Highways England, a UK government company, is responsible for the operation, maintenance, and improvement of England’s motorways and major A roads. The UK government has committed to enhancing the UK road network, including Smart Motorways, Complex Infrastructure, and Regional Infrastructure Programmes, to mitigate the impact of congestion on roads and motorways, which is currently costing the UK economy £9bn annually. To manage and expedite the delivery of these complex programmes, Highways England identified the need for a single platform to control project information. They sought a solution through the UK government’s Digital Marketplace and G Cloud, which would allow them to demonstrate compliance with their internal IAN184-2016 standards and industry standards including PAS1192-2 as required by the 2016 government BIM mandate.

MCC Capital Engineering & Research Incorporation was tasked with the design, procurement, and construction of a large-scale, multidisciplinary manufacturing facility in China’s Leting Economic Development Zone in Tangshan. The project, which covered 534 hectares, included 42 plants and a 26-kilometer roadway. The aim was to create an advanced, green, and intelligent modern factory with an annual output of more than 7 million tons of iron and steel. The project was complex, involving multiple disciplines in various locations, presenting coordination, technical, and engineering challenges. Traditional design methods were inadequate due to site constraints and strict timelines. The enormity of the project scale and complicated process system made it challenging to determine the general plant layout and avoid collisions and errors among the different specialties during the design stage. MCC faced communication and data sharing difficulties and needed collaborative BIM technology in a connected data environment to generate a digital twin deliverable for lifecycle asset management.

Sofia Municipality, a large province in Bulgaria, was facing challenges with its street lighting infrastructure. The Transport Infrastructure Department, responsible for the construction, repairs, and maintenance of roadways, infrastructure facilities, and street lighting within the metropolis, found the existing inventory of public lighting facilities to be incomplete and insufficient. The department needed a comprehensive inventory to better manage the region’s street lighting infrastructure, inform when improvements and upgrades were needed, and reduce public fund spending on maintenance. The government also aimed to improve the overall infrastructure and reduce the duration of repairs. To achieve these objectives, Sofia Municipality engaged DAVID Holding Company, an IT company providing software solutions, to develop, implement, and maintain software to manage and organize the infrastructure.

Sterlite Power Transmission Limited was tasked with the NER-II Transmission Limited Project, a INR 1.95 billion renewable energy initiative aimed at serving over 30 million residents in India's most remote areas. The project involved developing transmission lines spanning 448 kilometers and constructing a 400-kilovolt/132 kilovolt substation in the state of Tripura. The substation was critical for delivering power to Tripura and needed to be completed quickly. However, the project faced several challenges. The geographical and environmental conditions were complex, with the project site located at the foothills of the Himalayas amid dense forest subject to heavy rains and flooding. The tight timeline and resistance from the indigenous population added to the complexity. Sterlite Power's traditional 2D design methods for substation planning had minimal data-sharing potential and did not support the design team's needs for detecting potential clearance problems between electrical components and support structures. Their conventional software had limited capability in terms of managing interdependencies and linking design, planning, and construction works. These inefficiencies posed enormous risks in the substation timeline, prolonging inspection, stakeholder approval, and handovers.

Danfoss, a company specializing in refrigeration monitoring equipment, compressors, and controllers for grocery stores, faced a challenge in helping its customers manage their operations efficiently. Refrigeration consumes a significant portion of a large grocery store’s electricity, with the remainder consumed by HVAC equipment, lighting, and other utilities. The risk of asset failure could result in food loss, unplanned asset downtime, and maintenance call outs – unexpected costs that can quickly escalate. Retailers now operate in a market where the demand for frozen foods is increasing, causing them to invest in large-scale refrigeration equipment. This has led to tight margins in an increasingly competitive market where assets are expected to perform constantly. Historically, supermarkets have accepted that the cost for high customer volume, regulatory compliance, and increasing energy costs were part of the business model.

Atkins, a multinational engineering and consulting services company, faced a significant challenge in managing geotechnical data across its diverse projects. The geotechnical team at Atkins used multiple technologies and applications that needed to work in harmony. The company needed to provide timely, detailed, and engaging analysis and deliverables to its clients, making geotechnical technology and data integration, as well as proper project workflows, crucial for efficiency and quality of service. To assess ground conditions, Atkins used Bentley’s OpenGround Cloud and established a detailed geographic information system using QGIS or ArcGIS. However, the process of manually exporting the geotechnical project data from OpenGround Cloud and importing it into QGIS or ArcGIS in the form of multiple CSV files was time-consuming and prone to errors.

