Discover How a Large Construction Company in Europe Developed a BIM-to-FM Solution That Has Made a Real Impact on Their Business

PAUL BRENNAN: Good afternoon. Can everybody hear me? Welcome to this class. I don't want to call it a master class. It's more for beginners. It's for people who know a lot about BAM, know a little about BAM, know a lot about operations, and maybe know a little bit about asset management. So we'll try and cover as many people as possible.

And Autodesk, [? late ?] again I see. As I said to Jay, the Autodesk guys can do it once, can't they? But this is very close to being the graveyard shift, so I'm glad so many people have attended. And this is more about telling a story.

So I'll have to explain the type of company that BAM [INAUDIBLE], so you will fully you get an appreciation for what I'm trying to get out. But just for myself-- guys, there's chairs out there, at the front, as--

[INAUDIBLE]

[? --Yuri, ?] you know, these are the Autodesk guys. We'll wait. We'll wait. The Dutch and UK, I see, the US guys are here on time. But just a little bit about myself. I am the technical department manager and part of the Royal BAM group, where I'm based in Dublin. I'm an engineer by trade. I've, I suppose, a lot of experience in project management and the pains of project management. They weren't easy years.

I was a virtual design and construction manager at BAM, and now I look after all things BAM digital related-- our quality, digitized, and our [INAUDIBLE] safety systems and engineering, et cetera. And a key word-- I was asked to include a key word for this presentation, but I went a bit more than that, as about a common language, a common technical language. And you can't expect, as asset managers, as operators, as clients, as designers, as constructors, if you don't speak the same technical language, you just can't link all this together.

So just before I start, to get an appreciation of who is in the audience, have we many asset owners or asset managers in the audience? A couple, very good. What about designers? That's Craig [? Gars. ?] His hand's up, yeah, very good. What about constructors? Ah, brilliant, a lot of constructors-- definitely my favorite. Well, I'll just be moving around, so bear with me. I'd much rather be walking around a little bit.

But this is who Royal BAM are. There's other Dutch guys here that can probably pronounce the name a bit better than me. We're Royal BAM because we're so old, founded in 1869. We've an 8 billion turnover. We have 23,500 employees. And we're across 30 different countries. But we're mainly anchored in Europe.

And just to explain the type of areas as a construction business that we actually cover, it's design and engineering. We're involved in civil and rail. We do a lot of marine projects, and we do building an MEP. We have our own property development division, so we are asset managers and developers. We have an FM arm to the business and across, I'd say, six different countries. And we also do PPP, and that means that we finance a lot of capital projects for governments, and especially across Europe. And we have assets for 25 years that we very strictly have to manage. So we're very much bought into this BAM to FM story that I'm going to proceed to tell you.

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- This is B, the B of BAM, the B of building houses, roads, and infrastructures and the B of the bricks to be building with. Today people, companies, and ideas all move from A to B. But in the future of building, new technologies create new opportunities, making B merely a starting point. The future of building and the journey of BAM beyond the B, in a world that's vastly different , yet right around the corner.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

C, this is our vision, the direction we're heading in. Our journey is from B to C, to a future where builders become creators, where we make it before we make it; where all the bricks follow the Clicks' where we don't start a project at the beginning, but continuously learn from past projects and experiences; where business planning becomes co-creation with our colleagues, customers, and all our stakeholders; where we are no longer building in isolation, but where all our structures are connected through a continuous stream of data. The more we collaborate, the quicker we unlock potential.

Today we are building the present, but have already started creating the future. We are moving to C for ourselves, for our customers, and for the world. Join us today, and together we will move to C. BAM moves from B to C. Let's move together.

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PAUL BRENNAN: I was just giving myself a little break there. I have what I've been told is a Vegas throat. I'm kind of hoarse at the moment. But these are some of the projects that we're actually working on at the moment. And it's just to demonstrate the complexity of these projects. They're not getting easy.

