Implementing Autodesk Construction Cloud Across a £1.8billion Business

IVANA TUDJA: Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining and welcome to this session called implementing Autodesk Construction Cloud Across the 1.8 billion pound Business. My name is Ivana, and I'll be sharing my experience about processes and workflows we've defined in the last few years around the implementation of Autodesk Construction Cloud.

Let me start today's presentation by taking you through all the learning objectives. Let's jump into the first one. I'll help you to understand how to develop a strategy for implementing Autodesk Construction Cloud in your company.

Autodesk Construction Cloud can have many different uses and I have experience with using different products and modules. So I'll help you to identify them. I'll explain how to use the product to improve coordination and drive efficiencies on site.

Providing good training is a key thing for the successful implementation. So we'll identify training requirements to help you to deliver the right training for your users. But before we start, let me introduce myself first.

I'm a BIM in digital engineering lead for Mace. And I'm responsible for a business unit called PREACH, which is focused on public estates, research, education, arts, culture, and health care projects. So we're basically working on really complex and technically challenging jobs.

I've started my career as an architect and I have a master's degree in architecture and urban planning. I've spent over 15 years in a AEC industry, and I first started working on the consultancy on the consulting side before moving to construction a few years ago. I'm also a cluster lead for Autodesk Construction Cloud at Mace, so I'm looking forward to sharing my experience with you.

Early in my career, I spent a number of years working as authorised instructor for Autodesk products, which really helped me to specialize in their use. And I managed to bring that experience into the industry later on. Last year, Autodesk added me to the list of 40 under 40 Champions in Construction for 2020, which was created by Autodesk Construction Solutions. And this was a great honor.

I like sharing my knowledge by speaking at international conferences, so you might have seen my presentations at conferences like London Build or Women in Construction. In terms of my career journey, I was born in Zagreb in sunny Croatia. And I worked and lived in places like Barcelona and Belfast before moving to London, which I made my home almost 10 years ago.

London is also a place where the headquarters of Mace Group is, so let me tell you more about us. Mace is a global company focused on making and shaping the built environment. It operates around four different engines, develop, consult, construct and operate.

The company delivered services for some of the world's most inspiring projects, which includes the ones in the Olympic Park, some of the iconic skyscrapers, data centers, schools, hospitals, and homes. You might have heard of projects like London Eye or Shard, both of which are Mace projects.

The company is privately owned with the annual turnover of 1.8 billion pounds. That should also help you to understand how complex any change around this business can be. Mace employs over 6,000 people who work across five global hubs. Well, the first part of Mace are driven by companies purpose to redefine the boundaries of ambition and help to create a more connected, resilient and sustainable world.

I would like to use this opportunity to show you a project example and mention one of the projects we're delivering now, which is really close to my heart, as we've done a lot of work on driving innovation there. And that's UCL East Marshgate. The project is based in the Queen Elizabeth's Olympic Park next to the iconic Orbit, which was built for London Olympics.

UCL East is a new world-class UCL campus, and the largest expansion of University College London since it was first founded. Marshgate, the building which you can see in the back of the picture will be home to a new degree programs, research, innovation and technologies from across eight UCLA faculties. I want to mention that the project here-- I wanted to mention the project here as it has seen some great benefits on implementing Autodesk Construction Cloud.

Moving onto Autodesk Construction Cloud, I think it's really important to understand the context and why did we decide to implement these new tools. Let's start with challenges. As a company, we faced a number of them. There was a big drive for modernization, which was happening across the industry and the company itself.

And this was driven by both BIM Level 2 mandate from the government, but also a number of advanced and very educated clients who were defining complex project requirements. As we work on very different types of jobs-- projects and with very different clients, we started seeing inconsistencies across the business. This then led to high volume of projects for making individual decisions.

In the same time, the business had its own needs and goals. And one of the main goals was to have ability to compare projects and analyze data. As you can imagine, having multiple software solutions can also lead to a significant cost associated to it. So we wanted to rationalize the whole thing.

And then the training. It gets really complicated and confusing if you have to retrain your staff every time they move on to your project. So we needed a solution and there was only one answer to this, and that was standardization.

