Empowering VINCI by Using Autodesk Platform Services for Data Security and Team Productivity

QAMAR HUSSEIN: Hello, everyone and welcome to this class. First, thank you very much for being here. I'm very excited to present to you what we've done with [INAUDIBLE] this year. One thing before we start, and that this is the second class that we are presenting about this subject. The previous one was a framework for creating a Forge powered innovation hub at VINCI. The link will be attached to the presentation.

First thing first, I need you to do something for me, which is to acknowledge differences. There are some ideas we take as globally unique but changes depending on someone's background-- the way we dress, what we eat, and even notions of big and small, close and far away. These differences also occur in the construction sector. Today, we are all familiar with the main challenges that the construction industry is facing-- lack of productivity, sector segmentation, lack of qualified workforce, reduction in profit margins, complexity of the projects, and I can go on for a long time.

For the last couple of decades, we turned to the digital IT world to find some solutions to our problems. A lot of tools, softwares, platforms have been developed and highly participated in tackling these challenges. But these tools, are they really fit for everyone everywhere? The answer is, "yes, but."

A simple example is how construction projects might be different in France. Outside France, architecture and design teams stay in the execution phase for project modifications. In France, design work is finished before execution work starts. Although architects might stay along the project, they are out of the project. They literally have done what they had to do.

In general, contractors and subcontractors rely on their own design teams for adjustments and modifications in the project. We, at VINCI Construction, as general constructors, need tools to support them as well. This is an example of how the same word refers to companies with the same project role but with different responsibilities and different needs of tools.

So I was not supposed to be the one presenting this class. It should have been my colleague Zahra Hadjou, who is a project manager of this project. But she had an issue with her visa application, so she couldn't make it. Myself, my name is Qamar Hussain. I work more on plugin for Revit and not really on this project, so I might be unable to answer some questions, but no worries there. We'll get back to you if needed.

So first thing first, let's go to a quick presentation of the VINCI group. VINCI is a world leader in concessions, energy, and construction. Our ambition, in response to the climate emergency, is to accelerate the transformation of living environments, infrastructure, and mobility. With our numbers, we count around 272,000 employees active in nearly 120 countries, with a total of 62 billion euro in revenue.

I work for the BIM central unit of VINCI construction called [INAUDIBLE] for engineering BIM. We are 40 employees, with more than 10 years of experience, and we achieved around 3 million square meters of green projects. [INAUDIBLE] have three fields. The first one is the technical audit-- start when transferring the design responsibility from design team to the general contractor team. They need to make sure to detect all design issues as soon as possible and manage all changes in the design throughout the project.

In design and construction management, the main activities are coordination between design teams and execution teams, application of workflows, quality control, and design-- the digital strategy of the group. And the last one is a site-based development and AI development team, which-- this is a development team which Zahra and I are part of. We are here to analyze and answer to our team's needs by developing tools and platforms.

Also, we develop cloud or desktop applications using the data from the BIM model. We have an application, for example, based on Unity for augmented and virtual reality and around 80 different BIM tools for Revit, AutoCAD, and Excel. We can develop applications using any API. Today, we also give business intelligence insights using the BIM model. All these applications serve our BIM community and are deployed by our multiple trainings and change management.

Every application we make involves our global engineering team. We have around 700 active members discovering new BIM workflows and functionalities every day. Each team can ask for customized application. We assist our clients to identify their needs by building customer-centered specifications.

Then, every community-approved specification is integrated into our roadmap. Our team builds application upon the agile method methodology so we can deliver tailored solutions to our customers. Each project has its idiosyncrasies. We tailor our solutions based on project scope and users' requests.

Using this methodology, we created an in-house platform that is called WeLinkIn. But before talking about how it all started, the first thing was the idea to create a unique data warehouse, one ring to rule them all.

This is what we call a common data environment. We realized that we have too many requests from different entities-- BIM management, onsite team, and even project owners and real estate developers. So we said, why don't we transform our simple cloud platform into a more complete common data environment? Let me walk you through our brainstorming in developing our own CDE.

