Fills the Technology Gaps in Integrated Project Delivery, Between Design Engineering and the Construction Workface
London – The Year in Infrastructure 2013 Conference – 29 October 2013 – Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced that its forthcoming ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server, the first commercial off-the-shelf system for managing the lifecycle of construction work packages, has been shaped and is now being validated by leading engineering, procurement, and construction firms through their participation in Bentley’s early access program. The software is scheduled for commercial release in early 2014.
ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server uniquely “completes the reach” for construction information mobility by spanning the conspicuous software and process gaps between engineering content and workface planning. The importance of finally addressing and improving construction work packaging information flows was confirmed in the annual survey of priorities of the global project delivery officers of leading EPCs and EPCMs at the Bentley Project Delivery Forum held last month in Sonoma, Calif., U.S.A. The 33 attending executives ranked initiatives related to work packaging as highest on the scales of meriting their “critical and urgent” attention, and on which they would most like to focus for better project delivery performance. McGraw Hill Construction’s just-released SmartMarket Report on Construction Information Mobility underscored the pervasive breadth of this opportunity, indicating that, to date, barely half of the contractors surveyed track such information flows even within their own firms, with only 20 percent tracking information flows such as work packages, externally.
The software’s innovative capabilities serve as a timely response to the Construction Industry Institute’s (CII’s) call for “advanced work packaging” to become an industry best practice for defining the flow of information exchange between engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and handover. In the July 2013 Research Team (RT) 272 report (by what CII describes as its largest and best-credentialed task force ever) Advanced Work Packaging: Design through Workface Execution, CII includes a case study that assesses the value of Advanced Work Packaging as enabling a 10 percent reduction in total installed cost, with increased safety, in comparison to typical practice today. The key is an integrated approach spanning and connecting discipline-and-system-oriented Engineering Work Packages (EWPs), through geospatially defined 3D Construction Work Packages (CWPs), into component-level Installation Work Packages (IWPs), with pervasive change management enabled to cope with inevitable project realities.
CEO Greg Bentley (having been inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Construction on October 20, 2013) said, “The timing is auspicious for our major new construction offering, as we are now bringing to market what I believe to be the only software that can enable the new recommendations, and consequent project performance improvements, of CII RT 272 for Advanced Work Packaging. The addition of Construction Work Package Server extends the reach of ProjectWise functionality all the way through ConstructSim workface planning, made possible by leveraging our i-model deliverables and our eB/Information Manager (eB/IM) to maintain the relationships and changes at the level of construction component instances, across EWPs, CWPs, IWPs, and related enterprise systems for procurement and crafts. And I think only Bentley Systems could make this work for projects that start with our own design tools or others – including SmartPlant 3D and/or PDMS – in any combination.”
He added, “By addressing construction work packaging this comprehensively, projects can now go beyond merely ‘visualization for statusing’ to ‘proactively progressing,’ and, hence, from schedule simulation to schedule improvement. With Construction Work Packaging Server and, in conjunction with Bentley Navigator and ConstructSim, we complete the reach of ProjectWise from ‘Workhorse for Work Packaging’ to ‘Powerhouse for Project Performance.’ Connected by Bentley CONNECT cloudservices and our field apps, these comprehensive new offerings will complete the reach of consumerization-enabled information mobility, to accelerate the ongoing and important industrialization of infrastructure construction.”
Commenting on his EPCM firm’s early access experiences with ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server, Terry Erhart, Global Construction Processes & Technology Director at Hatch, said, “ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server will assist the project team to meet its scheduled dates, and will provide timely project status that will increase Construction Management staff efficiency, will reduce man-hours, both in the home office and at the site, and will assist in improving overall field productivity.”
ProjectWise in Construction
Bentley’s ProjectWise collaboration servers have become the established mainstay for work sharing and engineering content management for the:
• ENR Top Design Firms (25 of Top 25, 46 of Top 50, and 82 of Top 100).
But increasingly, their reach has been extended throughout integrated project delivery among the:
• ENR Top Design-Build Firms (18 of Top 25, 26 of Top 50), and
• ENR Top Contractors (20 of Top 25, 29 of Top 50).
For example, ProjectWise is playing a key role in Consolidated Contractors Company’s (#17 in 2012 ENR Top 225 International Contractors) Midfield Terminal Building of the Abu Dhabi Airport project, a 2013 Be Inspired Awards finalist in the Innovation in Construction category. This USD 3.2 billion, 750,000-square-meter project will provide passenger and cargo facilities, duty-free shops, and restaurants for up to 40 million people per year. The X-shaped structure is located between two runways, and the complexity of the structure in both design and shape presented challenges in terms of engineering, construction, and procurement. Consolidated Contractors Company met these challenges using ProjectWise, Bentley’s AECOsim Building Designer, and other Bentley BIM solutions. “The client had a set of very demanding, ambitious and quite unique specifications,” said Essam El-Absi, of Consolidated Contractors Company. “Completion required a totally BIM-driven project and with several decades of experience with Bentley’s products, we knew that they were robust and capable of handling a mega project of this nature.”
ConstructSim and Bentley Navigator
ConstructSim, which is enabled by Bentley Navigator for dynamic project review and analysis, provides for the visual creation of work packages, workface planning, and progress status visualization. Through its integration with ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server, ConstructSim becomes even more dynamic and able to provide immersive status updates that lead to status progression.
ConstructSim has been instrumental in the AUD 52 billion development of the Greater Gorgon gas fields on Barrow Island, a protected nature reserve off the northwest coast of Australia. The project, also a 2013 Be Inspired Awards finalist in the Innovation in Construction category, includes the construction of a three-train liquefied natural gas plant. Restrictive procedures for handling equipment and materials created logistical challenges that were answered using ConstructSim to reduce work package production time by 90 percent and save millions of dollars. According to Abel Vera, the Last Planner Department lead for Gorgon constructor Kellogg Joint Venture Gorgon, “ConstructSim has become the glue on the project and enabled us to achieve a substantial retur
n on investment on the planning effort alone, not to mention the improved collaboration with the field to deliver them truly executable work.”
Comprehensive Work Packaging
The capabilities of Bentley’s ProjectWise Construction Work Package Server are comprehensively combined with and augmented by other Bentley offerings, including:
• i-models – pervasive enablers of information mobility serving as conveyors for AECO deliverables; i-models are the core means for bringing data into the new server;
• SpecWave Composer – providing specifications (essential elements of every work package) and engineering standards inputs into construction workflows that can be personalized to the viewer’s role in the project;
• Bentley Transmittal Services – empowering infrastructure organizations to intelligently manage the distribution of work packages to subcontractors and other relevant personnel;
• mobile apps, such as Field Supervisor and Navigator Mobile – enabling workers in the field to access, review, and/or act on work packages on site, and to easily provide progressing and inspection information back into the server, where it will be used to update the real-time status of the project.
For additional information about Bentley’s software and services facilitating construction information mobility, visit www.bentley.com/construction.
About Bentley Systems, Incorporated
Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,000 colleagues in 50 countries, more than $500 million in annual revenues, and since 2005 has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions. Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities. To download the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the top public- and private-sector owners of infrastructure based on the value of their cumulative infrastructure investments, visit www.bentley.com/500.