Information Management and the Challenges Faced in Construction

When discussing Information Management, it’s worth starting with what is included under the umbrella term, in the Architectural, Engineering, Construction and Owner/Operator (AECO) industry.

Information management in construction touches upon the collecting, organising, and disseminating information related to a construction project. This information can include design plans, cost estimates, and schedules. It also covers data generated during construction, such as progress reports and quality control data. During the operational phase, Information Management encompasses project approval documentation; contracts, agreements, facilities operations, as well as property management information.

Effective Information Management is critical for ensuring that all stakeholders have access to the information they need, to make informed decisions as well as reduce the risk of errors and delays on a construction project.

The term is sometimes interchangeably used alongside BIM Management, but there are significant differences between the two. BIM management is a subset of information management, but it specifically focuses on the 3D digital model of the building and the data associated with it. On the other hand, information management encompasses all the information related to a construction project, including but not limited to BIM.

So, what are the gaps we want to highlight?

The construction industry has faced several challenges in recent years. Some of the most notable include:

Labour Shortage

Due to the impacts of Brexit and an aging workforce, the construction industry needs more young people to enter the sector. BIM / Information Managers have increasingly been changing jobs, putting pressure on companies who lose their knowledge and skillset. Thus, leading to increased competition for skilled workers and higher labour costs. Therefore, buying in expertise as needed starts to become a very viable option.

Increasing Costs

The overall cost of materials and labour has been rising, resulting in more difficulties for construction companies to compete and remain profitable. Additionally, there’s an increasing demand for more sustainable, energy-efficient, smart buildings - which consequences in a higher price tag overall.

Delays and Budgets Overrun

Construction projects often need more time and budgets overrun, making costs increase and overall profitability decreased. That is due to factors such as changes in the scope of the project, lack of proper planning and other unforeseeable outcomes.

Lack of Productivity

The industry continues to heavily rely on manual labour and manual processes, and there is a lack of technology integration in many projects. Additionally, with training quite often seen as a “nice to have”, finding more efficient and new ways of working will be missed, contributing to further productivity issues.

Complex regulatory and legal environment

The construction industry is heavily regulated. Compliance with various codes, laws and standards can be both complex and time-consuming. Despite the benefits, this can lead to added delays and costs.

Climate change and Natural Disaster

Climate change is also a challenge faced, causing increased natural disasters such as floods, droughts, and hurricanes, damaging construction sites, and delaying project progress.

The above list is not exhaustive but shows the main issues the industry has been encountering lately. Majority of these can be dealt with the use of effective Information Management. As the process helps with planning, relocating and effectively using all the resources involved in the venture.

How can Symetri help you?

Symetri offers BIM consulting services, software solutions and training courses which help our clients use Information Management effectively. Working with us can be the first step to addressing the lack of productivity and bridging the gap in a labour shortage.

Our multinational BIM consulting team are experienced in all stages of projects on a worldwide scale, and can support you with:

-       BIM Standards, methods and procedures

-       BIM Management documentation

-       BIM documentation peer review

-       Digital implementation and BIM strategy development

-       Or we can even be part of your team for one or several projects that you need support on.

If you would like to discuss your requirements or any of our BIM Consulting services, please contact us to see how we can help by calling us on 0345 370 1444 or emailing info@symetri.co.uk.

 

On-Demand | What's New in Sovelia Vault

Sovelia Vault is an Autodesk Vault Add-in built to enhance Vault workflows and processes, you can automate and control repetitive design tasks.

Take a look at our on-demand webinar to see how Sovelia Vault streamlines your Autodesk Vault use, helping you to automate routines and providing a complete overview of processes.

The webinar covers:

• What is Sovelia Vault
• How to automate and control daily work in Autodesk Vault add-in
• Introduce new key functionalities and features including Watermarking on PDF, DWF files and Model state support for secondary file formats.
  

Interested in learning more about Sovelia Vault please visit our website or contact us on 0345 370 1444 or email info@symetri.co.uk

Webinar Recording | Everything you need to know about BIM | ISO 19650 Certification

Through BIM (Building Information Management), we can manage the information of a built asset through its whole life cycle, from initial design all the way through to construction, maintenance, and finally de-commissioning.

