Learn from the Past, Shape the Future: Data-Driven Project Insights with Assemble, ACC and Power BI

ILLDICKO TRICK: Hello, everyone. My name is Illdico Trick. And welcome everybody to the AU 2024. This is the "Lessons from the Past Shape the Future." And this is a data-driven project inside with Assemble, ACC, and Power BI. This presentation will show you that how can you life track your projects on a customizable dashboard.

But you will hear in the rest of the presentation-- first of all, I will introduce myself and the company where I work for. Next, the base workflow will be shown on the slides. And I will tell you how we work around these platforms, and how we get data from our models and from the project. The next section will be about the exact platforms that we are using for getting this data. And at the very end, I will summarize this in a couple of bullet points to show what we can do from everything that you will hear.

All right, my name is Illdicko Trick, like I said. I'm a BIM manager at KESZ Metaltech, and I am related to BIM since my first job. It's over a decade. It's a long time.

Right now, I'm working for KESZ Metaltech in Hungary. And I am responsible for creating and implementing the BIM strategy. Part of this BIM strategy is this whole presentation also because I think we can manage the projects with these dashboards even much more better. We can choose the best way to handle projects, handle risk. And also, I think, not just the employees, also the CEOs should know how the projects are going. And with this method, they also can track live track the projects.

All right, a couple of words about the company. KESZ Metaltech is a Hungarian company. And before we start, first of all, let me show a short video and show everybody how Metal can become a symphony. Let's see.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

- Every story has a structure. Every song has a composition. Every organism is made of building blocks. We all need something to make us whole, something that constructs us. Without structure, there's no life. Without life, there's no music, creativity, or impact on the future.

Close your eyes. Imagine your home town. What's the first thing that comes to mind? The houses and the buildings blend into the panorama. We create landmarks for the future, constructing memories through the ornaments of cityscapes by breathing life into metal, where resource becomes value, where challenges become innovation, where metal becomes symphony. We are there to construct the unforgettable.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Metaltech, full resource, full metal.

[END PLAYBACK]

ILLDICKO TRICK: I hope you enjoyed our campaign video. And this is how we show everybody how metal becomes symphony. KESZ Metaltech tag is a part of KESZ group. It's a Hungarian company, a Hungarian group. And KESZ Metaltech was established in 2020, bringing more than 40 years of experience.

Based on this, we are part of a group, a global team. And we have multiple strategic partners within the group. One of is KESZ [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH], who are producer, manufacturer company. And the other one is BIM Group, who are a design company. With them, we can provide a highquality service to meet all customer's needs in the field of steel structure, building cladding, and renewable energy-related architectural solutions.

Our team combines precision and creativity. And with these two, the methodology and the AI-driven planning enhance or operations. We have a very big diversification on projects. For example, we are building stadiums. We are also doing different architectural buildings as well from the small ones to the big ones.

And we have three main business units, which are steel structures, non-transparent structures, and transparent structures. For the steel structures, I want to show you the first column. For the steel sectors, we are specialized in complex, challenging steel structures such as stadiums.

Our team has proven numerous times in large structural steelwork jobs where we completed the task on time. And the related quality is also there. The non-transparent structures-- so we have two business lines. One of them is in the first stage. These are really easy shapes to design. But with the same knowledge, we have architecture facade as well, where the-- but usually we have much more interesting designs than in industrial facades. And of course, for transparent facades, we have glass facades.

KESZ Metaltech and also KESZ Group is committed to sustainability In 2022. Since then, we have a roadmap. And a roadmap contains that we have several steps. And I'm honored to tell you that in the last couple of years, especially last year, we won three awards. And I think that means we are not just talking about sustainability, we are also doing it. Part of our roadmap is our BIM strategy as well. And we are going on this road.

All right, let's see your base workflow. Before we go to the exact workflow, let's check what challenges we have without data. When we have untracked data, I think it could cause many problems. And after the problems, we can have lessons learned. I think lessons learned is the most important that we could have on the project lifetime, because after that, we could do all the projects better and better if we are tracking our lessons learned.

I collected three parts where we could have issues on the project without data. The first one is unexpected delays. When we are not tracking good or estimations, for example, we are not tracking our resources. Everything could cause delays.

Another thing that can be a huge thing on a project is a budget overruns. Anytime when we are not tracking the scope gaps correctly, or we have untracked expenses, it makes our projects just much more. So basically, we ran over budget.

The third one is the equality issues. When we are not tracking the wrong design, or we are just not tracking the material defects, or the production defects, or anything that could cause a quality issue, I think it's wrong.

Everything that comes into your mind, in everybody's mind, I think we need to track because you never know when that information will be useful. So that's why I'm saying importance of data is really necessary on all the projects. It should be organic to document all the data. And I think it should be part of the daily routine in everybody's life. When we track everything, in that case, we can analyze everything, and we can make, based on those analyzes, the correct decision that will just improve the project.

