Bentley Systems covers the full gamut of AEC technology.

Ryan Postnikoff, Bentley Systems Construction Services Director

Bentley Systems, the infrastructure engineering software company provide innovative software to advance the world's infrastructure - sustaining both the global economy and environment. Its  industry-leading software solutions are used by professionals, and organizations of every size, for the design, construction, and operations of roads and bridges, rail and transit, water and wastewater, public works and utilities, buildings and campuses, and industrial facilities. “Bentley Systems covers the full gamut of AEC technology—from engineering, design, construction, and creating and curating digital twins,” states Ryan Postnikoff, Bentley Systems Construction Services Director. Excerpts from the interview…

The AEC industry adopted technology, specifically for the design phase, decades ago. It is now a novelty to see a drafting table today. While engineering and design have embraced digital workflows, it is not as evident when it comes to construction. Often, paper-based and unstructured data become the norm, and they prove to be problematic during asset turnover and management.

Contractors and EPCs choosing to extend their digital work practices to construction are finding significant value in the safer, more efficient execution of their projects. Through digital work practices, construction teams can realize benefits like up-to-date documents on their tablet and the ability to directly report issues and RFIs from the field with photos, a description, and assignments rather than walking back to the office. The extended value of this work practice is the quality of information and data are significantly improved come handover time. This situation enables a smoother, more effective transition into an evergreen digital twin for the owner of the asset.

If we imagine moving from a digital workflow (in design) to a non-digital workflow (during construction) and back to digital workflow (for digital twin), there are two instances where information must be converted, opening up the project to risks of data being misplaced or, worse, lost in translation. By maintaining an all-digital workflow throughout the lifecycle of the asset development and life, these conversion points can be minimized and give us greater trust in the data that we are looking at daily.

What has been the impact of the pandemic on the AEC space and on adoption of various tech-enabled solutions?

It is no secret the construction industry has been slow to adopt technology, comparative to other industries. This situation has been positively changing in the last few years, but the pandemic has really accelerated interest in technology adoption among construction companies. Whereas collaboration and communication utilizing 4D models were already becoming a regular occurrence, the pandemic really shone the spotlight on 4D scheduling as projects worked to re-baseline schedules due to the initial shock of lockdowns and the added constraints of new HSE protocols.

Where the real cultural change has been accelerated, however, is in the field mobility and digital project management space. There, contractors have been embracing new technologies that rid themselves of paper-based work practices and are helping them in going digital by ensuring that teams have the correct information that they need daily at their fingertips. By digitalizing their daily progress, RFI and issue identification, and inspections reports, field staff are minimizing travel time throughout the day and decreasing in-person contact by transferring information digitally rather than through paperwork. This practice has led to a positive impact on the teams' safety and the field staff's productivity.

What are the major pain points in faster adoption of such tools?

The pandemic really forced the hand of industry to speed up digital workflow adoption. As we have seen, humans are incredibly resilient in times of challenge and can rapidly adopt new practices for the common good. When we get back to business as usual, organizations need to maintain the momentum that they have generated in their digital journey. However, it behooves leadership to address the human challenges of any business process change - and digital transformation is no different. Pain points will include the natural tendency to go back to old work practices—such as binders and maybe a couple custom Excel sheets— and there will always be the pervasive pushback to any change to jobs. As with any organizational change, a proactive plan that determines key objectives, sets timeframes, and ensures a stringent communications plan will go a long way to ensuring success. Leadership will want to regularly review these objectives and timeframes and be sure to set a final deadline for achieving certain outcomes. One example is an all-digital inspections workflow, which will lead to field efficiencies and more inspections completed in a workday, meaning more rapid payment.

How do you envision the future trends to unfold in the AEC domain?

The shear amount of data that is created in design and engineering is shadowed by the data created during construction. While the creation of information is only expanding, some in industry estimate that we only really analyze and utilize less than 1% of that. This data is being generated at a rapid pace and much of it is, in fact, structured. Putting all this data together for valuable insights provides opportunities for project analytics to move from trailing indicators to predictive and even prescriptive analytics. Therefore, our data can drive our decision-making in real time so that we are reacting to today's challenges and not those that occurred three or four days ago.

What contributory role is your firm playing in the rebuilding processes?

Bentley Systems covers the full gamut of AEC technology—from engineering, design, construction, and creating and curating digital twins. At the construction stage, Bentley's SYNCHRO construction portfolio provides project teams with the ability to manage and execute their projects in a collaborative web-based and mobile environment, regardless if they have a 3D model. SYNCHRO Control allows project management teams to ensure that everyone is working off the same documents and data. It provides innovative solutions like PDF planset overlays on project maps, where team members can visualize their projects and interact with the data by creating and tagging RFIs, field issues, and daily reports to the plansets and maps. It helps slow the learning curve, ensuring greater adoption to make project teams safer and more efficient. At the detailed planning level, SYNCHRO 4D is a powerful tool for planners and estimators to leverage their project 3D models, generate accurate estimates of key quantities, and create a true 4D schedule to simulate construction activities before a boot even hits the ground. Bentley's SYNCHRO team is working with many of our user organizations to rapidly adopt efficient workflows for their projects using the SYNCHRO construction portfolio.

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