From Revit to Digital Twin: Turner Fleischer's Transformational Journey

BRENT MAUTI: Welcome to "From Revit to Digital Twin." I'm here with Turner Fleischer Architects, and I'm going to be talking about our transformational journey. My name is Brent Mauti. I'm the Chief Technology Officer here at Turner Fleischer architects. I've been here three years, and I've got over a couple decades of experience that I'm bringing forth to you today as we walk through this journey of ours.

Quickly, a little bit about Turner Fleischer. We are 250 plus-person organization with 49 years of experience. So we're really excited next year is our 50th. We've got some grand parties, but we'll figure that out then. We have two office locations. Our main studio is located in Toronto. And we have a small satellite office of three people in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our focus today is going to be this Toronto studio.

But what do we do? We've got a whole plethora of project types that we touch, sometimes in isolation. So just the planning, just the residential, just the mixed use, or sometimes we have a mix of all of these, where we have retail within the mixed-use location. Or we have interiors within many of these others. Either way, there's a lot of diversity and dynamic nature of design that occurs within our studio, and really excites the inhabitants or the occupants of our space.

So what about our space? What do we want to talk about today? Well, we're talking about our path to digital twin, but let's rewind. It wasn't always just about this. We were actually here in 2019 talking about our space itself-- a space for progress, transforming your studio to meet industry realities. That was our topic. We had our principal, Steve Nonis, and our CEO, Ellen Bensky. And they talked about the aspirations of what was to be our new space.

So learning, boardrooms, collaboration, client experience. We needed a new kitchen. We wanted some awesome technology, focus on wellness, welcome and celebrate our diversity, infuse our creativity, and allow for growth. So some of these just very quickly, what was is on the left. What is, is now on the right. So we've completely redefined our space from that session in 2019, realizing the reality here in 2023.

So we've gone through the design process and the construction process. And you can see some of the changes. They're quite amazing and quite phenomenal to have such a redefined and different type of space rich with light, rich with welcoming materials, better space for us to gather, collaborate, grow as a team, new technology, lab spaces, video walls, VR machines, better computers, a focus on wellness.

Look at the dullness on the left and the brightness on the right-- the trees, the engagement, the skylights, daylighting throughout our entire space. We have a dedicated reflection room. In the left, it was don't use the gym while people are in here praying. Well, now we actually have a reflection space on the right and a model studio, where we're able to bring our designs to a physical reality with various machines we have and the ability to allow us to grow.

So that's great. This was our space. We were a stretched out collection of mini studios, all brought together in one collaborative, welcoming and enriched environment. Awesome. But what did that cause? So we're in this space now. Simple floor plan, this is obviously an output from our BIM done in Revit. We get assets. We have a lot of things that need to be managed. We have a generator, a bike storage. And you think, well, that doesn't seem too complex.

Yeah, it's got to work. It's got to operate. It has security. How do how do people know what to do with it when it's full? We have a green wall that has a whole host of mechanisms that are associated with it. Vending machines, our 3D printers, laser cutter, a whole bunch of stuff in our model studio. We have an isolated print room to ensure that any off-gassing is contained and vented, but that has to function as well.

We have swag, inventory. How do you track all that? Stationery. My favorite, the coffee machine. This is what keeps me going every single day. When that goes down, sometimes I want to cry. Our fire extinguishers-- critical for safety. Our gym equipment-- I frequent the gym all the time, especially in the winter months up here in Canada. Screens, viewing screens, water dispensaries all over the place. Our green trees, our touch boards, more trees.

We have all of our IoT sensors that are scattered all over the place. And our desks aren't just desks. They're sit/stand desks complete with operation and ability to interact, et cetera. It's a lot of assets. That's a lot of facility maintenance, operational requirements that have to be accounted for in some form or another. So how do we do that? Well, let's think about our spaces, our wellness, and our assets. And dividing in these three realms allowed us to now focus on what it means to attempt to bring a digital twin to life.