This is the Museum of the Future, in Dubai. It won an award yesterday morning-- [? Yuri ?] collectors on our behalf with [INAUDIBLE] Design-- very, very complex. And the asset management team of this project-- they'll need a lot of, I suppose, help in actually how they're going to maintain this building. The floor to ceiling height is quite large. It's very broad spaces, and it's a technology advance, or technically advanced building.

And the next one is Bolands Quay, in Dublin. I'm based in Dublin, so these are just some of the home projects, and thrown up there, as well, 180 million euros worth of real estate. And I believe Google are actually going to take it over, and we're just in the ground at the moment, building it.

At V&A Museum, Dundee, in Scotland, one of my Autodesk friends there [INAUDIBLE] was up there recently. He got a nice reception from the guys up there-- and a very complex structure and a very beautiful structure, but from what you can see from some of these buildings-- here's another one from Zaha Hadid, the architects, at Port House, in Antwerp, Belgium-- these are all BAM-built projects-- is that they're becoming ever more complex. The designs are flamboyant. They're not easy to build-- a lot of team work, a lot of different people coming together, to make these projects happen.

This is the National Children's Hospital, in Dublin, we're building at the moment. This is a 1 billion euro project. The full suite of BIM [? 362s ?] are being used on this project at present. And this is the NATO HQ, in Belgium. And finally-- actually, before I forget-- this is Microsoft's European Headquarters, also located in Dublin-- a lot of technology gone into this building. And the facade systems, all of the many M&E technical systems, makes it a very, very complex project.

So these are just a taste of projects that BAM are working on. I'm sure the projects over here are every bit as complex. And we need to be very mindful, as we go forward, in how we actually construct and procure and commission and hand over these projects, that the asset team can actually manage them in a very efficient manner.

And I'm very conscious, as well-- I hope you can understand my Irish accent-- [? about ?] just the credentials of being able to speak at a forum like this about using BIM process managements. And we have been doing it for quite some time. We've been using all its tools. We've been piloting and testing and trying them out, and we've won plenty of awards along the way across Europe. And I think one of them was actually in Hong Kong. So it has been very, very well received.

And it's actually a quite difficult thing to do unless you were to bring a team of vested parties together. And just in BAM, because we own the design-- we're the constructors-- we manage the precommissioning, the commissioning, and handover, and we're also the asset managers. We can actually bring the full team together. And if we didn't have the FM arm in BAM, we probably wouldn't be able to do that. So our achievements to date is just because of the type of business we are. And just to take another break, please bear with me.

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OK, unfortunately, that's the last video I have, so I'm going to have to power through talking. But what I've been trying to do is set the scene and then try to explain that very luckily, we have that full team lifecycle and partnership within our own business that has allowed us to test and pilot and go down the different rabbit holes and partner with the likes of Autodesk to try and make something that real happen with the technology that's out there.

Just before I talk about this particular slide, something that jumped out with that video is Level 2 BIM. Has anybody heard of Level 2 BIM? Hands up, Level 2 BIM. Has anyone heard about the BSI, or BSI Kitemark, at that? Yeah, a couple of hands. So I'll talk a little bit more about that as we go through it.

But this particular slide here-- BIM, BAM, BOOM!-- you can see, when you invest a euro at design stage, it's normally reflective of 20 euros at construction and 60 euros in life cycle. So you can see why we do PPP in asset management. It's where all the money is. And I'm surprised the designers there get as much as they do, as well, [? Craig, ?] by the way.

Most operators-- and I don't want to speak [? out ?] [INAUDIBLE] I'm a constructor myself, an engineer by trade, as I said. But if you win a contract to manage a facility and assets for three years, you'll spend the first year surveying the asset [INAUDIBLE], because the data the client has given you is no good to you. So that's probably where you make your money. That's the first variation that most operators have on any project.

And in year two, they're down to the nuts and bolts of managing this facility. And in year three, the party lost the contract for the next period. And they're just winding down the top before they leave. And the next asset management team that comes in are going to do the exact same, because the data they were handing over is quite bad. As I said, I'm a constructor, and we're very, very guilty of it.