The Chaoyang underground pumping station project was designed to pressurize and transfer water to purification plants, improving water supply to 1.5 million residents in China’s Liaoning province. The water would then be distributed throughout the region at a maximum capacity of 440,800 tons per day to help alleviate the water shortage for industrial and agricultural production, the ecological environment, and domestic use. The project, worth CNY 82 million, was expected to promote sustainable economic, social, and environmental development. Liaoning Water Conservancy and Hydropower Survey and Design Research Institute served as the design unit for the project, which featured numerous aboveground and underground structures, including a power plant buried 75 meters underground, a water supply tunnel, a substation, nine pumps, and aboveground management infrastructure. They faced technical, engineering, and coordination challenges managing 13 different disciplines amid a tight timeline. The project area was narrow and presented complicated geological conditions, compounded by the underground plant requiring connection to the power distribution room in the aboveground management zone.

Water scarcity and severe flood risks in China have intensified over time, prompting the government to fund water conservation projects, such as reservoirs and dams. The Dongtaizi Reservoir, located in Linxi County within Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, is one of 172 major water conservancy developments outlined in China’s “National 13th Five-Year Plan” and one of 12 key livelihood projects in Inner Mongolia. This large-scale infrastructure is a vital water conservancy undertaking for the prefecture-level city of Chifeng due to the area’s immediate need for severe flood risk mitigation. The expansive location of the Dongtaizi Reservoir necessitated a precise geological survey, as the site’s terrain was complex. Therefore, the design team required a comprehensive understanding of both the rock mass that would support the prospective dam and the ground’s structural plane. In addition to the project’s surveying demands, the infrastructure design was also multifaceted.

RISE Structural Design, Inc., a Tokyo-based company specializing in structural design and analysis, was tasked with a pipe stress analysis project at a methanol plant in Japan. The project required the company to perform pipe stress analysis on pipes near the plant’s furnace, which operated at temperatures ranging from 300 to 900 degrees Celsius. The company was responsible for delivering accurate assessments and reducing costs for steel materials. One of the challenges was installing spring supports to ensure the piping system’s flexibility to react to the furnace’s extreme temperatures. The project also required effective coordination across various design teams, such as structural and piping, to avoid delays. Traditional workflows, where each discipline conducts their analyses independently and uses different conditions, were not suitable for this project. This traditional approach made it nearly impossible to create 3D data and increased analysis time.

Clark Construction Group was tasked with the construction of a new International Arrivals Facility (IAF) at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a project initiated by the Port of Seattle with a budget of USD 968 million. The project involved the construction of a three-story grand hall building, a new connecting international corridor, and an 85-foot-high pedestrian aerial walkway. The most complex part of the project was the construction and installation of the world’s longest pedestrian bridge over an active airport taxi lane. The bridge’s center span, a 3-million-pound, 320-foot-long structure, had to be constructed at an airport cargo area three miles from the installation site, transported to the installation spot amid a busy airport, and then hoisted 85 feet high to connect to the piers. The project required meticulous planning and sequencing with no room for error, and the airport had to remain fully operational throughout the construction process.

The Golden State Warriors decided to move from their home since 1971, the Oracle Arena, to a new space across the bay in San Francisco. The new project, the USD 1.2 billion Chase Center, was not just an 18,000-seat arena but also included two 11-story office buildings, a broadcast studio, over 20 unique retail locations, 3.2-acres of publicly accessible plazas and open space, and a 925-space, below-grade parking structure. Mortenson | Clark, a joint venture team with decades of experience in constructing sports facilities, faced numerous challenges. The project was set in the Mission Bay neighborhood along the San Francisco Bay, surrounded by other construction projects and an active helipad. The ground was saturated and soft from the nearby water, making it difficult to work on. The Warriors also gave a firm deadline for completion – the start of the 2019-2020 basketball season, which meant the team had to work quickly.

Pestech International Berhad, a company specializing in the manufacture and installation of high-voltage substations, transmission lines, and equipment for utility companies in Asia, was awarded a contract to expand substations at Olak Lempit in Banting, Malaysia. The project aimed to meet the increased power demand in the rapidly growing area. However, the project team faced several challenges. Accessing the site without disrupting neighboring villages and plantations was a significant issue. The team also had to coordinate with another main contractor to deliver a separate section to the substation bays and utilize existing cable trays, ladders, and underground trenches laid by the other contractor from the existing control building. Working within a tight timeline and with a limited budget, Pestech International needed to coordinate its labor resources with other projects on which the organization was simultaneously working. Lastly, the traditional CAD-centric design process was slowing down the design progress and preventing collaboration, leading to countless hours spent manually translating drawings for consistency, finding errors, managing changes across multiple drawings, and creating reports.

