A Transformational Journey on Rails: Better Outcomes for Passengers

GILLES PIGNON: Hi, everyone, and welcome to this presentation, A Transformational Journey on Rails, better outcomes for passengers. I will explain to you our BIM strategy for better outcomes. I will start directly and explain which kind of speakers we are. I'm Gilles Pignon. I'm responsible for BIM strategy to CFL. And Jean-Christophe Ouaknine, BIM Manager Infrastructure Railway.

Little bit detail in my way in Luxembourg. Architectural background. Was architect before. And I work in France. And since eight years, I'm in Luxembourg, and I work in BIM transition and strategy for CFL since five years.

Jean-Christophe Ouaknine, BIM manager since one year to CFL, BIM and GIS specialist rocking in France before. And now he works for CFL to develop our BIM infrastructure projects strategy.

Luxembourg. We are a very small country, but a very important country in Europe. And it's very difficult just to find on a map Luxembourg. That's why we just make a map and focus. In this kind of map, we can just see that it's a very small point in Europe. But a very important country with an important digital strategy, and we are going this way for infrastructure and for BIM development.

Where is Luxembourg focus? Luxembourg, Grand Duchy du Luxembourg, we are not a country which are the same as other countries. Grand Duchy, it's constitutional monarchy. And we are very small, but we have a third language, Luxembourgish, that I will explain to you after that we have another problem or a quality that we have three different languages.

Luxembourg is a country would just not leave Luxembourgish people. We have a lot of people and ethnic composition is very, very complex. And that's something with real advantages for us. And urbanization is very important. That's why we are talking about GIS, and BIM, and infrastructure development because a lot of people are not living directly to Luxembourg, but they are living in France, Belgium, or Germany, and they are working all day in Luxembourg.

Multiculturalism. Three official languages, Luxembourgish, French, and German. And we will see after that it was something very difficult at the beginning from a BIM process to define which kind of language we have to use. And that's very important for us just to talk about this point.

And just to point is Luxembourg is not a fiscal paradise. Sometimes people just thinking that Luxembourg is a small country with just banks, money, and fiscal policies, but it's not this reality. We are a constitutional monarchy. And I can't show you our prime minister because we are just in a way to define the new minister. That's why I can't be sure to have a picture from the one who is coming next time.

We are talking about Luxembourg and more precisely, I'm going to explain digital level of maturity. As Isay, Luxembourg starts with this development BIM strategy since eight years ago. They start as a creation of a BIM workgroup for national supply chain.

After initial BIM on pilot project, first beam guideline, training for supply chain, that's very important, and draft of interoperability guide. And now this year, we have an event, BIMLUX. It's a very important event because it's for all the supply chain, the representation, and the development in the future in BIM to Luxembourg.

CFL. I'll just talk a little bit about our organization, why because we are railway manager. The only one in Luxembourg, because we are, as I say, a small country, and we are the only one in Luxembourg National Railway Company. Our job and mission is passenger transport, infrastructure management, and freight activity. Passenger transport is not just trains, but you have bus, railway, and we have another part is very important. It's a funicular system.

CFL group. It was created just after the second war. And we have more as 5,000 employees. We are the biggest company in the country in Luxembourg. And that's very important just to know that in Luxembourg, all the public transportation is free of charge.

You don't have to pay. And we were the first country to decide that in the future, people have to take public transportation for ecological advantages, or just for people using a lot of cars, and we have a traffic jam, it's a real problem. That's why we are in a way to develop a real political public transportation. And it's support from the government.

I just talked before about our funicular. It's something could be a little bit different as other countries. We are a small country. We are not in mountains but we have a funicular or something because we have two parts of a city, Luxembourg City. Two parts, and one part is on a not mountain, but hill. And that's why just to make connection, it was decided to build this funicular to make a relation between the two parts of the city.

General organization, we have several services, passenger activity, freight activity, human resources and organization, administration, and finance. And I'm working in infrastructure management. I can go into detail, in infrastructure management in a project management department. And that's very important for us to develop this kind of project and BIM process in department from management project infrastructure.

Because we think that we have at the beginning of a project. And the end of the project, That's why we want to develop a concrete and very, very efficient BIM process from the beginning to the end, and not just for building, but for railway infrastructure. BIM by CFL, resources. I'm not alone in this department.

I am the head of the division. But I have three quality checkers, four Revit experts, one Civil 3D expert, we will explain after more in detail, the more technical-- our vision and BIM strategy in infrastructure, one data manager, and one administrative. Internal resources, training for current employees. At the beginning of the definition from our BIM strategy, we decide to schedule some kinds of training for people.