What could be the power of data in construction? Data matters in construction because it enables informed decision-making like I said, leading to cost savings and risk reductions. By analyzing trends and patterns, teams can identify potential risks, and they can early step in and change, for example, the amount of resources, change the material. Anything that could cause the project won't be a bad project, even though it could be a good-- still a good project.

All right, let's see your current based workflow. Right now, we are getting plans and hopefully sometimes models from the construction plans. These construction plans usually doesn't contain a 3D model. Without a 3D model, we can't work.

So basically, in the first part, we need to step in and do the 3D model for our own. This could be into options first in the design phase. in the design phase, we have to split into phases.

First of all, the envelope design phase where our colleagues are designing the main shape of the building, they are collecting data to show all the necessary parameters to the next phase which is the manufacturer design. It's much more detailed than the envelope design. Here we are preparing the elements for producing. We are creating codes. We are creating drawings from-- we can produce the exact element which will be in the building.

The second where we can produce models is without the envelope design phase, we have also strategies, how we can do without exact modeling, just an LOD 100 model product production. And it's completely enough for just tracking everything. After we have a model, we are tracking or production as well.

Of course, we have an ERP system where we can track the exact tasks for the elements and everything, but that one is connected to assemble. Basically Assemble is our main platform where we are tracking everything. And that's why we are using Assemble for production and for construction as well. Everything that's generated within the two phases before ends up in Assemble. And we are using it until the project's end.

The variation of the platforms is large. First, we are using Revit. And of course, we have other projects, then Revit as well. In that case, we need to use IFC models. For the envelope design phase, we have, like I said, Revit.

And the data-driven part is Grasshopper within Rhino. And after that, everything is exported to Assemble. From Assemble, we are using, through Excel, the data within Inventor. And within Inventor, we are doing the manufacture drawings. Within Inventor, we could also use the Rhinoceros with Grasshopper. But when it's not so necessary, we are just using the data that's stored within Assemble-- nothing more.

Of course, when we are talking about construction, digital construction, we need to have a CDE platform as well. For this, we are using ACC. And after everything is uploaded to ACC, we can also get data from there as well.

Let's see where we generate data. When we start the construction plan phase-- so when we start the projects-- usually, we don't have any amount of data. I'm saying usually the amount of data in this phase is usually zero because it's so tiny that it's usually zero.

After that, we are mostly producing the data for ourself that we want to track and analyze. Most of it is generated under the design phases. Like I said, we are designing the manufacturer drawings from data as well. So that's why the most part of the data is generated here within the design phase. Of course, we need to track many things within production and construction as well. So that's why we generate data within production and in construction phases as well, but not so many data than in the design phase.

All right, let's check a bit the platforms. First of all, our base platform is Assemble. Most of the data is tracked just in Assemble. Assemble, I think, is a really good project management software.

And when we are doing our projects, we are Splitting the parameters into two. First, we have the model parameters that we are using just for the modeling. I will show them in the next slide. And we have also the Assemble-generated parameters. That's the 30% under the production phase and the construction phase we are producing.

These parameters can be really different. I have just some of them here on the slide-- for example, the status. All the elements have one life cycle. On that life cycle, they have statuses for all the steps they need to finish. I think this is the most important than we can track because this can show at the end how the progress is shown, for example, for the last two months.

Another really important part of the information that we are tracking is the article number and the phases. I think these three are the main how we can identify where we are standing right now in a project. Besides this, like I said, we have a connection to our ERP system, which is automated with the RPA. And I think we can get every time the most up-to-date information about the elements.

Some of the data in Assemble-- we have a close cooperation between designers, and contractors. And the designers are usually producing these parameters. You can see we have many standard parameters as well.

DIM A is dimension A, B, C, D, et cetera. For these, we have a small mock-up where we can show on a sketch which dimension is related to that exact parameter. And also we have unique parameters as well. On the right side, you can see, for example, a position of a cut off or a size of cut off. Also, we have consoles which we usually are tracking within these parameters.

All right. We are using Assemble for communication as well. Assemble is connected to Autodesk ACC Docs. And we figured out a process, how we can use it, this connection for communication as well. Due to this connection, we can see issues within Assemble.

And we are, I think, lucky to have these function because within Issues, we also can save views. After these views is saved, we can comment like in a regular issue, and those issues will be shown within the ACC Docs platform as well. Within these Issues, we are telling each other what was done, for example.

Was the envelope design done? Do we have any issues with any of the elements? Or we can go ahead and send a couple of elements into production. That's how we are using it for production. And after we attached the selected elements, it's clear to everybody, which elements should be sent to production or need to be shipped or et cetera.

After I mentioned the ACC, first, let's check which features we are using from ACC. We are using both Docs and build features as well. For Docs, like I said, the issues are we using are the proper way as well, of course, but mostly, for the inner communication.

