Digitalization and Optimization of Precast Production Facilities

JORDAN WATKINS: Welcome to our class for Digitalization and Optimization of Precast Production Facilities. My name is Jordan Watkins, and my co-speaker, who cannot be here with me today, is Mark Harrison from the American Progress Group.

A little bit about us as speakers. I am the Chief Executive Officer of the PTAC Companies. I've got 10 years' experience as a professional engineer focused on design and detailing of precast concrete. In addition to my role as engineer with PTAC Companies, I also oversee all of our software development and implementation for technology across our various portfolio of companies.

Mark Harrison is the Technical Sales Manager for the American Progress Group, who is one of the preeminent technology providers for the precast concrete marketplaces for automation, equipment, and services.

Today, we've got four primary learning objectives that we hope to accomplish, really focusing on delivering technologies to the precast marketplace via digitalization. So we want to understand what are the current challenges for the precast concrete marketplace for adoption of a number of these technologies. We want to learn the ecosystem that was deployed by a US-based based precast concrete company to solve some of the challenges they've had via technology. We want to understand some of the real-world applications of how they leveraged this technology for production, automation, and data management. And then we want to analyze some of the returns on their investment and some of the efficiency gains they realized as an enterprise by deploying some of these solutions at a large scale to the precast concrete facility.

So first, we're going to start with understanding some of the challenges that precasters in North America and pre-manufactured construction teams in North America face when attempting to adopt new technologies in digitalization across their businesses. One of the first issues that we see in the precast industry specifically is that we have been operating the same way for decades. For the past 70 years, precast concrete has produced in the same way. Adoption of new technologies has been slow.

And there's a lot of reasons for that. Frankly, it's hard to get precasters to onboard some of these technologies due to larger capital expenditures up front at times. Some required plant downtime, and some new learning curves that are required for staff and personnel to adopt these new technologies.

So we at EDGE and PTAC, along with the American Progress Group, have focused very diligently on creating an ecosystem that would minimize a number of these challenges when deploying technologies throughout our precast concrete facilities. One of these ways we've done that, and as you guys will see today, is there is a number of intermediate steps that can be taken. A lot of folks look at automation in their precast facilities as all or nothing. And really, this would allow us the intermediate steps that have been deployed which will be demonstrated today, really will allow us to take baby steps into this new automation and technology implementation and adoption that will make it a lot more palatable in our day-to-day workflows without shutting our plants and our facilities down for extended periods of time.

The Progress Group and PTAC have worked really diligently not only on deploying these in intermediate steps, but trying to minimize the learning curve associated with adopting new technologies from data authoring all the way through deploying it into the plant.

So the status quo of why we all wanted to adopt technologies in our various businesses historically has been pretty standard. We all want to drive efficiency. We all want to be able to win more projects. We all want to increase job profitability. We all want to cut down on quality issues.

But there's been a number of challenges and headwinds that have really impeded our ability, as business owners and operators, to really allow us to deploy that in a way to gain those efficiencies, win more projects, and really increase the quality. And that really comes down to the technology offerings know-how. Quite often, some of these new technologies create or require an increasingly knowledgeable staff to be able to deploy these solutions at a large scale.

One other challenge is, and headwind that we've experienced as technology adopters in the industry, has been poor quality or lack of execution with some of the software platforms and machinery that has been adopted. And then frankly, a lot of it has been extremely complex in adopting, and we require a lot more educated staff and personnel to be able to deploy it at a larger scale.

But in today's world, this technology adoption is no longer a choice. We're all being faced with extreme labor shortages. We're all being faced and asked to complete more complicated complex projects in the same allowable schedule. So technology adoption is no longer a want, but it's really a need. And we want to ensure, as a collective group, from the Progress Group and PTAC, that we provide an offering to the marketplace that allows all of the advantages to be claimed without all of these headwind challenges that have been experienced historically.

So this is a great graphic to show what we're hoping to provide as a total solution between the Progress Group and EDGE. This is what we refer to as the BIM circle. And as you guys see, we view an entire project life cycle as a circle, as a continuous circle. So effectively, we want to initially program the project, conceptually design the project, move into detailed design analysis, through production, through construction, and ultimately construction logistics.

