Autodesk organized its annual AEC Day in Malaysia recently, which saw the attendance of over 300 industry players coming together to network and share insights. Gianluca Lange, Regional Industry Manager for AEC, Autodesk ASEAN was present to highlight current challenges faced in the AEC industry.
AEC stands for Architecture, Engineering and Construction which is a segment of solutions specially catered for architecture; building owners, operations and management; construction; mechanical, electrical and plumbing; as well as structural engineering.
Lange said, “Productivity continues to be a great priority in the field of AEC.
“Raising productivity requires a sound understanding of business operations and competition, coupled with a balanced use of technology and human resources to deliver the best value proposition in the marketplace.”
Because of rapidly changing opportunities and challenges faced by the building and construction industry, Lange added that he sees, architects, engineers and builders being held accountable for the efficiency, productivity, profitability as well as sustainability of a project.
“Earlier, AEC teams would take care of their collaboration and data management needs on an ad-hoc basis using whatever tools were at hand, such as file naming schemes, open firewall ports, VPN, FTP, or unmanaged fire sharing services. But these methods no longer scale to serve the burgeoning needs of the industry.”
Further, design, engineering and construction professionals are facing complex business challenges. For example, they need to:
•Deliver projects with intelligent model-based design to meet BIM (Building Information Modeling) mandates from governments and project owners
•Conduct energy analysis and construction simulation early and often to make more informed design and construction decisions
•Improve team collaboration by accessing cloud-based services and mobile applications
•Produce compelling visualizations to win new business and communicate with stakeholders
IT trends in the AEC field
At the same time, rapidly developing network, cloud, and mobile technologies have created new ways to deploy collaboration and data management capabilities across the entire project team.
“Considering these issues, there is a need for the industry to explore new approaches using the right technologies and this is where the industry will head into in the near future.
“When we consider the best technologies required for this industry, we are looking for an approach that helps provide AEC project teams with a complete, accurate, digital view of their project.
He pointed out that another important aspect is the accessibility to information across the project lifecycle as we are beginning to see different work styles in the industry where professionals are constantly on-the-go, reviewing and even editing their work whenever and wherever they need it.
AEC requirements
AEC businesses require straightforward, easy-to-consume ways to meet their needs.
“In talking to our customers, most share the same sentiments that they face great difficulty in implementation. They tell us there is no reason to use a solution that takes 6 months to deploy on projects they need to mobilize in days or weeks,” said Lange.
He added that what AEC businesses really need are flexible levels of implementation, starting with a lightweight, ad-hoc, bottoms-up way for a team to collaborate easily; a more formal but still accessible project-based solution to include both internal and external team members; and finally, robust, enterprise-strength, network-based data management for managing the information essential to BIM process with flexible deployment options.
Lange recommended, “Autodesk BIM 360 is Autodesk’s vision for collaboration and data management in AEC, which is exactly the new approach described earlier – to provide AEC project teams with a complete, accurate, digital view of their project, with access to information across the project lifecycle from wherever they need it, be it the office, the web, or even the field.”
He also said he has seen the use of BIM reduce up to 20 percent the total cost of a project.
Benefits
By getting the right information to the right people at the right time, multi-discipline teams can make better decisions and minimize mistakes and rework. Bringing stakeholders and disciplines together with more accurate information and analysis can yield fully informed decisions and higher quality outcomes throughout the project lifecycle.
With a single source of truth and up-to-date information and model aggregation, efficiency can be increased throughout the project lifecycle – from concept to design, construction, and operation. Outcomes become more predictable and delivery of projects have higher chance of profit and less risk of loss.
Design technology is integral in not only the creation and construction of new buildings, but also in helping stakeholders – including architects, engineers, contractors and owners – derive notable cost and time savings. Processes like Building Information Modelling (BIM) are helping transform these industries. BIM solutions for the construction industry are helping them reduce risk; optimize design; deliver more successful, predictable project outcomes and win new business.
AEC industry trends
In the last few years, the emphasis on IT has been driving businesses across sectors to continue adopting technologies that can help enhance efficiency and save costs in view of the economic downturn.
“Digital design technologies are just one of the many solutions used to provide such advantage, just by allowing them to experience their ideas before they become a reality. We believe companies that continue to invest in technology that gives them the competitive edge will most likely be able to weather through any economic uncertainty,” said Lange.
Design technology enables customers to create digital models and workflows that can be used to visualize, simulate and analyze their designs. This does not only help save time and money, but it also improves collaboration, reduce errors and speed time to market.
New technologies are changing what’s possible.
Autodesk BIM solutions take advantage of powerful technical innovations, including reality capture, cloud computing, and mobile access.
“We believe that as we gear up for a market recovery globally, we will be seeing a lot more focus on how technology can be used towards gaining competitive edge. We can expect to see an upward trend in technology spending when governments and organizations continue to look at investing in technology.
“As energy and material prices rise, and we witness the unintended consequences of past design decisions, Autodesk recognizes the vital role that design can play in creating a more sustainable future and the role of technology is central to a sustainable design.”
