A TBI pilot study

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The problem

The AEC landscape faces a myriad of challenges as the complexity of their projects increases. Global trends like population growth, urbanization and the transition towards Smart Cities are just a few examples of the main contributing factors. As a consequence, construction projects require several working phases, ever-growing amount of data and a wide diversity of competencies and skills, often leading to inaccuracies and miscalculations, costly and time-consuming rework. In the last couple of decades, we are witnessing an increase in the digitalization amongst AEC professionals, more specifically, the adoption of BIM (Building Information Modeling). While innovation has simplified a lot of operations, large-size  projects  still  suffer  from  slow communication and complex collaboration processes. Other difficulties are making large design dataset available and updated along the entire working cycle.

The importance of innovation

Innovation is key to overcoming these challenges, especially when triggered by the leaders in the industry. TBI is a major holding company in the engineering and construction industry located in the Netherlands, whose goal is to develop, renew and maintain the physical living environment in a sustainable way. Thanks to its strong group of companies and long experience, TBI is able to perform several types of assignments, from small initiatives to complex, high-profile projects, becoming a reference point for private and public clients. TBI is also one of the corporate partners of  YES!Delft,  the  leading  Tech Incubator in Europe, which Xinaps joined in 2016.

Digital enabler

TBI SSC-ICT is one the daughter companies of TBI that support corporate innovation and has been proactively engaged in the in the innovation process of Xinaps. As a front runner of digitization in the building and construction industry, they have seen the potential benefits of Xinaps for several TBI-companies. When Xinaps asked for a pilot, they have been the valuable connector between Xinaps and Hazenberg Bouw. Important for establishing digital transformation within the TBI holding company. Hazenberg Bouw, embraces the innovators mindset, becoming one of Verifi3D’s first adopters.

The solution

Although there are numerous tools out there performing model checks and data validation, designing an ‘easy-to-use’ integrated solution for different  VDC  professionals  is  complex. One of the all-rounded tools, launched in September  2019,  is  Verifi3D  by Xinaps. Verifi3D  is a cloud-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), which allows classifying building design data, conducting automated checks in compliance with regulations and reporting issues realtime. All in one platform. The solution’s cloud-based structure facilitates the communication between project members in a Common Data Environment  (CDE),  while  the  automated processes unload the operator from the time consuming task of manually validating the design  and  its  consistency.  Verifi3D  further helps professionals stay compliant with global, local  and  project-specific  requirements, as well as with ISO 19650 standards. Valuable  experiences  with  Verifi3D  have been shared by TBI (Techniek, Bouw en Infra).

The results

Hazenberg Bouw is an engineering, construction  and  infrastructure  firm,  which benefits of a wide portfolio of competencies: from apartments and houses to roads, bridges and more, Hazenberg is capable of satisfying the most complex customers’ request. Verifi3D  showed  its  benefits  since  the  very early stage of use. Thanks to its intuitive user interface and simple menu configuration, the operators managed to comfortably use the tool  just  after  a  few  clicks.  Verifi3D’s  main advantage is its user-friendliness: Verifi3D does not require long training hours or extensive previous software knowledge. The Hazenberg team  was  pleased  to  see  a  significant  cut  of hours that otherwise would have been spent on training. Difficulties  in  data  processing  and  format integration are a common challenge when importing large datasets into an on-premise design software. Processing design models could become a cumbersome and time costly operation, especially if users don’t have considerable computational power available.