EPCOR Utilities, a company that owns and operates electric, water, and natural gas utilities across Canada and the southern United States, was facing a significant challenge with its aging infrastructure. The company's electric distribution system, which provides power to over 400,000 Edmonton customers, was experiencing frequent outages due to the degradation of its assets, including circuits, poles, and transformers. A demographic analysis predicted a 74% increase in the number of assets that would reach end of life over the next 10 years, compared to the previous 10 years. This meant that EPCOR would need to replace 10,000 more assets over the next decade. Furthermore, EPCOR’s capital spending was effectively capped due to a new performance-based rate structure to be implemented in 2018. To maintain system reliability with current resources, despite the forecasted asset failure, EPCOR recognized the need for a new asset management strategy and sought a digital solution to quantify asset health and prioritize assets for proactive intervention and lifecycle replacement.

Precision Valley Communications (PVC), a leading provider of communications network mapping and engineering to the broadband industry, was tasked with a major project to survey and redesign a hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) network for a major cable company in Washington, D.C. The project involved a field survey of the company’s network, including 586 miles of conduit, 2,400 manholes, and over 200,000 multiple-dwelling units. The goal was to complete a major network redesign to move all equipment from manholes to breakout pedestals to reduce rented duct space and increase accessibility for field crews. However, five months into the project, only 21 percent of the 586 miles of survey was completed, putting the USD 145 million project way behind schedule. The delays were not due to a lack of skill or effort, but rather the inefficient software tool that was initially mandated for use in the project. The software resulted in significant workflow impediments and time-consuming database transactions, severely hampering productivity.

Balfour Beatty, a UK-based multinational infrastructure group, was facing challenges in expanding knowledge sharing across its more than 60 companies and improving collaboration on its projects. The group’s Major Projects division was at the forefront of this effort, which included the early implementation of tendering, procurement, and project collaboration systems. The business also sought to standardize many of its information management business processes, including the development of consistent workflows across the group, and human resource strategies to support effective information management. However, the outdated Access databases were proving to be a hindrance in achieving these objectives.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore (RTIO) operates a network of integrated iron ore mine and port facilities across the Pilbara region of Western Australia. To optimize workforce safety, RTIO engaged CADDS Group to conduct site guarding audits for all 17 iron ore plants, complete site verification for high risk assets, and replace or update those assets. The AUD 80 million project required CADDS to obtain data and documentation of existing infrastructure at all sites and complete the guarding work within the plants’ scheduled 12-week shutdown cycles. Prior to this project, CADDS would send a team of drafters to the site to create 2D drawings of the existing facilities. From these 2D drawings, designers would create 3D as-built models. The team used these often-inaccurate models to design and fabricate the new guarding, which was expensive because unique components were required for every install. Furthermore, once on site for the install, CADDS usually found that the new guarding did not fit, resulting in time-consuming, costly rework.

The rollout of 5G has led to a shift in the telecommunications industry towards cost sharing, optimizing contracts between major carriers and tower owners. This has resulted in an increase in requests for load cases and loading scenarios during an analysis cycle, requiring the evaluation of four to five loading combinations to provide cost feedback to clients and carriers. The industry is also seeing an increase in multiple carriers co-locating on the same structure, leading to a surge in loading changes. Additionally, many owners and carriers are proactively analyzing towers to the most current code revision, regardless of the jurisdictionally adopted version of the IBC standards. This can be time-consuming and cumbersome, especially when there are multiple scenarios to evaluate. The data is also less reliable and prone to errors if multiple files need to be updated and modeled individually to capture all the possible loading combinations.

Keystone Engineering was tasked with designing jacket-type substructures for five, 6-megawatt wind turbine generators for the USD 290 million Block Island Wind Farm. The challenge was to optimize the design to mitigate risk, minimize steel weight, and reduce fabrication and installation costs. The design needed to account for the complex aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loading, including extreme loading situations such as turbine control faults and hurricane-force winds. The team had to calculate the loads, model the fatigue performance, and engineer the platforms to withstand various load combinations over a 20-year design life. The project aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of offshore wind as an alternative energy resource for U.S. coastal cities.