At the end of the project, it gets turned over to the ownership group, which sees through operations and maintenance. And then, inevitably, at some point in the project's life cycle, it's going to get renovated and rejuvenated into a future use. So we look at this as a full circle that's continually evolving.

We at PTAC and the Progress Group have really focused on providing that upfront information via our EDGE solution and the downstream information via Progress Group's Ahead System to allow a connected ecosystem and workflow to really close out the full BIM circle, which you guys can see here.

So the first step in really deploying this solution at a large scale is to provide a really data-centric process. We all have realized or been asked to provide a model throughout our daily processes. But we're really trying to push that a step further in providing more of a model-based delivery workflow.

So a lot of us are familiar with the AEC, Architects, Engineers, and Construction workflow. But we also visualize this as an AEF platform as well that will allow for architects, engineers, and fabricators to come together to provide a really turnkey solution for fabrication.

One critical step is the required data authoring that is needed at the engineering and architectural level. In order to deploy this technology at scale, we really need to ensure the quality of the model data, it is the highest possible. Although it's not being widely deployed in the AEC industry yet, the model-based delivery method has been deployed in fabrication for quite some time, driving computer-aided manufacturing through various industries, including the construction marketplace.

This legacy documentation, this model-based delivery, allows for reduced legacy documentation that we've all been required to do as architects, and engineers, and constructors in some way, shape, or form, in allowing a single sole source of truth within our model-based delivery to ensure quality from coordination throughout fabrication. Once this is really adopted at a large scale for the entire industry, we're going to be allowed to no longer dumb down our really data-rich models to the historic two-dimensional drawings or PDFs, which really ensures again the higher-quality coordination and fabrication. And this really is a must for deploying this automation process at a large scale, to really have a single source of quality data.

So how do we get that done? So in a real-world application, how we handle this, through our Autodesk Revit implementation through the EDGE platform, and ultimately into the Progress Group's PXML data format is really how we carry through this entire process. So we leverage the out-of-the-box Revit platform to allow for initial project data. So allowing us to define documents for grids, and levels, and elevations, et cetera, to really create the platform of the project-based data.

Then we'll leverage our EDGE application to not only create level-400 models to allow for fabrication, but also optimizing and automating a number of the tedious tasks that are associated with precast detailing. This ranges from conceptual design and piece pelletization penalization through a number of the tedious tasks, such as automating piece marking, automating rebar, creation, installation, et cetera, to allow the full project delivery that's needed to facilitate a number of these projects.

Then we'll ultimately leverage this model data through our EDGE for CAM and EDGE for ERP solutions to extract data into the appropriate formats to allow for the computer-aided manufacturing and the enterprise resource planning that can be facilitated by the American Progress Group's PXML platform. So this is a good example of a real-world case study that really used the progress curves model-to-fabrication workflow.

The Progress Group, I failed to mention, but is based, headquartered out of Northern Italy, Brixen, Italy. And this is a real image of the model, the ongoing construction and the end product of the headquarters in Brixen that was produced by the Progress Group's precast manufacturing facility on site, leveraging the model-based delivery method via the model-to-fabrication workflow to ensure this connected process and deploying this model-based delivery at a large scale for a real project in Northern Italy.

So there are some requirements to effectively deploy this solution. But in order to accommodate the overall A-E-F process, we need to really accommodate the following requirements. We need a solution, a design solution, that's widely used. So we need to ensure that all of our engineers, and architects, and model authors are using a unified platform that will allow for the fabrication-level detailing.

We need to ensure that it's easy to use, so it's really being deployed at a large scale based on ease of use for our customers. It needs to ensure that it supports all disciplines. Within the precast concrete environment, we look at those disciplines as the subsectors of precast. But furthermore, it needs to work with all trades associated with our building products. So this will support. EDGE will support our architectural design, architectural precast, our infrastructure precast, as well as structural precast, and allowing it to be a bridge across multiple disciplines and various industry sectors to allow this to be deployed at scale.