I want to put things into context for you. At the moment, we are currently running over 100 projects on Autodesk Construction Cloud. And we have over 2,500 users currently using the platform. So this tells you a lot, again, about complexity.

Now when you hopefully have a better understanding of a bigger picture, let's move onto the platform itself. For those who are not familiar with the name Autodesk Construction Cloud, this is basically a term that covers all cloud-based and construction-focused software and services from Autodesk. More recently, Autodesk Construction Cloud has been turning into a single Unified platform. And this is the direction in which the platform should be evolving in the future.

I'll currently be focusing only on two main ACC platforms, which we've implemented at Mace. And those are BIM 360 Next Generation and Assemble. There's also an option of connecting both platforms, which is something that we've benefited from when it comes to certain uses.

Let's start with BIM 360 and go into more detail. There are two things that always make sure to communicate when we talk about BIM 360. The first one is really tricky and it's important and it's related to its name. The fact that it has-- I always explained to everyone that the fact that there is in the name of the platform doesn't mean they just use for BIM related items. The use of the platform is much wider.

Luckily, this one is changing with the introduction of Unified platform where BIM doesn't get mentioned in the name anymore. The second one is that this is not just a piece of software or one tool, it's actually a construction management platform which covers many different uses. My slide is showing a number of uses which we've seen working really well after implementing Autodesk Construction Cloud at Mace.

Let's start from the Document Management and Model Coordination modules. Document Management, as a module, is actually really simple to use, which means it works really well during tender stages when we would need to share the information very quickly. It's important to also say that, later on, we do have a separate common data environment for projects.

Another great thing is a cloud-based model viewer, which means that everyone can now open models easily without having to worry about having the right software installed or the latest version of the file. We've really see an increase in use of the models-- model viewer since we've implemented this.

BIM 360 is also supporting effective design management and coordination. And it has simplified-- we managed to simplify clash detection process, which is done in the cloud. And it also offers automatic grouping of clashes. For those who are not aware, it's really important to mention that model coordination now includes tolerances, which was a really long-awaited feature. We've established workflows which also help us to manage and analyze project risks through BIM 360 Docs and Power BI.

The next module, BIM 360 Field Management is used for managing quality assurance and quality control on site and also entering daily sites diaries. Project Management made it really easy to capture meeting minutes and assign actions to those who need to take. As I said at the beginning, data analytics was a big driver behind the implementation of the platform. And we are now able to get easy access to all the information via Insights, Construction IQ and Power BI integrations.

All the BIM 360-- and other important thing to say is that all the BIM 360 can cover every single activity or use that we would like to introduce on projects. The fact that the platform is open, it has many integrations available means that we can use the platform and connect it to some other tools. For example, the ones that we use for site cameras or [INAUDIBLE] progress capture.

Assemble is another great tool which has been added to our portfolio relatively recently, but it made a significant impact really quickly. I have to quote one of our commercial managers who recently told me that this is the best BIM tool he's ever used. And believe me, commercial managers are normally the hardest one to convert. So I was really pleased with the feedback.

We're using the tool in pre-construction for quantity take-offs in construction for progress tracking or a tagging and track system. The platform also enables us to do asset data checks and ensure that we are meeting clients requirements at the right stage. We can also provide data from models to our sustainability specialists to support them with achieving our net zero carbon goals.

Talking about Assemble, it's important to say that we were able to access model information even before we had assembled, but the platform just made it much easier and really changed the way we work. A summarized before and after in the shape of diagrams. So I'll talk a bit about that.

If you look at the diagram before, we would have our BIM manager acting as the middleman in between users and on the project and the platform that we were using. Every time our project team needed any data, they would talk to the BIM manager, who would then export the data for them. As you can imagine, this had to be repeated every time after there were changes in the model.

Also, because it was a bit disjointed, we often had teams which wouldn't ask for the information from them model. If we look at the process now, you can see that it's much easier as we managed to remove this need for a middle man in a shape of our BIM manager and establish a direct access to data for our projects teams. They cannot access data directly in the model and then decide to export it into their desired format.