After many meetings and projects with different VINCI entities, we tried collected multiple requests and features used by our community. Each one of them is using a different platform. It costs a lot of money. Of course, we cannot replace every platform existing in the market. But we create WeLinkIn, a cloud-based platform that can be used throughout all project phases and by different actors. Now we will show you some key features of this platform.

As I said, this is the second class that we are presenting about this platform. So here, I will only summarize some of the previous features that we already had. The first one was the storage of the final construction documents, models, and plans. However, we wanted to go beyond a simple SaaS platform, so we added this one feature, where you link 2D and PDF document, such as technical 2-3D BIM objects. Once we click on an object, we can open the document directly through the platform, and we use also an open API strategy, so the facility manager can plug his own facility manager solutions and use the data in his maintenance processes.

Another feature included in WeLinkIn is the 3D site logistics. For this feature, we use the 3D viewer powered by Unity in order to give our client the full experience. We developed more than 4,000 objects internally, going from cranes, bungalows, carpet, and avatars. We added the fourth dimension to have an overview of the logistics progress over time.

The idea behind it is to give the site engineer an easy tool that you can use in his weekly logistic meetings with the subcontractors to define the storage zone for everyone, give them access, and give them access to the platform. The advantage of it is it can be used directly on the screen monitor that we have on site by everyone and anytime.

The last one, which is quite simple but very important, is to be able to do some quantitative stuff. So we can export all quantities directly from WeLinkIn. We can also combine multiple models. Now there is no need to open the 3D models in Revit or to call the manager of the design team to have access on the schedule or quantities. Our site engineers are now autonomous and can export automatically all quantities to a structured Excel sheet.

Now let's go with the new features that we added this year. The first one is the technical mockup. As general contractors, we need to create mock-up for our clients. The idea is to show to the client one or many rooms of the project completely finished-- the color of the equipment, electrical outlet, et cetera-- before doing the same in all rooms of the whole project.

The idea here was to build a virtual one. This will allow the client to move freely in a very realistic 3D model using Unity. So user can explore the model with realistic color and texture and help him make decisions. He can change color in live or move an electrical outlet, and all changes, thanks to a partnership between Unity and Autodesk, we can export all changes directly to the Revit model.

Another feature is the tool that we called SuperVize. This [INAUDIBLE] site quality control will allow to manage all issues that our on site teams will detect in the execution phase. Here, we are using an IFC viewer and [INAUDIBLE] format to track all these issues. This tool will assist our site engineers in their daily tasks, facilitate communication between design and on-site teams, export detailed reports and KPIs to subcontractors and BIM coordinators, and a guarantee to deliver an as-built model with reliable data and geometry.

We also have a lot of ideas, and we cannot develop everything at once. So we also have a lot of features in our roadmap. The features that are coming is the technical audit. So the technical audit is here to allow the general contractor to quickly detect all inconsistencies in the design so he can immediately suggest way to fix them. So we have an existing Revit plugin. The idea is to build a unique folder containing all documents to analyze. This will prevent our team to search for documents in a lot of folders or have to contact a lot of teams to get the documents. The idea is to analyze the models automatically, export the report on Power BI.

Another tool that we want to develop is the BIM model audit. So the daily routine for a BIM manager is now over. Auditing a 3D model is one of the main tasks for BIM manager or coordinator. With this feature, we can audit up to 20 BIM criteria automatically. For now, this feature is still on a beta version as a Revit plugin that we developed.

This feature will be included in WeLinkIn. That means that we can control all the models that are dropped in our platform at one time without even opening Revit, using design automation. The audit is exported on an Excel sheet, and the Excel sheet will contains all the data that the BIM manager needs to check the model quality. And this Excel can also be directly integrated into a Power BI so we can have very fine reports that we can show to our clients.

So the idea here is to compare the models with the database set by the BIM manager, and we can check automatically more than 20 BIM criteria. And we will be able to audit several BIM models at one time.

The last one is the quality control, but this time for the IFC model. So here we are using an IFC workflow, so it's according to our open BIM strategy that we have at VINCI. It's the same as Revit quality control check. We have a database set by the BIM manager, and we need to compare the data in the IFC model. User will be able to drag and drop IFC file to access all information. And all of this data will be exported to Excel.

