Connected construction site and case study with Arkance System

The value of BIM for infrastructures is no longer in doubt.  It is therefore essential to develop a global strategy for design, construction, maintenance and operation that is compatible with current technological developments, given that the transition to the connected site is accelerating throughout Europe on many projects.

Connected Site
During the construction phase, construction sites are being digitalised through a range of connected solutions, from machine guidance to topographic equipment and remote site monitoring platforms. Communication and data exchange between the field and the office are becoming more fluid in order to increase productivity and accuracy. All data from the field is fed into the single, centralised BIM model in real time. This ensures that the design elements are quickly conformed to the execution. This collaborative management between the office and the field connects the levels, operators, surveyors and the project team to ensure time and quality savings.

Production monitoring
In this boom of "connected site" and digitalization of construction, one of the keys to the efficiency of the echelons is the monitoring of productivity and optimization of operations on the site. The connectivity of the machines allows the generation of productivity reports for a better management of the fleet of machines, to determine potential levers of improvement of the production in order to increase the output of the machines: to limit the downtimes, to fluidify the production cycles and to have an optimal dimensioning of the fleet.

Workflow from office to site
To explain some of these challenges and in particular the collaborative data flow in the context of an Infrastructure construction project, Benjamin LEHRER, a BIM Manager who has worked for egis and BOUYGUES Travaux Public recently presented a workshop illustrating the interactions between the solutions of different software publishers such as Autodesk, Trimble or Oris. This workshop - accessible on YouTube: Atelier BIM INFRASTRUCTURE - ARKANCE SYSTEMS - allows to visualize a complete BIM workflow, from the pre-study phase to the construction site.
 
Case studies
The PORR project in Romania is a concrete and current case study that shows how tomorrow's projects will be able to rely on technologies to enhance the know-how of builders on infrastructure projects. The main issue for PORR was communication and collaboration between the different teams operating on a 1.5km stretch of motorway project.  Two levels of solutions were deployed: 

• At the office level: creation of a collaborative model that allows to link and agglomerate the data produced by designers (located both at PORR's Autichian headquarters, at the design office in Bucharest) and the construction site designers (located several hundred kilometres away and who, moreover, work on different design software). In the context of the current health crisis, the software architecture deployed made it possible to maintain a good level of productivity, while working remotely.
• On site: All the "connected site" solutions have been deployed to allow a fluid exchange of information and its transmission to the project's BIM model: machine guidance, topographic survey by drone, project monitoring on a monitoring platform and augmented reality solutions. This continuum of technologies allows PORR to have optimal site monitoring.

Strabag, for its part, has initiated more than 60 projects that combine BIM and connected construction sites. For example, the A5 project has enabled the realignment of design models, the creation of a quantity survey based on a central model, the creation of a geotechnical model that can be reused on site in order to :

• Coordinate the project via a collaborative BIM platform, 
• Coordinate the project via a collaborative BIM platform,
• Fine-tune the project phases and resources, 
• Integrate project data into the ERP package, 
• Equip machines with machine guidance systems, 
• Aligning performance reports with a model, itself derived from a point cloud, captured by drone.

Interoperability between the various software solutions still needs to be encouraged, as does the standardisation of requirements at European level. These technologies open up new perspectives and make it possible to achieve high levels of ROI, which should finally convince the most sceptical.