To finish this part off, I included screenshots showing the 3D model from our UCL project viewed in BIM 360. This is a BIM Level 2 project and the federated model is really impressive. It actually contains almost 70 individual models, which are produced by our consultants and trades.

The project itself also has complex BIM Level 2 requirements. And Assemble has proven to be a really useful tool when it comes to assuring that the data is actually in the model. Our construction managers and trades-on-site are equipped with iPads. And we've seen great benefits of using BIM 360 field management and assets model on site for quality control.

As you can see, there is a lot of value that the implementation of Autodesk Construction Cloud has brought us. But the main thing is easy access to information, which brought clarity to our project teams and enabled collaborative working. Now, when you understand the uses, let's talk about the implementation strategy to help you deploy the platform across the business.

Digital transformation complex process is really complex, especially as we're not talking just about small, incremental steps. We want to change the industry on a very large scale and at a rapid pace. So here are my five key steps to make it easier for you.

The first one is have a vision. You're not going to change the industry without thinking out of the box. So try thinking about how you want your teams to operate in the future. And please, don't limit yourself with what's happening just right now. You know that you'll often hear people saying, but this is how we've always done things. And it's important that you just don't get stuck into this mindset.

The second one is about doing research. I would really advise you to explore the market because things are changing every day. So it's really important to understand what's the latest technology available. And keeping up with these really quick and progressive changes in the industry will help you to really stay relevant.

Testing your products. I can't stress enough how important the hands-on experience is. I just wouldn't rely on what you read about the product, because that can be really misleading. And nothing can replace hands-on experience, and that's why it's important to have it, even if you're not someone who is using the product on day-to-day basis by yourself.

I'm sure this is also a great source of frustration for the team I'm managing, as I do frequently question them when I hear that something just can't be done. So always want to know the reason behind it because I do understand the software side. Knowing your people. This is a big cultural change.

So it's really important to win people over. You need to establish connections and meet your teams, especially if you work with big teams. You need to understand what are their needs so you can support them along the way.

I always say that field tours are not implemented from the office. So you need to get to site and get to know people there. It's really important because then if they have any issues, they'll always know who to call.

The last one is probably my favorite, be a rebel. How else are you going to change the industry that hasn't changed for so long? Sometimes, you really need to make bold decisions if you want to make a real impact. And also, don't think that get things easily. I hear no over and over again before I get permission to do anything. So it's really important that you don't just give up.

Let's talk about standardization. In order to assure effective deployment and get the right value out of the platform, you'll need to invest some time in the right resource into standardization. To start with, you need to understand a companies needs and goals no matter which platform are you using. To achieve that, it's important to get subject matter experts on board, because they'll be the right people to support you with that.

On the other side, they often won't be familiar with the software side and the available tools on the market and how are they used. So this is what you need to bring in technical specialists who have a good understanding of products. Together, they can all form a multidisciplinary team who will have a capability to create a customized company-wide strategy.

I'll talk about the importance of team structure as well. Getting it right is really important, as this will assure that you have a robust group on all levels to support successful digital transformation across the business. This slide shows a general structure we've created.

And at the top, at the business level, we have a group that consists of our information management team, Autodesk Construction Cloud lead, which in this case would be me. Technical champions for different modules. And then a quality lead as well.

All of these people will work together on establishing standards for the whole company. Then on a business unit level, each business unit will have a permanent digital engineering lead, who are responsible for projects across the unit and assuring that they meet all the minimum standards. On the project level, we will have a BIM manager overseeing the use of the platform on the project. And quality managers and construction managers who are trained as BIM 360 site champions who are specifically focused on the field module.

A company-wide template is important, as it will really help with bringing all of your customized workflows and processes to life. It will ensure that you have consistency across projects and enable desired workflows. And also enable you to predefined permissions to ensure that everyone can do exactly what their role improves.

As you're collecting data in a structured way, you'll be able to analyze it and track productivity on jobs. If all the projects are set up in the same way, it will be easy for everyone to make a transition in between them when that's needed. One tip I would like to share that it is that it would really help you if you save all of your settings in an external document like Excel so you can easily access them and communicate them when needed, instead of going through each setting on the platform, which can be hard and tricky sometimes to find.