So what do we do with this digital twin? Well, the first thing I said was, I need a platform. So let me look around the globe at some of the concepts or some of the platforms that were out there. Flair3D is something that came out of a colleague of mine here in Canada. InForm from IBI Group, this was a former place I used to work. Archibus is pretty well-known in the industry. Archidata is another platform that was available for potential use. Ecodomus, I've interacted with them for many, many years.

But we settled with Autodesk Tandem. And so awesome the decision that was. Why Tandem? Well, it brought a lot of capabilities. First off, looks kind of like a 3D model. It gave me that interface that was welcoming. I had a connection to my cloud. It was very easy to say, hey, take your digital record. Keep advancing it. And while you publish it, you will now have access to those updated publishers. Very easy. Very seamless. It wasn't putting models in multiple different locations.

Access-- it's got a pretty good costing platform. It uses single sign-on tied to our Autodesk platform logins, which basically means the minute I turned on Tandem, I had the ability to connect our entire studio to the digital representation of the space within which we reside. I can link to inventory and asset management information. This was a key requirement for me. I needed to be able to select an item and access the information that I wanted to access. And I wanted different mechanisms to be able to do that. Tandem allowed me to do this.

Views and filters-- and there's so much more. I'm engaged and, hey, I wish Tandem could do more and more. But fundamentally, I can have views based on assets, views based on metadata. And it works. And connection to the IoT streams-- very critical. I'm not just making a digital record, a 3D record. I'm making a digital twin. So I need connectivity to live performance-based data that can inform our decisions and help us to progress forward.

So let's look at these three facets of our digital twin, how Turner Fleischer realized something as opposed to just talking about digital twins in concept. So we said, let's talk about our spaces. And what makes up our space the most our? People. Yes, we have meeting rooms, but every single desk space is unique to the occupants. So using our BIM inside Revit, we defined a host of parameters that carried through his design properties into Tandem.

So we know the type of desk, network switch numbers, which is a pretty unique data point, a data port number, the computer names at each desk, department, manager, and the occupants. Our desks were in a hybrid situation. So we might have some people in just two days a week. So if we have two people in two days a week, they share a desk and allowed us to have two people in one location. All of this data captured within the model portrayed within our digital twin.

So here's an example of Tandem in action. And you can see here, we have the ability to have multiple saved views based on parameters within our BIM. So I can now show me a very quick view of a color map of our departments. I can zone in on a desk and understand who's there. So one feedback I've given to the Tandem team is, boy, would like to add labels, or like hover over capability. But I click the desk. I see the information. I see all the unique data.

There is my network switch number. There is my voice port number, my data port number. All that information is very important because I don't know where to find it. I would have to go to IT. I would have to have dialogues. I would need to have their diagrams. I would have to go through a whole host of things just to figure that out. Our network port distribution-- I've got a server room, a bunch of network switches. Who's on each switch? Well, it's a data point.

And this clustering of the view, really awesome. And I only recently discovered this in Tandem. This is great. I can now analyze my clusters visually. I'm an architect, that's what I want to do. How many desks are on each cluster? Make an informed decision. We're going to add new desks. Do I need to do some cluster-shifting and adjustments? All of that can be done based on the information that I can have accessible via my digital twin.

Also, I can give this to the facility manager to have the dialogue. And these might be people who can't jump into a model and look at parameters anyway. Our occupants, our managers-- so when we're looking at the distribution of people based on their proximity to their direct managers and then analyze that potentially against the performance of those people on projects, all of these are data points that I could potentially extract, connect, and manipulate with this data.

So that's spaces. Now let's think about wellness. So in talking about wellness, we thought, what's a way to effectively realize something that's within our power to do so? And we looked at indoor air quality. So we all said, how can we monitor our air quality to ensure that our studio members are having the best possible experience they could have, and to inform our facility manager on ways to better the space?