It needs to be efficient enough to service the production with existing staff. And what we mean by that is we really need to ensure that the model authoring process, and this entire A-E-F process, once it's connected to the Progress Groups Ahead System, is not complicated or too complicated in which it would not allow our existing staff to really facilitate the overall process. We need to make sure that it is seamless for existing staff to not have additional work, but all of our needs are deployed in a service through technology implementation.

It really needs to be able to be mastered by new employees, as well as legacy employees alike. This we have really ensured that we've aligned ourselves in the Autodesk ecosystem, which ensures that all of our new staff is being trained on the Autodesk platform in high school and college, and they're coming out of their institutions being able to master these new products that live within the Autodesk ecosystem to really create a very, very much minimized learning curve.

We need to ensure that our process is future proof. We are certainly ensuring that we can accommodate more complex projects as they evolve in the AEC industry, but we also need to ensure our data extraction methods and our data processing methods via our fabrication process really allows for not only the equipment that is available today, but the equipment that will be available in the future as well.

And all of these together, all of these requirements service together, really provides a seamless way for our companies to step into an A-E-F process and provide fabrication-level models that are deployed out at a large scale in fabrication facilities all over the world.

So a little bit deeper look into how this A-E-F process works, and exactly how we can validate that this information is effective for our precast fabrication facilities. So initially, we'll leverage EDGE to create the geometry. We'll verify that geometry through structural calculations. And then we'll move into our fabrication delivery and melting methods, or erection, in our marketplaces.

One important point to recognize, which this graphic is showing you, is at any point in time, we need to ensure that the model data that we are authoring really provides for something that can be produced by the factory. The Progress Group has deployed what they call their PTS server, their Production Test Server, which will, in real time, give feedback to state that this element, whether it's for geometry, reinforcement, or some type of [INAUDIBLE] hardware, that will always be allowed to be produced in the production facilities that this particular element is being scheduled on. And as we look at how this technology was deployed at a large scale by one of the local precast producers in North America, we'll see how important that continual feedback loop is as we deploy this technology at a large scale in a factory.

So exactly how are we going to leverage this model data through our CAM export? So EDGE for CAM allows for users to really extract this true model data, as you can see here. And we'll look at a video very shortly to illustrate how this is shown. But this will allow users to extract information directly from their EDGE models to be used in the production automation machines. This means extracting all [INAUDIBLE] attribute information, all of the reinforcement of the lifting devices, as well as the hardware for exactly what will be produced by the fabrication facilities.

EDGE for CAM uses two primary data sets or data formats to be able to export model information for precast facilities and automations. The first is the Progress Group's PXML format. The second is Unitechnik's UXML format for various data formats to be deployed by machinery. And then the last, not listed here, is the IFC for precast format. All of these formats are data structures which will allow the model information to be formatted in such a way that the machines understand what is being built appropriately. And then it can be deployed via these intermediary formats to the machines on the inline.

Another really important thing that we had shown originally in this presentation was also how these processes can be deployed at smaller scales rather than biting off the entire elephant in one bite. And what we mean by that is there's a number of different use cases, and we'll show shortly, that may not have the full automation process, may not have the full ERP process, but can really be a value add and a value proposition to existing entities and existing enterprises to be able to take baby steps into this technology adoption and implementation.

One of the ways that we allow that is that users can pare down their EDGE models, their Revit models, into a more appropriate data format for which will be deployed into the precast production facilities. So as you can imagine, any precasters that are watching this that have laser projectors, or reinforcement vendors where they don't have full automated processes, they'll be able to extract only that information, only that geometry that is relevant to their particular process, and effectively cherry-pick the appropriate automation processes that are appropriate for their precast facilities.

Some of the key features associated with our EDGE for CAM solution is it will allow the user to customize exactly the orientation of an element on the pallet or on the precast facility via the assembly origin within Revit. Once we've defined that origin, we can really define the orientation of how an element will be cast, and if it's deployed at a carousel system, will allow multiple pieces to be poured on a single pallet at one time based on the location of these assembly origins.

We'll also allow for fabrication-level detailing of very, very custom parts. So showing the actual geometry of steel-embedded plates, or lifting devices, or very complex reinforcement bending is allowable through the EDGE for-- the EDGE for CAM interface to allow custom parts to be deployed in the manufacturing facilities.