This is something that we put together just to try and demonstrate data loss on a normal project, [? just ?] a normal project across the world at the moment, with all the technology that we have. Those nodes reflect where data is lost. You can see where the FM provider joins the conversation, and you can see the contractor joins and where the contractor leaves. [? We're ?] all about procurement and handover-- get in and get out. And then the client is there. He is there the whole time, but he comes and goes in troughs.

This is from my FM manager. He accuses the construction team of this all of the time, and he's very, very right, very true about this. [? And ?] designing who we partnered with-- [? Brooke ?] out there-- I didn't mention Building Ops yet-- but we partnered with [? Brooke ?] to develop a [INAUDIBLE] system, that was actually [INAUDIBLE] consume the type of data that we're generating during construction to avoid this kind of situation with our FM team. And this is what we're achieving and have been trying to achieve on our PPP projects, especially our own design and build projects.

OK, so the loss of data is minimal. So the right people, at the right time, the right place, has access to the data. We're bringing the FM guys in [INAUDIBLE]. And that's very, very hard to do. And if you're a developer, if you're an asset owner, or you're going to build a new asset, it's very hard to start thinking about the operations that early in the project, and even bringing the contractor on board.

But what we're trying to put together, as Royal BAM, by bringing [INAUDIBLE] from across the world that are part of the BAM team, is a playbook for design and construction. Because all of the money is in the asset management. So the FM and asset managers of this world need to tell the design and construction teams what they want, how they want it. Design and constructors are very, very intelligent guys, very well-educated, and they can do absolutely anything. The technology is out there.

But the problem is they don't understand or know what an operator actually needs to manage his facility. So even within BAM, with 23,500 employees, this is critical for us to put this together. And we still haven't fully done it. We haven't joined all the dots just yet, but it's something we're working on. And this gets to the common technical language, the language that the operators actually understand-- the designers, the constructors, the procurement guys, even the commercial guys-- common technical language.

And just how we did this, back in [? Arlington ?] and the UK, especially, was [? dot ?] [? d ?] suite of standards. I'm not sure-- has anybody heard of [? Positive ?] 92, part 2, a revolutionary documents? When you read this 10 times, it actually makes perfect sense. It's very, very straightforward. You don't need 3D models, actually, to actually implement that particular document.

And BIM is in the title. So what is it? It is specification for the information management for the capital delivery phase of construction projects, using building information modeling. The publication of that document was delayed by about six weeks, because half of the team that put that document together disagreed about putting BIM into the title, said there was no need.

But the next document that came out a year later, [? Positive ?] 92, part-- oh, here is the wrong part. It's actually part 3, 2014, [? had ?] specification for information management for the operational phase of assets, using building information modeling. And even though that document came out after the part 2 documents, the one on the left, that document is more relevant in terms of a project's journey. That is a document that actually informs or helps to inform the design and construction teams. And Part 2, then, is used to actually deliver that.

And I included the CIC BIM protocol. The only reason I included got is some people use contracts as an out not to do BIM. But there is mechanisms [INAUDIBLE] and are contractual and trying to get buy-in by everybody, so we use that particular document. And the RIBA Plan of Work 2013-- I think, before 2013, the RIBA worked stages, went back to 1958. In 2013, it was amended and changed to reflect this new way of working-- digital data, 3D models.

And the data we're talking about is still documents and drawings, as well, but it's just a structure on how we manage and control the data. That's the RIBA Work stages. It makes perfect sense. The old one did not.

So prep and brief is stage one, concept design-- stage two. Develop design is stage three. For the constructors in the house, technical design is our IFC [? drawings, ?] each for construction. That's stage four. Five is construction. Five is bringing the [? MEP ?] contractors on board. Five is our, I suppose, do and design for assembly and just for installs. Six is creating our [? ASBAs, ?] putting our commissioning documents together, our handover files. And seven is in use.

And this is designed to be cyclical. So even though an asset is in use, if you need to build onto it or renovate it, you can go back and start this system again. And the previous documents, if I just go back to them, all talk that language. They're broken into [? dual ?] stages, so everything ties together quite nicely.