Through collaboration between engineers, owners, architects, and contractors in a common data environment, information can seamlessly flow between these disciplines and offers huge benefits when following BIM practices.

Symetri work in partnership with LRQA (formally Lloyd’s Register) in the delivery of ISO 19650-2 Certification. This webinar covers the following:

·         What is BIM and why should you consider ISO 19650 certification?

·         Industry trends

·         Introduction to our partner LRQA (formally Lloyd's Register) and meet some of their assessors

·         What is involved in the certification process?

·         Extra requirements for organisations who are already certified

·         Training and support

Watch the webinar here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EF73JwrQwg

For further information, visit our website: https://www.symetri.co.uk/buildings-infrastructure/buildings-infrastructure-consultancy/bim-advisory/bim-level-2-accreditation-certification-iso-19650-2

 

 

What’s new in Autodesk Revit 2023 for Structures

Each year Autodesk releases an improved version of Autodesk Revit, with new features. Today, I will focus on new features specifically for structures.

In the Autodesk Revit 2023 release, the structural tools build on the core functionality of reinforced concrete modelling and steel fabrication modelling, but also the new analytical automation. Here are the key features and tools relating to concrete and steel modelling.

Visualisation of Rebar in 3D View

Making rebar visible in a 3D view has been simplified. With the rebar selected, in the view visibility states dialogue box, you only have the view unobscured option to tick. The rebar will automatically view as a solid when your view is in the Fine Level of Detail.

        

Propagate Rebar

A new feature is the Propagate Rebar; with the rebar selected in a host object, the propagate rebar tool will appear. You can select individual or multiple ‘like’ hosts to copy the rebar.

Displaced Rebar

A pasted feature that now works with rebar, select the rebar in a host object and use the standard displace elements tool to reposition the rebar in your view as desired. You can add path lines and reset the displaced bars.

Multi Leader Tags for Rebar

Use the standard tag by category tool to tag a rebar set, you can add additional bars from that set to the tag; you can also control the leader lines with multi or single leaders.

                                                                                   

Analytical Automation

In Autodesk Revit 2023, we now have Analytical Driven Modelling; this differs from the derived analytical model as contextual, analytical elements are not created automatically when the physical model is created. We have new feature capabilities such as Analytical Member, Analytical Panel, Analytical Node, and Analytical Openings.

We also have a new Automation feature to generate a structural analytical model based on selected physical elements.

                               

Steel Connections Automation

The Connection Automation feature can automatically apply popular typical steel connections and create your own libraries by expanding/customising the predefined libraries. The customisable automation rules for the steel connections are run by the Dynamo player. 

                                              

To learn more about Autodesk Revit, please visit our product page or call us on 0345 370 1444 or email info@symetri.co.uk. 

                                    

Autodesk Fusion 360 – What is the Product Design Extension?

Autodesk have released another extension for Fusion 360 on 18^th Jan 2022.

The extension is the start of a new set of product design tools to help automate multiple processes that tend to take longer if executed individually. This automation of events is, the beginning of how Autodesk will add automated workflows into Fusion 360.

The new features are manufacturing process aware, meaning they are material property driven allowing multiple features to be added in one command. This is similar to how sheet metal works currently in Fusion 360. These rule-based features mean that designers now have control over how they design plastic components.

The plastic commands are only the beginning of how this new extension will shape the way we automate in the application.

Autodesk currently has the following to offer,

• Assign and arrange materials
• Web
• Boss
• Snap fit
• Geometric Pattern

NOTE: Access to these tools/commands are only available when you purchase the Product Design Extension (PDE).

Plastics Rules

The following commands are at the heart of the new extension:

Assign Plastic Rule – This assigns the rule that a component will use to automatically control the properties of plastic features, physical material and thickness.

Manage Plastics Rule – This command manages the use of plastics rules in your design automatically.