I mentioned it earlier, but a really critical key component of this is the real-time feedback that Progress Group's production test server provides to ensure that as educated and as sophisticated as our design teams are in understanding what the production requirements may be for the facilities, this really ensures a high degree of quality and allows us to understand exactly what can be produced on a facility at any point in time.

Not only does this provide real-time data to allow us to customize and really evolve our designs as we progress through our design process, but it allows us to continually evolve our designs and ensure that the next project is exponentially more successful, as we have learned from our previous learning steps through this real-time feedback provided by the production test server.

And then, finally, there's better visualization for production and manufacturing. So historically, we would take our three-dimensional models for precast concrete, and we would dumb it down, as I mentioned previously, into a two-dimensional drawing to allow that to be produced by the precast factories. This really was a huge loss of data from the transferring, from the engineering departments, into the fabrication facilities.

With the better visualization that the Progress Group's [? AutoCAD ?] system allows for is really providing the production facility a lot better way to visualize what's being produced rather than trying to interpret two-dimensional drawings effectively.

This is going to be a quick demonstration or a quick video to show exactly how the EDGE for CAM solution gets deployed in a number of ways. And what I have on the screen here is our EDGE detailing model, which on one side is showing only reinforcement being placed. So this gives a good illustration of how one was only reinforcement and one was [? mounted ?] parts, to really allow the user to pair down exactly what will be deployed out to the production facilities to be [? releveraged ?] in a various number of ways for the precast concrete facility. And that may be a totally automated system, like the carousel plants that the Progress Group provides, or it may be a portion of that system, which will allow for increased automation in the production facilities.

One thing that you'll realize once we get into the use case of our precast producer that was in North America is that not only will it allow for a lot of the plant automation, but the data management side to step into the plant automation is also very scalable through this platform.

This is one example that I really wanted to highlight as well, of how we could deploy this CAM solution beyond precast concrete. So quite often, we have customers come to us asking to deploy reinforcement-based model efforts into automation through automated precast-- or automated reinforcement, excuse me-- as well as automated mesh fabrication via concrete cast-in-place models. So this shows a very simple example of how we can extract only reinforcement from our models, whether it be cast in place or precast, to be deployed out on a large scale for various projects outside of simply total precast concrete structures.

So it's just a few examples of a few projects that have been deployed using this total connected ecosystem with our EDGE software, the Progress Group's Ahead software, and then how this was deployed by a precast concrete producer in Minnesota, Taracon Precast. These are two projects that show a full model built out using the EDGE solution, as well as the appropriate documentation for that. And we'll actually show you how this can be stepped into leveraging it for model data or fabrication data once the project has been authored appropriately.

So as you can see, these are not just cookie-cutter projects. These can be done at a complex large scale. This is one example of a fabrication level detail used or extracted using the EDGE detailing module, which will allow us to create custom shapes, such as this column here, and being deployed out to the user's fabrication system.

And then one more further example of that same solution is how this complex reinforcement, and how this complex geometry, was created using our EDGE model for the fabrication detailing. But furthermore, as you guys can see, how it was used to customize steel [? formwork ?] or [? formwork ?] to allow for really optimized production processes within the plant environment.

So a number of ways that how this can be used for production automation, and then we'll get into the data management that Taracon Precast deployed on some real-world projects. So there's a number of ways that the EDGE for CAM and the progress machinery can be leveraged for various use cases and precast concrete manufacturing facilities. One is a precast, or is a water-soluble bed plotter. This is an element that actually plots or paints onto the pallet itself exactly what will be produced by the facility, eliminating a lot of the need for intensive detailing required for fabrication-level drawings-- effectively, paint by colors, if you will.

A very interesting component of this as well is that the plotter can cast on top of the wet concrete as well for quality control of top [? inform ?] embeds and top [? inform ?] production as well.

Another very, very widely used, broadly used solution for CAM manufacturing is automation of rebar bending. How this looks through the ecosystem of EDGE in the Progress Group is all of the complex reinforcement diagrams that you guys saw previously in the presentation will be extracted from our EDGE models, converted into appropriate machine language for the Progress Group's automated vendor to deploy, and then that vendor will automatically create the appropriate number of rebar bending-- bent rebar associated with the project at hand.