OK, it's all well and good having a standard or a document available, but trying to implement is another thing. So we partnered with BSI, the British Standards Institution, about trying to make a real difference and make it part of our quality system. And just to go back, BAM is based in five home countries-- Ireland, the UK, headquartered in the Netherlands on the Dutch stock exchange, at Belgium, and Germany.

And every time we got together in the last six years-- and we're talking about BIM, and my colleagues in Germany and Belgium were sitting down, we could never decide on what BIM actually meant. It meant something to them. It meant something else to us, something to our UK colleagues, as well, that was completely different. It was only when we agreed as Royal BAM to actually adopt this standard, that all of a sudden, we were talking the same technical language, even though we were operating in different geographical locations with a different native language.

And we started looking at this document, as well. And by partnering with the British Standards Institution, we're getting accredited. So the Kitemark was called for using these standards. Our projects are being now independently assessed. Our project teams are being independently assessed. And our quality systems have been tweaked and changed to actually manage or be compliant to these documents.

So standardization-- talking the same technical language is the only way of doing this. Whether you're part of the operations team, the design team, the client's team, it's the only way we've made it work. And this is just us getting the first Kitemark, which was also handed out to a Hong Kong company. It was handed out to two UK companies, as well, at the time. That was November 2016.

And since then, in the Middle East, in the UAE, clients have actually been certified for the Kitemark as a way of trying to make their designers and constructors, and be compliant in how data is managed and transferred across the project lifecycle. So I think I've set the scene. I've told the story. So far, it's been quite challenging. But you can see how we're actually doing as an integrated construction business.

So our FM story, BIM to FM and how we went about it-- so I'm talking to some friends over here in the States. BIM in America seems very focused around level of detail. And I look at where the people attending this class today are from. They're from all over the world. They're from different types of companies.

And in some parts of the world, it's all about the geometry and the information and data that sits behind it. And in other parts, it's very much geometry-focused. The geometry is just a means to an end. And I'll talk a bit more about that later on. You know, it's nice to have, but it's the data that sits behind it is what our operators actually need.

Trying to understand what our operators need has been a challenge, as well. We don't tend to communicate quite well. But that's why we have these standards and frameworks set to try and get information out.

So the incentive we had in Royal BAM to go down this route-- as a construction business and as operators, we have 2.4 billion of a PPP portfolio. So to manage assets for 25 to 30 years, there are maintenance contracts. And we have a big brother, in terms of governments and government representatives, that look over our shoulders at everything we're doing. And we receive fines if things break, fall down, if we don't react in time, if we're not doing the planned maintenance, if designing issues. And this was the incentive for us.

And the first time we actually did a BIM to FM project was in Ireland. We had a schools Bundle 4 with four sites. It was six sites, but two [? failed ?] planning; 34,000 square meters of educational facilities; 45 acres. There's a 17-million euro CAPEX and 2.5 million of an OPEX contract. So that was only about two years ago.

And this was the approach we took then, this lifecycle BIM solution, this BIM to FM. On the bottom left-- see if the site works just here-- Navisworks, Revis, tech that it can be anything. We encourage-- we're software agnostic, when it actually comes to primary and model development. And we have [? an EBA ?] with Autodesk, so all our own internal systems are used in the Autodesk platform. But it's all about our subcontractors and the supply chain, and they can use whatever software they want to generate 3D models. We just have a mechanism of managing ourselves.

So we send all of this information to the cloud. We're using BIM 360 [INAUDIBLE] for that. And there's a very neat integration between Navisworks and [? Lou ?] around 360. You can pull the models up and down quite easy. It's actually very, very clever, so it's a big help for us.

And we're using COBie as a way of structuring data. And some of my colleagues here are from the Netherlands. COBie is probably not going to be the data schema for in Germany, in Belgium either, for that matter, and in other parts of the world. But it is a way of structuring data to be able to move around these systems.

And we have CAFM system that we need to populate data into and talk into our FM managers or FM colleagues. That actually takes a lot of time, to transfer all of the handover data from construction [? delivery ?] into these CAFM systems. And that is where our relationship with Autodesk came to the fore, in terms of developing Building Ops.