So yeah, we had a lot of challenges to develop everything. Different [INAUDIBLE] the first kind is the organizational challenges. At first, we needed experienced partners to speed up the development. We searched for innovative companies to partner with us. Operation team challenges-- introduce a continuous improvement and continuous development approach to improve our products. And also the project management method should establish crossfunctional communication and step-by-step delivery to our clients. Our goal was to combine the needs of real estate, design, contractors, and facility management in the process.

We have three key requirements-- the partner should have development knowledge, construction industry know-how, and, ideally, experience in development. We also need them to be able to collaborate with our IT. Our final choice was to develop and maintain the CDE core. Our strategy was also built on the possibility to integrate other collaborators or partners to the development process in order to enhance and foster further development and also to integrate diverse technologies to answer to different use cases and needs. So we also have TriDyme, who was one of the partners that we chose to hop on the project.

As other partners join in the project, we had to face more management and coordination challenges to maintain a viable development and integration process, ensuring that we respect legal contracts and code ownership. We have issues to how to manage collaboration between different contributors as part of the enhancement and integration of new features, how to synchronize repository, how to set up a delivery and integration process, and how to contextualize these processes to ensure the project longevity.

The operational challenges-- so I'm going to split it in four aspects. First one is the product industrialization, then the technological choices we have to make, how to deal with the data we produced, and the cybersecurity precautions we took.

So for the project industrialization, the issue was that we were having more and more users. That means that we need to manage more and more requests and bigger database. But we need to ensure similar performance. Also, we have the continuous improvement of the product by fixing bugs and improving user experience. We have the tool which is aggregating a lot of features but lacking a data management strategy.

The tech stack that we used-- so our technology should be able to insert three [INAUDIBLE]. Avoid rework-- so we picked up a technology that allows us to deploy the app to several devices with a single code base. We also follow our IT team suggestion on picking Microsoft Azure to manage our infrastructure and data.

And we used APS and IFC.js to work with our BIM models-- APS because it's the best we were dealing with the Revit models. We have more than 60 compatible formats, large set of APIs for the construction industry, and an active community and frequent updates and improvements. It's very flexible and multidevice friendly. And, of course, the IFC.js because we want to work with an open BIM strategy.

It's cliche but true-- data is an expensive commodity. Owning our data is a strategic decision, and the actions we take reflect this [INAUDIBLE], as [INAUDIBLE]. There are also pressure from regulators in France, and VINCI has its own strict data safety requirements. Our IT want wanted to be in charge of the storage of all our company's data.

About the cybersecurity-- so we set up a firewall, a WAF-- so it's a web application firewall. And it generated malfunctioning of some features that we had to do some troubleshooting and adapt code to meet firewall requirements. And also, we need to ensure to not interrupt access to the platform because we had projects ongoing, so we cannot stop access to the platform. So it was quite a challenge.

A good thing was that we all already had some policies already in place. So most of the security actions were already taken in the code, and we just needed to implement them. And also, our IT wrote an internal charter with the best practices in web development.

So in conclusion, what we got-- so first, what we gain. So today, we have our platform deployed in six projects for the total amount of 2 billion euro. We have more than 100 users and more than 1,000 models in transit in our platform. Thanks to that, thanks to all the feature and this unique portal to access all of our tools, we gain 60% productivity, thanks to avoiding the rewrite of data from users.

What we learned-- so here are some key takeaways. First, it was pretty hard because at VINCI, it seems to be one company, one big company, but, in fact, it's several little companies. So we needed to acknowledge differences in managing construction projects. It was the key to its success. And we need to keep active communities of people who are interested in a new product for their activity, develop and validate features that are sponsored by internal clients, and having one portal to access all tools instead of multiplying solutions to address different needs, and also to ensure the data integrity along the construction process.

Here are some contacts and links of mine, the one from Zahra, if you have any questions about the project. We have also linked to the previous class that Andrea Santos, my ex-colleague, presented last year, and a link to our website. Thank you for your attention, and I'm very happy to see you with us today.