And then one of, in my opinion, one of the most exciting technologies being deployed in automation of precast concrete is automated mesh fabrication. So as many of you can imagine, the mesh process in North America is somewhat of an antiquated process, where we're deploying the use of structural mesh via very inventoried items. So we may very often use a 4x4 four-gauge wire for mesh, whether or not it is overdesigned, simply because it's what is readily available from vendors across the globe.

What this machine actually allows us to do is remove that requirement of inventoried items directly from our workflows, and create custom fabric sheets that are optimized for design and also optimized for geometry to ensure real on-time delivery for mesh fabrication, and create the custom mesh sheets that eliminate the need for cutting or trimming of wires around openings or [? blockouts, ?] whatever it may be, something that I think is really going to be a big game changer for the precast concrete facilities in North America that's provided by the Progress Group.

And then finally, another technology that is deployed quite often in the fully automated precast facilities are automation of formwork and automation of concrete distribution. The shuttering robot will use magnetic rails attached to the steel forms to define the appropriate formwork for the flat member, and then the automated concrete distribution will allow a bucket, a flyover bucket, to come to the appropriate station on the facility and allow it to dump the appropriate amount of mud or amount of concrete onto the appropriate bed position or appropriate formwork itself.

So a lot of these are ways that we have, as a group, the Progress Group and PTAC, have deployed technologies through partners around the globe. But we wanted to take a moment to really dive into how one of our local producers in North America has deployed this technology in a unique way of, rather than trying to deploy it at a full-scale automation facility, and more focused on the data management side. So we're going to take a deeper look at how Taracon Precast in Minnesota deployed this ecosystem to really get a lot of gains on their precast concrete manufacturing management, as well as the fabrication itself.

So how did Taracon use it, and how are they using this technology? So one thing to understand about the Taracon setup is that they historically have outsourced and subbed out all of their engineering and design to sub-consultants all over North America. That was a really critical and important thing to note when we were designing the solution for Taracon to ensure that, again, the solution was widely used, was easy to use, and there was a single sole source [? of truth ?] or a single platform that Taracon could ensure their subcontractors could use and still accommodate this workflow.

So our EDGE for Revit solution allowed this unified data source, a unified data structure, where a number of precast design firms across North America could ensure a unified data format, and that all of the model authoring, whether it was internally or through various design firms, was done on a very complimentary and a very similar way to ensure the production system would be always looking at a unified data structure from various design teams.

Then, how would they actually leverage it? They wanted to use it initially for the precast floor, precast production facility, to really leverage this technology and data for pre-planning and pre-production services. So Taracon elected to deploy a system that would focus on really driving efficiencies in production planning, rather than production automation initially, which was a interesting take on how they would deploy the Ahead system initially.

This allowed them to really have a much better insight on their production analytics, their data analytics, and allowed them to further refine their process of optimizing planning for production, to procure the appropriate material in an effective way, and also schedule their beds in a much more efficient way as well. The next phase of the production optimization which Taracon has begun is deploying this data, not only for a data analytics perspective, but also deploying it at automation machinery on their precast manufacturing floors as well.

So what did the pre-planning technology really mean for Taracon is they wanted to gather data through the modeling process. And what that means is they wanted to understand not only piece-attribute information. They needed to know how big the pieces were, or how much volume of concrete needed to be batched and deployed, the reinforcement, the bending, the hardware, et cetera. But they really needed to understand the full bit of information associated with producing the facility, then authoring it in an elegant way to allow the precast concrete production systems that were deployed by the progress group to understand that model data in an effective and efficient way.

Next, they wanted to leverage this data to really schedule in a very effective way. So they were going to use the appropriate piece information to be able to deploy or to schedule the precast members on the appropriate beds and allow the production test server to provide real-time feedback in ensuring that the pieces that they were scheduling on a bed were in fact producible. It also allowed Taracon to have really good insight and transparency into the appropriate production bill of materials or daily production orders that were required to execute the ability to create the precast-- or precast members on the beds that were scheduled to in an effective way in ensuring that there was no production slowdowns or hold-ups for the inappropriate material or insufficient material being allocated to that bed at the time of production.