Fujian Yongfu Power Engineering was tasked with building a large wind farm in a geographically complex area prone to typhoons, earthquakes, and shifting soil. The location for the wind farm, the China Changle Offshore Wind Farm Area C, is one of the world's deepest locations for a wind farm with an average water depth of between 31 and 45 meters. The company planned to install 62 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 8 megawatts, for a total capacity of 496 megawatts. However, the site's frequent typhoons, unstable soil, and high earthquake risk necessitated the development of particularly strong and stable foundations for each turbine. Traditional methods of offshore wind design proved inadequate, producing expensive designs and failing to accurately simulate the interaction between the soil and a pile with such a large diameter. The company also faced budget constraints, necessitating a cost-effective solution.

The Shaoxing Urban Rail Transit Line 1, the largest infrastructure project in the history of Shaoxing, China, was a complex undertaking due to its confined sub-surface envelope and complex hydrogeological conditions. The CNY 24 billion railway project was mainly underground, requiring the design to pass through a confined sub-surface envelope with the potential for leakage within foundation pits during construction. The project also had to integrate with existing infrastructure assets to serve commuter passengers within the city and connect with the city of Hangzhou along the Hangzhou-Shaoxing inter-city line. The railway passes through Shaoxing’s old town, which features narrow roads with large traffic flows, river courses, 26 bridges, two railways, and cultural and historical protection zones, making planning and traffic organization difficult. These challenges were compounded by issues with integrating the numerous technical interfaces used by the multiple design and construction disciplines, as well as the governmental departments in Shaoxing and Hangzhou.

PT. Waskita Karya (Persero) Tbk was appointed by Indonesia’s Ministry of Transportation to transform the Manggarai Station in South Jakarta into the city’s terminus for long-distance trains. The project involved constructing a new bridge and assembling track panels to connect the existing first-floor mainline track to a new second-floor rail line of the main building. The project was crucial for improving passenger flow and ensuring reliable transport, but it presented significant construction constraints. These included conducting a design review within the 720-day contract period, maintaining train operations throughout construction, and controlling costs on prestressed concrete bridge segments, which accounted for up to 30% of the total project budget. Waskita was also required to take on the design review of the existing contract drawings due to discrepancies with current standards and existing conditions. The team realized that their traditional, paper-based 2D processes were insufficient for these challenges and that they needed a more advanced solution.

The West Virginia Department of Transportation (WVDOT) faced a significant challenge in managing the increasing volume of oversize/overweight load permits due to the boom in shale oil and gas production. The number of these permits issued annually doubled since 2003, reaching 123,000 in 2011. The existing manual process for managing these permits was not sustainable in the long run. The process involved consulting county maps marked with weight restrictions and general guidelines to process permits. Bridge load rating was handled by technicians, but there was no way to incorporate bridge information and run a real-time permitting process. As the trucks got heavier and larger, and the frequency of loads grew higher, the WVDOT realized the need for a more efficient and reliable system.

Thames Water, the UK’s largest water and wastewater services company, faced significant challenges in managing information for the delivery of their capital projects. Prior to the implementation of TWEXnet, information management was not well controlled. Delivery partners were based within Thames Water offices and information was shared via email, CDs, and shared drives. However, after a change in the business model in 2005, the partners were based back in their own offices and the use of multiple systems to share information proved to be neither productive nor secure. Thames Water works with a large number of external contractors to deliver its capital investment works, which involves significant volumes of information including contract documents, design files, and general correspondence pertaining to some 1500 live projects. Each party is responsible for keeping related documentation and activities up to date, essential to the decision-making processes involved in a project. The staff churn that occurs on all construction projects means that having a controlled central repository for information is absolutely essential to ensure efficient delivery and contractual and legal compliance.

Ala Abdulhadi & Khalifa Hawas Consulting Engineering Company (AHCEC) was tasked with the challenge of accommodating the growing number of pilgrims visiting Al-Madinah, the second-holiest city in Islam, located in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia aimed to increase the annual visitor capacity from 8 million to 30 million by 2030. This required a comprehensive plan to expand transportation systems, hospitality facilities, and routes to historical, cultural, and tourist sites, while preserving historical sites. AHCEC was also required to develop a reality model of a 55-square-kilometer section of the city and conduct mobile mapping of 7,000 kilometers of roadways. The project timeline was shortened from two years to one, adding to the complexity of the task.