So focusing on air, we said, well, let's buy a whole host of IoT sensors. And if you buy IoT sensors like little dangly little chips and stuff, and we said, well, we've got to put them in something. So we had to design some competition. We're all designers in this organization. People who are interested and split up into teams, made some design prototypes. We analyzed them for functionality to make sure that the design didn't compromise the sensor.

So the worst case is you wouldn't want to, for example, trap heat and make the sensor think it's hot because it's inside a box that's making heat, right? So we found the right design. We compiled different examples, different awesome ideas into a prototype, 3D-printed the final result. So we 3D-printed 35, 36 of these things, and turned them on. Now we have constant monitoring.

What are we monitoring? Temperature, humidity, two, for me, big fundamentals. Pressure-- so think when you watch the weather, and they say, hey, we're in a high-pressure system. A high pressure for the next four or five days. Our pressure readings are reflecting that, which is really cool. We monitor CO2 and to make sure we're not having any irregular spikes in various locations. Particulate matter-- and I got a good story on the next slide.

Formaldehyde-- so off-gassing from our finishes and anything within our sample boards, for example. And lighting-- so lux levels at the surface. So we have all this data. We're pulling data every five minutes. What do I do with it? Well, I'm a Power BI fanatic. So we feed our data to a SQL server. And we have records, so some sensors have been on for months and months now. All the data cataloged and recorded on SQL.

I can now cycle through each data type. I can hone in on temperature, humidity, et cetera. I can hone in on one location. What's happening in a specific location? Here, we're looking at temperature. And we'll have spikes. We'll have ups and downs, but the net result should be something consistent. And there, we had a drop. That could have been reflective of outside or access to the outside space or open doors, et cetera.

Here, we're looking at pressure. Well, let's look at particulate matter. The particulate matter was a very interesting thing. You've all heard about the wildfires that have been happening in the North. Winds blowing wildfires down South. So Ontario was hit pretty bad as was Northeast USA. And look at right around June into July. That entire frame was when the air was blowing down.

Now we've got doors and windows that remained closed, but you have air infiltration from the outside. So the sensor was validating the user experience. And for me, this was a win case for the awesome power of data. This shows me the time frame when we were getting particulate matter increase in our indoor air due to the occurrences of the outside world.

So once this validated that, if we saw this happening, and the day of that first day in June, and it spiked to the high 60s there, I pulled this up. I saw it. We took some actions. We saw, as of with the facility manager, what could we do to better the space? So really awesome, but looking at graphs like this, it's OK. Our facility manager said, you know what? I want to come in the morning and get informed. And that's what Tandem did.

So we've got a whole host of views, where we can now access a heat map. And the heat maps are really, really powerful. So I can select, again, what sensor type I want to find. Where do we have areas of higher pressure/lower pressure, high CO2/low CO2, et cetera, et cetera, temperature, humidity? And with this data, we're able to understand in an instant what's happening currently.

We have a couple of floors. So we've divided our two floors up so we can focus in and see. The ability to connect to these streams technologically has been phenomenal. So where we've placed the sensor? I can hover over the sensor and see the instant feed of the sensor. Now instant being, I believe, within the last 5 to 10 minutes. I can't remember what that setting is. But yes, I can access the chart. And within Tandem, I believe I have up to 15 days of data that I can scroll back.

So I can always go to my Power BI and see my months and months of data. But here in action with my heat map and my facility at my disposal, I'm seeing the history in the last half month or so of what's happened at that sensor location for the particular item that's being sensed. So that allows me to really interact with this data and really gain some insight from the historical stream and from the actual historical monthly records that I have of data.

So that's how we looked at indoor air quality. And working with our facility manager, being able to have that insight has been really, really powerful. The last facet that we want to touch on are our assets. And when we talk about asset management in its totality, there's a lot to that. And breaking it down into something feasible and workable was my focus.

So you saw the list of all those assets that were popping up at the beginning of the presentation. A lot of those, I sat with our facility manager, and I said, what do you do? What are the things that occupy your time or demand your attention? Let's think about how to address that. And oftentimes, it's finding something. So the ability to find the virtual location before trying to find it physical is helpful.