Next, two issues, we are managing our files as well. Everything on the project needs to be uploaded into ACC so we can reducing the arrows of miscommunication about the plan. Everybody can see the base of the plans, the just one source.

We are using reviews, and we are using also transmittals. Both are a part of our documentation. So anytime we need to upload a model, it's documented here. Anytime we just need to send out a new transmitter to the client or just need to be sure that it's documented, we have for everything reviews and transmittals.

And what about the build part? We are also using build features such as forms and photos and also meetings. These main three are part of our daily processes. I think I can tell you a fun fact. Once we try to teach the people on the site the photos, how it works, they can do it, first of all, they were not so happy. They need to learn a new thing, a new experience.

But after we showed how easy they can use it, and this is mainly our philosophy that everything needs to be used as easy as it can. After they learned how to use photos, they just want to use photos for everything. They document the photo part, the photo aspect of the projects here in the ACC, not on other platforms.

But after we talked about, which platforms we are tracking, the data we are storing in Autodesk platforms, in Assemble, and in ACC, everything, let's check how we can get out from there the data. Before we do that, we need to just quickly show how our data evolution was in the past few years.

First, we just had 3D model. For a couple of years, everything was just made in 3D. Some information was attached. The LOA was, I think on 100. So those were really easy models.

After that, a couple of years ago, status tracking was incorporated into the process, and this increased the amount of data. First, we try to just tracking the status, where do we have that exact element. But after that, like you see on the third column, now we are tracking all the relevant datas.

For somebody, a tiny information could cause a really big problem. Even they need to know the smallest information, and we need to store the smallest information as well, because at the end of the project, that small information could help us explain what happened on the project. And of course, at the end, the data-driven decision is, I think, right now, the highest point of the data evolution because, like I said, any tiny information can cause a much more better explanation or a new decision on the project as well.

All right, we are storing our data in ACC, which is the single source of workthrough and also Assemble. And it's easy, really easy to get the data out of these platforms. For ACC, we have a data exchanger. We need to export the data daily with this data connector. And everything can be linked within Power BI. And for Assemble, we have a direct connection. So anything we are changing within Assemble, it can be also seen within Power BI as well.

I think real-time monitoring allows projects to manage the access-- the up-to-date data. So it should be really easy to read these information. And after we are real-time monitoring everything, almost everything that you can imagine, we can implement tools like dashboards on our projects.

In the next couple of slides, I will explain how we are using those dashboards. You will see some small examples about them as well. But basically, this is the part where everybody can customize the data for their own, because here it's really important what the project wants to be seen.

Like you see on our service slide, we have different type of projects. It matters whether we have just steel constructions, whether we have-- we should construct the envelope as well. Or we should do transparent or non-transparent structures. It depends on the project.

And this is where we need to split the dashboards as well because it matters whether we need to just show the amount of steel In tons, for example. Or we need to show how many panels we need to put on the building, how different they are; how many manufacturing plants we need to produce; how much time was it, et cetera, et cetera.

And of course, these dashboards, these data analyzes, can reduce the risks. For example, I think it's the most easiest way if we can see that something is not on track. Of course, we are using schedules. We are using many other specified platforms where we can show what's the problem. But when we are just checking the project in step further, we just need to know it's something wrong with the project. This is good for it.

We need to find-- and this is the next slide. We need to find the KPIs that we need to search for and track for. Right now, these dashboards are made for envelope projects. So for non-transparent business units.

And on this project, we are tracking the actual progress from day-to-day. We are tracking all the root causes. those are tracked within ACC. And the next two quantities, we can track the quality as well.

So basically, right now, what you can see is two examples. One of is the left side, how our main overview slide is made on the dashboard. Here we can see how big is the project. Of course, we can use financial data here as well that could be stored within Assemble; how long is the project going, et cetera, et cetera.

We have different sections, of course. Our main sections for the non-transparent projects are the overview, the envelope design view, the manufacturer design view, the production view, installation, and anything else that's stored within ACC. So the issues, the amount of issues, the use causes, everything that could be important for a project.

All right, until we looked into deeper into data, let's check what we have at the end. And what is this good for? What is dashboard good for? In my opinion, monitoring is really important on the project's life. We can monitor any relevant data.

Right now. I mentioned, we are doing it for the non transparent structures. But of course, based on this presentation, I think anybody could do it on their own. And the other part, we have many people working on the project.

Smaller positions, bigger positions, everybody needs to be seeing the mask more up-to-date-data on the project. So with life tracking, I think it's really important. And of course, because we have different positions on the projects, really important is to get everybody easily to the data.

So right now, I showed at least four platforms to you. But in this case, they need to just use one, just one, which should be easy to read and easy to access everyone.

And thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this quick insight into data. And Thank you very much.