Testing your product. When you implementing a new solution on a large scale, you'll need to make sure that you do it gradually to allow yourself to test the product and gather the critical feedback. So the first step would be to start small and roll out the template and workflows on a trial project. You really need to make sure that this project is similar to the work that you do typically, otherwise you could have a problem if everything works smoothly on a very specific job, but that job is not really applicable or that job is not representative of what you do normally.

This project will help you to get feedback and gain experience. And you can then apply lessons learned back to the project. Once, when you're confident that that trial project is working, you can go onto the next stage and apply lessons learned onto multiple projects. And go back to the same process of getting feedback and gaining experience and that continuous learning and feeding back.

The last and best step will be a company-wide rollout, which will make a big impact on a business. If you implement everything discussed, the main and really valuable output is that you'll be able to make decisions based on live data provided.

Let's talk about the training. You can get everything else right, unless your end users know how to use software you won't be able to move forward. This is where it's really important to cover this.

We'll talk about something next. This is not a mandatory step, but it's certainly something I would recommend. Creating a company-wide survey can help you to assess and evaluate your staff in terms of their digital skill set. This can then be used as a starting point for creating customized training which will be at the appropriate level for users. The survey could just be focused on certain products or general digital literacy, if you're doing it as part of the wider digital transformation process.

When it comes to the training delivery, we're providing internal training for Mace stuff, which will be different for a leadership team or direct users of the platform. And even with the direct users, based on their roles, we would be providing different types of trainings.

It's a construction business, we employ a large number of consultants and we have a big supply chain. So it's really a key that we bring them all along to this journey of digital construction and help with upskilling them. That's where we are providing training externally for tools like BIM 360, which we want everyone to use. Our Digital Training Academy as a key thing in these efforts.

In terms of the training delivery, we are providing a number of different options from online sessions to live support on site. Online sessions are normally focused on a wider platform awareness, which gives business unit leaders a really good understanding of tools which we are using. And the focus here is on why are we doing things.

We also do live sessions, which are normally on site where we show users how to use the product and make sure that they get some practical skills which will enable them to use it independently. And the last one is about making sure that everything runs smoothly on day-to-day basis. And this is one of the reasons why we have our BIM managers base on site. And we also train in 360 site champions who can provide immediate support. The focus on both of these live trainings is on how to do things.

What they want to say here is that a relatively easy thing is to provide users with training. However, if I had to choose one thing that's a key for success, that would be continuous support. Don't just assume that you can provide training and leave. There are always questions that will arise when users start using the product. And it's critical that you provide them with the support when that happens.

Before we finish, I will share that-- I will share what are we focusing on next. Our digital transformation journey has been really accelerated through the COVID-19 lockdown. And we're really proud of where we are at the moment. But there's still loads more to do.

So in terms of next steps, I've pointed out the importance of continuous support. And as part of that, we're continuously improving our workflows by listening to the feedback from users following new product releases. And we will continue to do so.

To improve efficiency, we are looking at a ACC Connect and process automation which will make us even more efficient. And as many of you might know, Autodesk has released Unified platform. And we are currently focusing on understanding it and planning the transition in the future. Hopefully, I can give you an update on this at next year's Autodesk University.

What I would like to finish with is the sentence that I hear over and over again. Construction doesn't want to change. Do you believe this? Because I don't. There's so many talented people in construction who are delivering world's most challenging projects. So I'm sure that they can also deal with all things digital if we provide them with the right support.

I'm hoping that this presentation has inspired you to be a part of the change that we can all make together. Thank you all for your time. And if you're looking to hear more about this topic, I would recommend listening to Digital Builder podcast where I discuss digital transformation topic with Eric Thomas and Matthew Keen from Autodesk.

I've provided a QR code to my LinkedIn profile in case you want to follow me and find out more about what I do. If you enjoyed this presentation, I would really appreciate if you can support it by pressing Recommend. And if you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section and I'll make sure to answer them all.

Thank you all so much for your time. And I'll hopefully see you at next year's Autodesk University.