Then, once it was produced, Taracon wanted to leverage this data to ensure a much more effective scheduling process for delivering these precast members to the job site facility. This really ensured not only optimized erection sequencing-- so ensuring that they were planning their shipping and delivery a lot more effectively-- but it also really allowed them to optimize the job site storage and ensure they had less trailers sitting in the queue on the job site to create more efficiencies by the erector in the plant.

And then finally, as mentioned, Taracon intends to use this data to deploy it out to drive more automation machinery in their precast facility, and understand or realize a little bit more of the efficiencies to be gained from this PXML interface with EDGE and the Progress Group's ahead system.

There's a lot of pros and cons associated with some of the pre-planning technologies that were deployed by Taracon. So one of the first large advantages was there was no requirement for the legacy documentation that's needed in many other precast concrete facilities throughout North America. So no longer were there PDFs required to create the drawings, because they had that single source of model-based data that would allow them to deploy that out to their production facilities, allowing a lot better visualization into the elements that are going to be produced.

The next really large advantage of this system was visualization of the entire system. So not only visualization of the physical elements, but a greater transparency for Taracon to understand current and future production needs for their facility to really optimize all of the bottlenecks that are associated with the fabrication process. It not only increased efficiency and optimization, but allowed for really increased quality of the product that Taracon provides in an exponential way because it really allowed the stakeholders and the internal team members within Taracon to have a good transparency of understanding what is being produced and what is going to be produced to really create a lot of economies of scale within their production facilities.

One big downfall of legacy systems is that they don't allow for a lot of this pre-planning process because the adoption of changes are a little bit challenging. And Autodesk Revit has done a really great job of deploying solutions to ensure change management was-- the pain of change management, I should say, is minimized significantly from what it would be in other legacy systems. So Progress, along with EDGE and Taracon, really wanted to ensure a system that would allow change management a very effectively and efficiently, much like Autodesk Revit does, as elements were sent to the production facility. If something were to change, it would really allow for last-minute changes to be realized and visualized by the production teams, to understand what those last-minute changes would do for production inefficiencies and how we can learn better from the future.

And then one of the really big advantages that Taracon noted when we interviewed them on this matter was that the learning curve associated with this new system was not steep at all. Taracon was really able to onboard new users and get them fully set up through the entire Ahead system in a matter of two days alone. So this was really attributed to the system was very modern. The system was very intuitive. And it had a very organized User Interface, UI, that would allow them to onboard new users in a very efficient and effective way. And as this system was being designed and deployed, this was a really critical pillar that we, as the design team, along with the Progress Group, decided was paramount to ensure that as we onboarded new people, this system would be effective for even the novice user at first.

So some of the future needs that Taracon has is they want to leverage this pre-planning system to not only give insight into their current production facilities, but future insight as well too, so we can understand at any point in time where we will be within our production facilities, where we'll be in our fabrication facilities, as well as our delivery.

One thing, I failed to mention at the beginning of this is this is not a system which is project-specific. This is a manufacturing management system. So this is across our enterprise. So very quickly, Taracon will have the visibility into the future to understand, at a certain point in time, their production facilities are going to be less than efficient, and it will empower their sales teams to understand when they need to fill gaps in the production pipeline, as well as when they may need to actually shed off a few different opportunities to ensure production efficiencies as well.

So it really is just a data management system that would allow greater transparencies and greater insights into production, fabrication, delivery, as well as design and detailing.

So all of these futures-- all of these features have really allowed Taracon to realize productivity gains that, in their words, far outmeasure those expected at the onset of the project. It's the greater transparency, the greater insight, and the greater bit of information provided to the folks in their precast facilities creating these precast members to really ensure that they're creating a very high-quality project, high-quality product, and performing in such a way that would allow their precast facilities to really hit their optimal performance very effectively.

So thank you all for your time today. Really appreciate the opportunity to explain the ecosystem of the Progress Group, EDGE, and Taracon, and how this was deployed in a real-life project. And please, reach out if you have any questions.