Some tips to apply and manage:

• Plastic rules in your design are active to the document. Plastic rules in the library are stored in the cloud.
• Remember to assign a rule when you start your design.
• You can set a rule as default by right-clicking and choosing “set as default”.

Web

The web command is part of the out of the box Fusion 360 solution but with the Product Design Extension users can now add more to this feature automatically adding fillets and draft angles.

With all three features being controlled by material and thickness and the addition of adding fillets and a draft angle means these features are added more quickly

Boss

From a sketch with points this new feature will create a boss with a fastener that can be manipulated in terms of head and drive properties.

The preview of this can be seen with one click.

You can see how well the preview looks and how the section moves as you move around the model.

NOTE: As you start to use these additional features you will see the dialog boxes have pre-sets, if you are familiar with Autodesk Inventor Professional you will know how beneficial this pre-set can be, this is a great new addition to the dialog boxes.

As you complete the feature you will see that all elements of this command have been updated in the 3D model but there is still so much to show here, what happens when you make a change to the material which controls the thickness?

The shell is controlled with the thickness from the material rule. The component is activated, and the rule is then changed.

These changes reflect the shell, and the thickness is updated.

Now this is a very useful addition. Like we have seen in the sheet metal environment for a while in Autodesk Inventor and Fusion 360 these types of changes are crucial in our workflow to save time.

Snap Fit

The snap fit command is used to create cantilever snap fit features in your plastic components. These features allow solid bodies to have fastening design incorporated into them in a simple click.

 

Parallel and perpendicular hooks can be applied by using sketched points.

Geometric Pattern

The geometric pattern tool will give you the ability to create a pattern using size and distribution gradients. It can also be used for custom shapes.

 

I think favourite addition in this release is the additional assembly features. Keep an eye out for the next blog and video featuring other additions in the Jan 2022 release. 

Three main goals of integrated PLM

What is most important when looking for a PLM system?

PLM is about information, how it is produced and handled and shared across a whole company. It can be considered as the backbone of everyday operations and a practice that helps define and reinforce the competitive advantage.

When considering PLM and the software you use to implement it you should consider its reliability in achieving the following three main goals:

• Design efficiency and productivity
  Are you able to deliver the correct design data to any user, on any device, across the company? By securely storing and managing engineering design data and related documents, you can quickly find and re-use design and engineering data.

• Cost reduction
  Are you able to free up design engineers to focus on innovation rather than administration? By integrating product information with Procurement and Production you can deliver improved quality at lower costs.

• Speed to market
  Have you automated data sharing across your supply chain? By ensuring data accuracy for each delivered area, you can support field management and turn users into advocates; favourably impacting reputation and facilitating sales growth.

Make it easy, make IT smarter

PLM addresses the day-to-day issues that may arise from inconsistent information sources and methodologies but can only do this if they’re all brought together in one platform. Such a platform can provide an automatic, and automated, connection between the constituent phases and practices involved in the overall PLM process.

Sovelia provides a lean approach to PLM

Our Sovelia digital platform for engineering and PLM enables you to provide your teams with the solutions they need for seamless collaboration, to link your processes and systems, and optimise your data. Sovelia drives cost-efficient practices by giving you the tools to create, innovate, and manage, effortlessly.

For further information about Sovelia or to discuss your PLM requirements please contact Symetri.  

What are the Autodesk Inventor add-ins available to me?

You may not know that there are several add-ins available to you within Autodesk Inventor. Therefore, this on-demand webinar explores Autodesk Inventor’s complete portfolio of powerful add-ins, which are included as part of the Autodesk Product Design and Manufacturing Collection subscription.

They include:

• Tolerance Analysis
• Inventor Nesting
• Inventor CAM
• Inventor Nastran
• Factory Design Utilities

These add-ins are designed to supercharge your Autodesk Inventor workflows and drive efficiency and help you get the most out of your subscription.

By watching this webinar, you will learn:

• Which applications are available with your subscription?
• An introduction to use cases for each add-in
• Digital Prototyping to save time and money 

You can download the  recording by completing the form on our webpage:

https://www.symetri.co.uk/insights/video-library/autodesk-inventor-add-ins-what-is-available-for-me