SoftTech is transforming AEC domain, and is committed to Digital India Mission

We want every smart city to adopt CAD or BIM based online building plan approval system.

- Vijay Gupta, Chairman and CEO SoftTech Engineers Limited

Could you brief us on SoftTech Engineers and its activities in India, especially SoftTech's core strengths and competencies?

SoftTech holds the unique position for being able to offer solutions and services which encompass the entire project lifecycle of construction projects starting from building plan approval to facility management. We have developed award-winning and commercially successful software products that have received wide acceptance from both public and private organizations in India as well as foreign countries.           

Our products are highly configurable and flexible. We have developed alliances with softwaregiants like Microsoft, RIB and Autodesk to integrate our products with their solutions. While most other Indian IT companies in the AEC domain are focused primarily on services, we at SoftTech are proud to have created intellectual property through our products which are at par with their international counterparts.               

How do you assess the scope and potential of software solutions for the infrastructure space and what are the trends in this area?

There is a tremendous potential for software solutions in the infrastructure space. The current situation will make the companies revisit their business strategies, making the way for technology adoption. Technology players like SoftTech will have a better opportunity to innovate and be a part of this changed momentum.            

In terms of trends, the pendulum of technology is shifting towards concepts like big data, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). And SoftTech is completely working along these lines. In terms of product innovation, we have been focusing a lot on AI, mobility and cloud solutions while utilizing these trends.

What has been the impact of Big Data analytics and advancements in computation & communication systems on conception /development and construction of smart cities?

We are living in the age of data and today, everything is linked to data. In terms of smart cities, big data and analytics have a bigger role to play. Be it infrastructure development, traffic management, public facilities, or any other people-oriented schemes, the data will play a bigger role in smoother and quicker implementation.         

Let's take an example of data collected through online construction permits approvals. Such data will help the government to measure the speed and trend of urbanization in any particular area or municipality. The analytics from such data will enable the government to predict the upcoming load on infrastructure services and will facilitate smarter decision making to define the roadmap for future infrastructure development.  Moving further, the technologies like machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will build on the momentum of big data in terms of data-driven intelligent and objective decisions. I firmly believe that the future belongs to data and data-driven decisions.    

How do you assess the current development of 'Smart Cities Mission' of the government of India? What contributory role SoftTech Engineers has been playing in this area?

The 'Smart Cities Mission' has indeed brought an impetus for urban growth. India had been lagging behind in the quality of urban infrastructure as compared with the developed countries. This mission has initiated a huge change and the gap between our cities and the cities from developed countries is narrowing rapidly. This has also helped in elevating the lifestyle experience in our urban landscape. If you look at our product positioning and offering, you will come to know that SoftTech is very much committed to the overall vision and mission of Digital India. As an efficient solution partner of the government agencies, SoftTech has been re-inventing itself again and again to drive smoother e-governance practices.               

Designed to back the government initiatives in smart cities and ease of doing business, AutoDCR®, our flagship product, makes the building plan scrutiny and approval process simpler, seamless, and a lot faster. By reading CAD drawings for building plans and mapping them to the development control regulations, AutoDCR® brings greater efficiency and effectiveness in the approval process.  For a smart city, a fully automated online construction permit approval system is a must to meet the demands of housing development. With our AutoDCR® software, we have been playing our small but very significant part towards the fulfillment of 'Smart City Mission'.        

Could you cite a couple of examples for the sort of solutions SoftTech has provided in Smart City projects in India?

We have been working with numerous government bodies and private customers, both in India and abroad. One of our prestigious clients is the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). MCGM receives on an average 5000 applications for building plan approvals per year. Most of these applications are for complex high rise buildings or township schemes or large commercial buildings. Such projects used to take a very long time to receive approvals.             

We were asked to implement our AutoDCR system in MCGM for the Building Plan Department and the system was rolled out successfully in all zonal and wards offices across Mumbai. Currently, more than 48 officials and 2000+ architects are using the system. The average building plan approval time has reduced from 99 days to less than 45 days. MCGM was able to streamline proposal submission, drawing scrutiny, proposal tracking, and proposal approval. This process efficiency and speed enabled MCGM to contribute to India's rankings in Ease of Doing Business 2019 Index.    

What were the major bottlenecks /challenges while offering and implementing the solutions in such projects?

We have to deal with people of a traditional mindset who are reluctant about the adoption of new systems. Since there is a complete transition from manual processes to automated system, the learning curve is steep and requires a change in mindset. On the other hand, we have to deal with the conventional approach to project management. Here, there are two major hurdles - inadequate industry standardization and data management.    

SoftTech has been working proactively to overcome the first challenge by conducting workshops and training for our products. Moreover, we plan phase-wise implementation to make the entire process of migration simpler and effective.               

To overcome the second challenge, we offer highly flexible software that could be configured easily, along with point specific customization. We also take care of data migration and data management through specialized tools.     

What is your roadmap for the Indian Smart City Projects? How do you assess the future trends?

SoftTech's innovation of automated Building Plan Approval Management System through reading CAD drawings was a game-changer and has now become a de facto part of smart city initiatives promoted by the government of India.  We want every smart city to adopt CAD or BIM based online building plan approval system.               

For construction and infrastructure in smart city projects, future trends are for cloud, mobility, AI, ML and IoT. I foresee a great future for adoption of these technologies in smart city developments. Everything shall be interconnected, human intervention will be eliminated, decisions will be data driven and real world will be preceded by virtual world through augmented and virtual reality. That is how the future landscape for smart cities will unfold. This will result higher standard of living, elimination of accidents, better disaster management, safety, transparency and ease of doing business.           

What is your take on e-waste management? What are the steps initiated to ensure the same in India?

I firmly believe e-waste management is one of the critical issues today. The improper dismantling and processing of e-waste lead to a negative impact on human health and our natural balance. I will request the government agencies to have strong and proper policies regarding the collection, management, and recycling of e-waste.       

What differentiates SoftTech and the solutions it provides in the market?

With its domain expertise in the construction industry, SoftTech has correlated the relevant engineering and construction workflow with corresponding requirements of document generation and sharing, thereby expediting the tedious process of managing construction drawings and documents.      

Moreover, the company provides AutoDCR that offers 'BPAMS' (Building Plan Approval Management System) which aids architects or consultants to upload the building proposals through the internet to the approving authorities enabling them to track the progress. Also, this helps in eliminating human errors and speeds up the building plan scrutiny to a great extent.                

Since our inception, we have been constantly innovating ourselves, and this journey will go on. Our zeal for innovation differentiates us from others. Our recent partnership with RIB Software will allow us to concentrate our efforts in driving 21st-century state-of-the-art innovation for construction and building permit approvals. In the coming years, BIM and GIS are going to change the landscape of the AEC domain, and we are mapping all our products to be in sync with this change. True to our tagline, SoftTech will constantly keep working towards empowering transformation in the AEC industry through continuous innovation.        

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