culture and codes of where they’re needed. Should the deployment of the 3D Experience platform bear fruit, it may not be too long before established AEC software players find themselves competing against an extremely capable modelling solution, with a proven track record in industry digital transformation.

Beyond BIM

While DS may not be particularly vocal about what it is doing in the AEC space, UK VAR Desktop Engineering (DTE), has taken the initiative to promote and engage with the design and construction market, running an annual event showcasing, called ‘Beyond BIM’ (dte.co.uk/tag/ beyond-bim), which highlights customers and signature architects who have gone beyond the capabilities of today’s BIM systems and are typically looking to go straight to digital fabrication.

Now in its third year, the range of speakers has broadened, demonstrating that the industry is looking at alternatives when seeking to innovate the current workflows. This year’s speakers included a keynote from Dale Sinclair, director of innovation, EMEA at AECOM.

Dale’s talk succinctly highlighted future trends and problems the AEC industry needed to address. While we have been obsessed with BIM, the process of design to operation is not all about one aspect, one technology because, Dale blatantly said, the thing many in the industry have been thinking, but not saying out loud is - ‘the industry really needs to stop this notion of using drawings.’

Looking at the challenges, he identified Net Zero goals as being a key driver, with additive manufacturing, Digital Twins, the rise of volumetric fabrication and how all these things will mean the industry’s workflow has to change.

Dale sees the rise of robots in construction, and for that we need to reinvent brick and plasterboard to better suit robots, as most of the sizes and shapes are defined by human limitations, not what our robots could do.

The industry needs to start looking at ‘whole life outcomes, IoT, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Twin and better asset management to drive down energy costs’. Dale identified it’s possible to save up to 24% of the cost of building in operating throughout the whole lifecycle – which he described as ’like getting the building phase for free’.

AECOM is internally researching design automation, exploring intuition and iteration using AI and machine learning. It is working smarter with data and working with connected data but he could not go into great detail. He concluded, “We have to control the whole process, almost become like a car manufacturer, with end-to-end processes, design, manufacture, even the sales process.”

Other speakers this year included: • James Brown, Digital Manufacturing

Engineer at Prodtex • Ben Haldin, MD of Fulcro • Hector Camps, Phi Cubed • Mattia Santi, Co-founder and director of Sasi Studio • Abdulmajid Karanouh, International director of Interdisciplinary Design & Innovation, Drees and Sommer • Chun Qing Li, MD, founder and principal of Kreod.

Registration is required to watch the talks but it’s all free and well worth it (dtehub.uk/register)

These industry talks were supplement-

ed by presentations from Dassault Systèmes executives - Jonathan Asher, Catia construction portfolio director, Patrick Mays, vice president strategy and Marty Rozmanith, construction cities & territories industry sales director.

In the confines of this article I will concentrate on what Rozmanith had to say as it ties in to what Dale Sinclair talked about at length and to the previously mentioned agreement between Bouygues Construction and DS.

Rozmanith was an early employee at Revit, prior to the Autodesk acquisition and has spent a number of years at DS driving development and engagement with the industry. His presentation was on the ‘Productisation of Buildings’, applying a systematic industrial Catia hospital design so it drastically reduces its also operates in the constraint of what can process to standardise large from a collection design and documentation be manufactured. Bouygues’ aspirations chunks of buildings in advance of generative assemblies phase and has fewer compo- are pretty impressive and it will get a taiof them arriving on site, more nents shipped to site, requiring lor-made system at the end of this. commonly called Design for less on-site assembly. The main downside Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA). of this is larger and heavier assemblies

Rozmanith first identified the core pain will arrive on site, requiring more cranes points in construction – the unpredictabil- and more work preparing the site for liftity, timeline problems, diversity, lack of ing and placement. skilled labour, geography and the huge An example given was how Bouygues variation in construction partners and use DS tools to conceptualise hospital contracts. These were compared to typical rooms, although this could be done and manufacturing processes, such as engi- brought in from Revit. The results of that neer to order and configure to order, to conceptual general arrangement are fed show where improvements in efficiency into DS’ generative platform leveraging and margin can be identified. The ironic Catia, which then generates the 100% thing is this is already happening in com- configured 3D model automatically. ponents of buildings that are engineered, Where components interface with such a Schindler lifts, which has a rules- structure, these are all generated automatbased design system, using modules and ically as they are predefined / automated. variants, saving time because bespoke lifts can be configured and automated. ‘‘ Change is These modules can be stacked and Catia has modelled, defined and created Bouygues Construction is one of the key clients that Rozmanith highlighted as certainly coming and drawings for 80% of the finished design. These are structural steel, panels, fire, looking at this approach to there’s much to hot and cold MEP, ductwork, deploy in its productisation to learn from electrical routing. get the benefits of configure to order. Taking the General Arrangement as the geometmanufacturing for some areas This model is the ‘virtual twin’, which drives the field execution, producing the ric inputs, using in-house pre- of AEC instructions for how they are defined assemblies and subassemblies as custom IP, to automatically generate the LOD 400 modassembled in the field, using DS’ 3D Lean platform. The example also included panelised systems, ’’ els and documents, what Rozmanith terms which lend themselves to digital fabrica‘150%’ Bill of Materials = highly detailed tion, where all the individual panel drawoutput for fabrication and assembly. The ings were automated, untouched by hand. more projects Bouygues does in this way, Rozmanith defined this as ‘Generative the more information it can put into its Configure to Order’ and the productisaproductised assemblies, enabling the auto- tion of buildings. Obviously in a presentamation of highly detailed configurations. tion it all looks like a miracle but the hard

Bouygues wants to move from being a work has been put in in defining the procompany that is drowning in documents ductised elements and building the conto having a data-led process, driven by figurator. It’s interesting that the system these ‘engineering master’ configurators, allows adaptability to custom designs and Conclusion

DS is undoubtedly gaining some traction in the AEC space and, in doing that, is getting knowledge to provide more turn-key Catia packages for its next customers in construction. But this isn’t really a case of DS chasing new customers. There is a general recognition that today’s tools and construction and architectural design are the evolutionary products of workflows which need to change because they are not connected. And the change that is coming is to become more like product design workflows in aerospace and automotive.

DS is fortunate in that the AEC market is falling into its way of thinking; the workflows it has perfected in the engineering space are becoming increasingly relevant.

In Rozmanith’s presentation, he simply took Schindler’s Lifts engineering / configure to order process and mapped that to Bouygues. It was a clear example of how productisation is going to become a key concept for many firms in the AEC space.

However, this is not a homogeneous market and different building types have different workflows. Building a server centre is not the same as building a hotel or one-off villa. DS is a long way from impacting the current status quo but it has been quietly establishing a beachhead. Also, the AEC industry has some very big silos that will take a long time to knock down.

We will have to wait and see where Bouygues and DS push their co-development and also what direction the general construction industry takes, given its move to off-site fabrication. Change is certainly coming and there’s much to learn from manufacturing for some areas of AEC.

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