Not just for people who are working in the BIM division or just project management, but for all the people which are working in the department. And for us, it's very important just to explain that people don't have to be specialists in BIM. They just have to know which kind of process we are going to implement in our department.

It's not for a BIM user. But when they are going in a meeting they have to know when we are talking about BIM or digital transformation what means BIM by CFL. That's why they have several types of training, reality capture, design automation, BIM management, BIM infrastructure, augmented reality. And each team has a reference was following long training courses and have to be a specialist, not an expert, but a specialist in this kind of BIM strategy and using BIM all day long.

We are not alone to do that because I think it's very important that we have external resources, specialists. They have the ability to make new processes [? by ?] us internal. One is Daniel Hurtubise for Revit and ACC. The other one is Quentin Marquette for infrastructure Civil 3D, Infraworks. And it's very important to know that they are working together. And they have the same goal to define a real BIM strategy railway for CFL, and efficient, and not something to develop complicated strategy or development. Very useful for all people, the goal is that at the end all workers in CFL can use this process very efficiently and very easy.

External resources, training accreditation, objective, assimilate and test the BIM process, closer collaboration with the project management team. Responsibilities of the BIM manager, organizing and facilitating workshop, preparing workshop content and materials, compiling results and adjusting. That's very important for us just to know that the people who are working for us, or the organization which are working for us give, from our side, explication and training to be sure that at the end from our project, we became the model we want and the model, which is useful after maintenance.

Workshop, in this workshop, we are just telling people how they have to work for us and when they have a problem or competence they need, we do with them workshop on demand. That's very important. They can just ask us, OK, I have a problem. I don't know how I have to do that. And we explain to him, OK, do that. And it will be OK for us. And we are working with single source of truth for modernization rules. And they have directly access to this on the web.

Project types, BIM by CFL project types. We have new building, existing buildings, new infrastructure, laser scanning, data management, data exchange, and common languages. We try to have on all the lines in the country, projects, BIM projects, not just one or two. But we are on the way to have 50 projects in Luxembourg for CFL.

It's a very complicated because we have a lot of several types of projects. And we have to define our strategy for all the types, not just for one. And we start with buildings, new buildings because it was the easier. And now we are in a way to develop our strategy and process for railway infrastructure, which is much more difficult than just a new building.

Strategy. I think this is very important to understand, the governance from BIM to CFL. It's coming from our direction. They decided to invest in BIM and digitalization because they know that at least it will be an advantage for us. And it will-- I'll say as director, save time later, and in turn, saves resourcing. It's very important to understand that, for us it's [INAUDIBLE].

How to manage a BIM process? Just do it. BIM transformation, mappings across first BIM project pilot was started since six years. BIM level two conception phase is closed BIM construction set. And we start with this kind of project in IFC. But now we are working only with Autodesk solution, Revit, Civil 3D, Infraworks. And it's more easier for us working in an ecosystem, as Autodesk ecosystem in Revit and Civil 3D than with IFC.

We are in current developments in a [? state ?] to multi-disciplined components library, Object for Revit, Object for Civil 3D, BIM GIS integration, [INAUDIBLE] integration. Our goal is to becoming the European railway owner leader in BIM. And that's why we scheduled timeline.

Today, we are in introduction of CAFM and M2 skills development project teams. But our goals is in more than 10 years to receive-- to have the first digital twin, first [INAUDIBLE] company to have its built environment and fully integrated in four years, BIM DBMS.

BIM for railway infrastructure and GIS implementation. Strategical key facts, setting goals, roadmap and common vision is very important because this point, if you want to implement it in BIM strategy, you have to have a common vision and a real roadmap. After to be sure that we are talking the same-- about the same the common data models, it's very important to join development consolidated data model.

After when you have this kind of common data models, you have to define common use case. Why? I will do that. It's important to define that. And at least a single glossary development to be sure that all people know which kind of languages we are talking about.

JEAN-CHRISTOPHE OUAKNINE: OK, Hello, everyone. Let's focus now on infrastructure projects and developments. We need to clearly define scope of each service-- each software, Civil 3D, for example, for roads, railway, landscaping, and to preserve Revit for building bridges. We have in large infrastructure projects, different source of data that incomes, GIS data, LiDAR data, BIM data, CAD data.

And we have many providers. So we have to change between multiple sources, environments, data. We will then-- contractors have to work with Civil 3D and Revit together. We have to define clearly the scope of each [? thought, ?] as we said. And we have to merge them into a collaborative platform. So on ACC, we merge both disciplines.