Global consulting engineering firm Hatch Mott MacDonald was using a conventional CAD-based system to design rail signal systems for its clients worldwide. However, this approach had significant limitations in an industry where building information modeling (BIM) and its processes and standards are becoming critical success factors. Traditional methods meant designs lacked intelligence or connections to related documents, including bills of material (BOM). Designers had no way to model their work in 3D or collaborate on designs, which slowed down projects and made adherence to required standards a challenge. The firm's in-house design workflow, while trusted and proven, was manual, time-consuming, and tedious, with no automated controls to ensure the latest versions of CAD elements were used. Design checking involved significant manual effort, everyone worked sequentially, and there was little collaboration.

The state government of Uttar Pradesh, India, initiated a project to develop a piped water system to ensure equal distribution of treated water to all 128 villages in the Marihan Block in Mirzapur. The project was aimed at improving the quality of life for the 300,000 residents and the many visitors to the significant Hindu temple, Vindhyachal Dham. ATLC Infraconsultants Pvt. Ltd. was contracted to design the project, which needed to continue operations and accommodate population growth through at least 2053, as well as meet state regulations. The project required augmenting the existing water treatment plant, a new pumping station at the water treatment plant, four additional water pumping stations, and 12 service reservoirs, as well as the many kilometers of transmission and distribution mains and house connections with water meters. The design team faced challenges in obtaining a comprehensive view of the undulating topography, which varied in height by as much as 140 meters, and providing alternate route alignment suggestions. They also struggled to analyze the effects of design changes on water pressure and meet the required 90-day deadline with the older tools they were using.

ASGC, a leading construction services and manufacturing facilities provider, was tasked with constructing the Coca-Cola Arena, a state-of-the-art multipurpose arena in Dubai. The arena, spanning half a million square feet with a capacity of 20,000 people, was to be the only all-purpose indoor and air-conditioned arena of its size in the region. The project required meticulous planning and scheduling to manage the many steps and workflows involved. The arena was designed to accommodate large-scale international music concerts, sporting events, and other entertainment events, and was to feature an advanced infrastructure, including four levels of seating and hospitality suites. The project also required the construction of an adaptable layout that could be changed depending on the scale of the event. The challenge was to manage the complex construction process efficiently, ensuring timely completion while maintaining high standards of quality and safety.

Sainsbury’s, one of the UK’s largest retailers, faced a significant challenge in managing its vast and complex estate. The company had thousands of 2D drawings of over 300 petrol stations, nearly 800 convenience stores, and over 600 supermarkets. The goal was to enable Sainsbury’s to make the best use of these 2D assets to answer basic questions about their properties. Previously, this would have involved opening every drawing individually to find the necessary information. This process was not only time-consuming but also inefficient. Furthermore, with the brand’s growth and increasing development of existing stores, some store projects required up to twelve interventions a year, often involving costly surveys for each store. The retail industry's shift towards focusing on existing estates rather than building new ones added to the complexity. Sainsbury’s needed a 'single source of truth' to manage their historical data, which was kept in different places and formats.

LLC Volgogradnefteproekt, a leading independent design firm serving the oil and gas industry in southern Russia, was tasked with delivering an as-built 3D digital model for the seven platforms commissioned for the Vladimir Filanovsky offshore field in the Caspian Sea. The project involved the construction of seven complex facilities, designed by six different companies. The client needed a process for managing engineering and technical information at all stages of the project, from verifying that the technical designs met project requirements, through planning construction schedules, and managing the logistics of materials and equipment delivery. With multiple contractors and subcontractors participating in the project, the client also needed to produce high-quality construction documents and monitor as-built work against the plan. The project was further complicated by a tight deadline imposed by the client and regulated by the government of the Russian Federation.

In West Bucharest, Romania, a land developer initiated a EUR 2.5 million project to construct the city’s first residential building over the subway tunnels. The structure was initially planned as a 10-story building with a basement for parking. As a pioneer project located in the tunnel protection zone, it presented an irregular footprint and required approval from the subway operator, needing to demonstrate minimal displacing of the tunnels and effect on the structural forces. SAIDEL Engineering was tasked with providing structural and geotechnical design, with the goal of reducing the overall effect of the building on the tunnel lining by providing a safe and cost-efficient foundation. The project was complex, requiring SAIDEL Engineering to modify the shape of the footprint to reduce the irregularity of the building, while still complying with its functional and architectural needs, compounded by the mandate to obtain the conservative subway operator’s approval. Having previously been rejected, it subsequently lingered for two years before SAIDEL Engineering’s involvement.