Finding the information about the asset. So where's the manuals? How do I operate this thing? And then knowing what might be inside an asset. So that led us to the fusion, if you will, of three different platforms-- our inventory, our manuals, and the actual digital twin itself. So Sortly is our inventory system. We use that to track inventory items that otherwise would not be modeled.

SharePoint, we use as our online repository for the documentation. Now, you might be sitting there in the audience saying, why don't you use Autodesk Docs? Well, the SharePoint and the Microsoft environment is touched by every single people in the office. And our facilities manager and eventually, more facilities teams, they're not Autodesk users. They're not modelers. They're not designers. So they're familiar with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, managing PDFs, et cetera.

So I wanted a platform that's in tune to them, doesn't break their way of working, but allows us to connect to the digital twin. So this is what Sortly looks like, how we organize it. Working with our facility manager, I wanted to understand, what's the gambit of change? And that's an interesting way to pose the question. But if I provide a link to a document, and then you go and get a new document with a different name. I have a broken link, and it's an update nightmare for my digital twin.

So I said, think of an adequate working folder structure that I can then point to the digital twin to and then within which we can analyze our inventory. So we made folders for various locations that contain inventory. So the example I'm going to dive into is our bike storage. But imagine our swag closet. I'll show that when I get to the Tandem video. So all the different pieces of swag, you're never going to model that. You just know there's going to be a bunch of stuff in this location that we've designated the swag cabinet.

But this example, I'm going to show here, this is the inventory for our bike storage component, which is a yellow box. That's the industry name. So you're putting bikes in there. That's not the inventory piece. The asset is the thing where the bike will sit, but the inventory is the key fob that allows secured access to the bike storage.

So we use the inventory system to track how many of those key fobs we have, who we've assigned them to, when they've been returned, when we might have to replace a battery on them and et cetera. Really finite inventory management for the items that are associated to the macro asset. And then when we get to the asset itself-- this is SharePoint. That's our bike storage. I might have one or many forms of documentation.

So when we were looking at Tandem, we said, hey, if I want to link to the asset documentation for the bike storage, what am I linking to? The "How to Use" PDF, the GIF of how it opens and closes. Will there ever be something else we want? We said, no, I'm going to link to the bike storage. And when I pop that open, I'll see what's available, access one of the documentations. And we're good. And I have this connectivity loop between the actual asset itself and the information about the asset.

So how this manifests itself in Tandem, let's start. So I made views. I mentioned the first note, the ability to make different views based on metadata. So I said, show me a view where I have a field filled out for inventory. So here, using element-based properties, I provide a link to the system. So this is an instance parameter, not a type parameter. So the instance parameter are the specific things inside a component started in Revit, pulled in through Tandem, replicated as a hyperlinkable link. Brings me to here.

So now I can see these are all the swag items that we have on hand inside our system. As I navigate around, in this view, I'm seeing everything that's highlighted. So now I'm at our stationery cabinet. And if I click on it, I have a link if I wish to see the inventory that's in there. And here I am. How to better the system? Give me a live API connection to our inventory system, or pop this window up inside Tandem so it doesn't feel like I'm jumping out of the Tandem system. That would be awesome.

I'm going to switch views here. I'm going to go to our asset manual hyperlinks plan. So very simple-- our facility manager would be able to drive around here, find a location. So anything with a link gets a visual highlight. These are type parameters now. The green-- this is specifically our green wall. But any of our green wall items are all here. So if I wanted to know what was included in the overall package, I can click on it, see the drawings.

Maybe I want to see the types of plants that we've procured. I can select what information I want to see based on what's available because already, I've honed in on the green wall. I don't need to jump back and forth to different pieces. And we're not modeling all the plants. We're just modeling a component and called it "Green Wall." So this allows me to access any of the information that I may think is pertinent, all managed by our facility manager.