This is the software environment we use every days. Especially in CFL, we use software with Data Exchange. You have to control the production of different contractors. Several contractors use other solution based on CAD or not CAD environments as the [? Pro C ?] or BIM map. But we have to input them into Civil 3D model.

So for example, [? Pro C ?] or [? Pro V ?] provide to us [? XML. ?] We have to input into Civil 3D without loss of information and geometry, of course. Then we exchange data between Revit, Civil software for production and coordination, and Infraworks. We use it to visualize better projects.

In coordination phase, we use Navisworks, of course, and more and more ACC and BIM Collaborate Pro. After [INAUDIBLE], we have to archive datas. So we have several platforms. We use M2 4D and 5D planification during construction. And the most important thing is the cycle between these all environments, we fuel all the data into [INAUDIBLE] enterprise environment to reuse it, reuse the datas in the next project. And we make a complete circle.

Now, this slide shows many developments we reproduced to enrich Civil 3D libraries, templates, model checking. So we have a lot of developments involved for telecom communication, for example, in toolsets. Many [? empty ?] blocks are blocks with dynamic blocks. You have the proof of concept, we can all mobilize on Civil 3D for railway, cable ducts, bypass, [? catenary. ?]

And CFL provides two templates to contractors to help them. And we can check both deliverables with the WS format to check normals. With the supply chain, our stakeholders, we convince them to use Autodesk software, such as Revit and Civil 3D.

So we have to develop for them the libraries. And more than libraries, subassembly components to help them to have a-- to respect the design. So for example, this is a PTT for [? our ?] railway which supports [? Kurn's ?] geometry. In coming from other [? softs, ?] as said, from [INAUDIBLE]. And the proof of concept, you see on the right of the screen, you see a complete corridor with a Corridor 3D and surfaces.

And we arrive to publish them both to ACC environments. It's an important effort for CFL to give correct [? PTT ?] and [? DWG ?] with the correct [? time ?] to have a good correspondence with-- for our final information at least. For material, for example, specification, all the information we need.

More developments around Revit have-- I've been [INAUDIBLE] for libraries. So we have a lot of libraries of BIM objects in Revit for all equipments on a railway station. You have all the developments on Revit with specific toolsets. So integration in CFL [INAUDIBLE], we have a macro to gain more time during the design and automatic implementation of numbering new sheets between phases of a project.

Now, we focus on the Luxembourg specificity because as Gilles said, we have many, many languages and many workers in the lands. They work with French, Luxembourg, German, English, or Portuguese. So we have to adapt those multiple languages into a common and master language into the software to have a standardization code, a common language.

We can't keep two or three codification as German or French for a same material, for example. So we have to define clearly a dictionary to exchange between different language into a master language. More on Civil 3D, we define clearly standards as we said just before. But we have to do more because Civil 3D have many API and many multiple capacity to expose information.

So we have to define best practice between play with Exadata or [INAUDIBLE], or object data for AutoCAD map, or property sets for Civil 3D. So we have to develop, for example, Dynamo codes to [? fuel ?] from another set from a set to another. For example, [? fuel ?] object data in through property sets or vice versa.

To check quality, not the geometry, but the quality of the information, we improve investigation on standardized data tools. So we have to use DWS form to control the DWG structure. And for information, we have to check them with Excel template, for example, and then standardize data to help us to do the job.

So we focus now on use cases. Now, as Gilles explained, I work for-- I have a civil engineering courses. And it's very important in BIM for infrastructure to clearly define the needs of a [INAUDIBLE] company for data acquisition. So we have to clearly specify on-site data acquisition. So the deliverable-- so three big families of our [INAUDIBLE] surveying. So [INAUDIBLE] survey with a robotic station, GNSS RTK method.

So we have to check that. And the deliverables we need for Civil 3D, polylines, or lines, and intelligent block or [INAUDIBLE] points. For photogrammetry and laser scanning, we have to clearly define the need of the result of the campaign for both. We develop you see [? internal ?] Excel sheets for our own control. We have to clearly define the need, what we control, when we control.

And we attach date/time to provide a multiple source. And we want to make it better and automatic dashboard for all the need we [? command. ?] At last, we just-- we have to attach and work a lot on automation to [? invert ?] data management. So for example, if we have on the-- we have large point cloud data. Everybody knows the difficulties to manipulate them, to consult them.

So we just finished a script with ETL to cut properly point cloud and with the clipping function. And we with each clip, we use attribute of [INAUDIBLE] on [? alignments ?] to rename properly small data sets.