And Autodesk didn't have a CAFM system. We were using a very respected and well-known global CAFM system. And the relationship was very frosty, because we were talking about all of this structured data we were doing at design and construction, and how do we put it into their system. They didn't want to know about it at the time. That was a couple of years ago. So we worked quite closely with Jason, with [? Brooke, ?] and [? Katie ?] [? Lira, ?] to develop this new system called Building Ops. BIM 360 [? Ops, I think, ?] has been rebranded.

And in terms of the cycle for data going through these projects and how we actually got to this stage of putting it into the CAFM system, I just have a little work flow here I put together, just as it spilled out of my head. So I'm not sure if it will make full sense. But we need to identify the assets. And what I mean by that is not everything in a facility is as important as everything else.

So if I'm talking [? to an-- ?] as a constructor, to me, this table is an asset. The chairs are sitting on our assets. But to an FM manager, generally they're not. They're not important. They're more worried about the big ticket items, and they're still trying to learn where the focus has to be. [? That's ?] [? also ?] introduced in Colby completeness checks, using [? Revis ?] and using the two as a [INAUDIBLE]. And we have to verify the actual, I suppose, physical environment as we build this with our digital environment, in terms of geometry. And that's where the geometry is important.

So there's no point having a space in a model that doesn't really somehow reflect the space that's actually just been built and handed over, where doors are exercised or located. They don't have to be millimeter perfect or inch perfect, but they need to be reasonable good; the same with lights and everything else. So we laser scan as we go, and we verify our models, the geometry, with what has been built.

So BIM 360 [? Lou. ?] I'm not sure if anyone here has used much of [? Lou ?] over the years. It could be a little better product, just from my Autodesk colleagues. But what it does very, very well is it creates the assets that we can push into feed. So those equipment sets-- it's all about linking them back to the digit asset-- so the physical asset on-site, and we have the digital asset in the cloud.

And the barcodes are the way that we actually manage the linkage. So I have an example of what it actually looks like. But the barcode is just a way of linking what is the digital asset with the physical asset, guys working on sites. And they don't need to know where they are in the building. They don't need to have Wi-Fi to just use these barcodes.

So we're using them during the construction phase, as well. We're using them for health and safety. We're using then for managing our plant. We're using them for managing our drawings. We're using barcodes and BIM 360 for absolutely everything. And that's the key to how these two has actually worked together.

And finally, we do an export from field into ops. So it's a very neat export. All of the data is just transferred automatically, more or less. And it only takes a couple of minutes. So I have a couple of results that, in a few minutes, we'll talk about.

So this is a Remeha Boiler. So you can see here, in the bottom left, we've scanned that particular plant room, just to verify that all of the valves, all of the pipework, all of the big ticket items, the assets, are in the right place, as per the model. So we've done the verification of the geometry.

We have attached a QR code to all of the assets. They're just a unique asset identifier. They're linked back into the digital model. OK? And as we [? moved ?] through it, then, we didn't field. We associate pictures or photographs, drawings, cut sheets, within that 360 environment. They're all associated with it. So as we were putting together the handover file, or as we were going through the actual delivery of the project, we're linking all of these data types and formats and cut sheets and specs, and everything else, anything that our FM colleagues might need. We're putting them together, using the unique asset identifier.

I probably should have some sort of sound for this, but you have no idea that, I suppose, the time, the effort, that was saved from doing the Schools Bundle 4 this way, to the previous School Bundles that we delivered, which was Schools Bundles 3. So the neat thing about all of this is we delivered seven schools a year before, using the old, traditional way-- unstructured data and uncoordinated data, no BIM models, no standards, but maybe two years before. So we were very easily able to compare the difficulties, the challenges, and the successes with SB3 with the benefits of SB4.