We navigate around a bit here. Let's go to-- this is our model studio. And now I clicked on our laser cutter. Well, how does that work? What kind of laser cutter is it? Who's the manufacturer? What's the on button and off button? What are the venting requirements? It's all here. All good. I can add some data points into the model as needed. But the critical piece is knowing what it is and knowing where to get to the information.

What if I need to find inventory about our 3D printer? So I clicked on the 3D printer, clicked on inventory. And you can see the inventory is empty. That's a problem. Facility manager can start to order inventory-- inventory being print media, for example. If I go into the gym, I want to figure out how to use any of the treadmills. Well, I just need to type "parameter." I need to find the online resource for that treadmill. It's added once. Applies to all the treadmills.

And there I go. I can get straight to the information pertinent for our treadmill. So if I'm on there running and I need to change something on there, and I don't know how the computer works on it, I can hit up this manual and quickly see my information. Now if we go over towards the inventory again, we can start to analyze different ways, different pieces. Sometimes the question is, what takes an inventory?

So think of our gym. We've got dumbbells. But we're not going to model every piece of it. So there's going to be a storage locker where all the dumbbells are sitting. And here's all the information of the weights and dumbbells that exist inside our system. So again, these are assets that would necessarily not take a physical or a virtual representation in a gym but are very pertinent to a digital twin, allowing us to connect data.

Let's jump up to the roof. Well, what's up there? Nobody's going to go on the roof. There's health and safety concerns. But there's our RTUs. These are our air systems, our HVAC systems. I want to find information about them, how many there are, what there is. I can just go up there and find all the information accordingly. Last example-- and again, I keep showing 2D navigation. You can do 3D navigation. And I'm selecting our glass.

This is the exterior glazing. We used Halio windows which allow our glass to tint depending on the exterior conditions. So we have some automated routines, but there's a whole host of guidance and manuals, how it works, how to configure it, how to connect. I don't know where all that stuff is, but I know where the windows are that tint. Click on the item. Select it. And I'm able to access my data.

Next what if I wanted to start getting in the first person view? So we've all grown up with gaming. And this is something that's excitingly offered here in Tandem. I can now drive-through my space and start to experience as if I'm walking physically, but experience it virtually. And this is a really fun approach here because now again, I can see the items that have online information. That's back to that same window.

And I can start navigating through and just starting to access different forms of data. So I recognize the green wall-- I jump to the green wall. I recognize a vending machine, and then I can jump to it. And I can create different types of first-person scenarios depending on walking paths, or what does the facility manager do when he wants to perform the inspections? What route does he take?

So maybe I can plan that accordingly. And as he's walking through the physical, maybe he could plan virtually what he intends to do and look up any documentation as he sees fit. So here, again, I'm just jumping to the manuals of these specific devices. So say, he walks in a room, and there's an issue. We'll quickly get virtual. If this was on a mobile app or just using a mobile browser, I can quickly access that data.

The other thing to show is when we hire people to help manage our space. This lets them understand how the space works. So without ever having to even bring them into the space, they can come in, navigate through, see what manuals we've documented, see what we haven't, where our inventory is, where it's not. The breakdown of our staff seating, et cetera, all of this to create this functional digital interpretation or digital view of what is otherwise a physical real space.

That's what our focus has been. And we think from a digital twin perspective, we've looked at how to actually achieve this final output for us. And our intention from the beginning was to gain insights. We wanted to take our design, push it through construction, maintain a digital record of what was built, use the space, determine how we're using it, how we need to manage it, how we have to operate, and then start to connect all those data pieces together.

We want to prevent downtime, which, of course, is costly. When things occur, we want to get to our solutions more quickly. We want to understand how our space is performing and the inclusion of all of our IoT sensors allowed us to realize this ability. So we can see real time what's happening, have an historic record of what's happening, all with the hope of improving quality, reducing costs, and increasing user satisfaction. Thank you so much for your time.