Another way of development, we attach services of a French startup TCP, The Cross Product, to classify-- clearly classify automatic classifying LiDAR scan with intelligence, artificial intelligence. So we can say that the ground is classified, catenary, electrical, railway.

So it's a big win to mobilize better and efficiently our [INAUDIBLE] scope. Now, we can see on a small project, but important for us, to preserve animal transition on bridge. So you can see original photogrammetry campaign. Then [? modernization ?] on Revit, assembly comparison between existing and modeling, and another model to communicate.

With point cloud data, we can do quantity takeoff and checking. We can follow during construction phase. We can measure in [? two ?] models. So you can see the result of measure. We can have a few [INAUDIBLE] too. Now, it's a sample of-- it's a specificity of [INAUDIBLE], we need to go faster because we do acquisition with this type of assembly to gain time-- to save time because permission with language are very important.

And so we just prepare the future mission of Globe Zenit, the data acquisition. Rendering now, we use federated models to communicate with project teams and with public. So on this video, you can see a major project for the [INAUDIBLE] railway station of the land. This city Bettembourg will have new parking areas, new pedestrian and bridges.

So this is the integration into Infraworks combining GIS 3D relevant datas, Civil 3D production, and Revit production. This video show the impact of the project for residents and for politicians. We use Infraworks with point cloud data to measure or to better understand existing environments, what is now before the projects. And after, we can see the same two both videos with railway integration from Civil, bridges, catenary, all the equipment of the future stations.

So our rendering from the same project [INAUDIBLE]. We push them-- we push the data, so Civil 3D, Revit, et cetera, Infraworks, into software for rendering. So better communicate for the project. We can make several good screen, very good rendering.

And from this model, we reproduce augmented reality models. So we can have a use. For example, we reproduce a smart code. And the passengers, for example, they can scan the barcode. And they can simulate visiting into the future project with their mobile device.

Another video for better communication for residents, for example, we can see the impact of the removal of the Rhine crossing. As we see, we can see that trees coverage don't miss for residents. And the residents shows the same configuration before and after the project. They don't have an impact-- project don't have impact on the nearest environment for residents. So software, so recap, Revit, Civil 3D, Infraworks, and ACC [INAUDIBLE].

As a way to communicate, so it's a great rendering from Revit to Twinmotion. And it helps-- this video helps non-technical people. But there are-- those people are political. So they can communicate efficiently with-- in public consultation or social networks, for example. And the renderings is very helpful.

Now, last but not least, two slides to talk about GIS and digital twin. Our vision that GIS and ArcGIS will be our single source of truth. So we have to make the effort to push all the data's coming from BIM production into digital twin in GIS format.

So we have to make conversion with ETL, for example, or put them into native formats. We focus just on geometry. And it's a proof of concept of Civil 3D corridor and equipment, cable [INAUDIBLE]. [? That's ?] pushed into common data environments.

So in GIS, proof of concept research, this is done. But now the main question we have to respond is how to correctly transcribe BIM models into feature classes for GIS, internal GIS, or [? cadastral ?] GIS. And at the end, more eventually, pan-European GIS. So the GIS defines the standards of feature class. So we have to produce transformers-- automatic transformation to push the-- to push BIM into GIS feature class. For example, right away, electrical, telecommunication, we have to do that with correct correspondence, name by name, family per family, and discipline per discipline.

GILLES PIGNON: And now conclusion, as you just see, Jean-Christophe explained which kind of development and which kind of implementation in BIM we are making is always oriented for customers. That was our goal to explain that. And we are not alone to do that. CFL internal employees trained to BIM process and applying directive is 80%. That's very important just to understand that CFL is customer oriented, not just for BIM, but for quality and security for its customers.

And we are not working alone. We are working with stakeholders, other stakeholders, engineers, architects, firms. But now, the implementation from BIM in this kind of organization is not very large. I think it's 25% because the market, I think, is not ready to have much more BIM project because we have to define which kind of BIM we want and which kind of BIM we need.

Conclusion, the best conclusion is always to have the conclusion from our head of CFL. And it just says this kind-- this innovation and involvement of our employees place among the companies at the forefront of best practice in the field of civil engineering construction. And that is very interesting. His conclusion was this BIM process will allow us to gain in efficiency and quality, with a view to continuously improving the quality of reception and services to our customers. And I think these kind of words are very, very important to have BIM with service to our customer in the same sentence.

Thank you for your attention. I hope it was, for you, interesting and helpful. And if you need some more information, you can contact us, Gilles or Jean-Christophe. And it will be a pleasure to talk with you to explain something if something wasn't clear. And thank you. And bye.