So moving along to the results here, this orange block just represents four months of transferring data on SB3, that our FM team actually had to do-- a lot of work, a lot of pain. It took up a lot of time. There was a lot of expense associated with. And this little, green block represents the same volume of data that was transferred in Schools Bundle 4 and the actual benefits of that. So the cost saving for [? that loan, ?] that's just moving data around, putting it into the CAFM system, gathering it, and putting it in some sort of structure that the operators could use. It was a huge success for us.

So the time to log a task in our old CAFM system took 2 minutes and 53 seconds. And working with the Autodesk team, it was all about flexibility, ease of use, with Building Ops. And using a very similar technology to the constructors on-site [? with ?] [? field, ?] it takes 31 seconds. So in SB3, we did 8,500 logged tasks in 2015. So you're getting an appreciation for the time that this was taking up our actual management guys.

Trying to find the data that our operators or FM managers needs on these projects as they were going around to building, on SB3 or all CAFM systems was taking six minutes. And just using Building Ops, using the QR code systems, having that data put together in a structured way, it was only taking 20 seconds-- massive, massive differences here. But all of the successes has met our partnership with Autodesk, a huge success in the last 2 and 1/2 years.

So you always have the question, will construction teams buy into this? On Schools Bundles 4, we set the requirements for design and construction. And they did buy into it. And it is a culture change, and it is difficult. And you do need strong leadership, and it's not always perfect. But these were some of the metrics that they recorded.

And just by being able to compare it to their previous Schools Bundles 3 projects, that's where these metrics have come from. And they're not made up. And if we didn't have SB3, we probably wouldn't be able to stand up and say that these were the big wins that we actually had. OK?

So I just included this picture, because I like the colors more than anything has. But it was a massive success for us, a success for the team. And we have celebrated it in a lot of ways over the last two years. But we're pushing the boundaries as best we can. And it's partnering with the likes of [? Brooke ?] and the team and with other vendors, as well, that we're trying to best produce the data and use it as we go through the asset life, or the lifecycle of an asset.

So why BIM 360 Ops? I'm not an FM manager. I'm not an asset manager. I spoke to our FM team, and these are the benefits, and these are the reasons that they like BIM 360 Ops. I think we're probably the first company to actually use it. We're a large company, but we spent a lot of time with Autodesk in developing this product for the type of contracts that we are actually delivering across Europe.

All right, so the information I've been able to find here is quite easy. It has the same desktop interface and system that [? Field ?] has. So it's [INAUDIBLE] knows [? Field ?] knows this actually works quite well. And interestingly, when they developed the app for Building Ops, they didn't do it for a tablet. They did it for a smartphone, which, at the time, I couldn't really understand.

But for anyone that's working on a construction site, tablets were-- they were great at the start. But everybody gets fed up with them. They're too big and funky. Everyone has a smartphone. So just going down the smartphone route was a very, very clever decision by the Autodesk team.

It's easy to find the assets. It's easy to find where you are. It's all down to [? the QR ?] codes. And just in terms of spaces, a space like this-- the way we do it in Building Ops is an asset itself. All right, so if you go to any door of our facilities, and you just open the jamb, you'll see a little QR code. So nobody really needs to know where you are. It's quite clever. I think 2D is nice and quick. The information is easy to find. It can all be used offline.

And on the schools, in particular, the headmaster, the teachers, they all use BIM 360 Ops. If something happens, they'll create the issue for us-- very simple to use. Some of the other CAFM systems that we were using were just too complicated. They were only being used by the actual FM management team themselves.

To check this are very similar to what [? Field ?] has. And we're getting better and better at creating issues, et cetera. But it allows us, in terms of auditing our sites, our, I suppose, asset sites, we can do a desktop audit before we ever get there. This is just very simple digitizing, what used to be a very laborious, paper-based process. Dashboard is also very, very good, very intuitive. And I'm nearly there. That's the dashboard.

And here's some of the reports that are generated. I'll [? get through ?] [? these ?] nice and quick. I just want to give Building Ops [INAUDIBLE]. And what's next? Again, in terms of FM and asset management, what is next? Just a caveat that I'm not an asset manager. But working with the guys back home, this is what they're telling me.

So we [INAUDIBLE] a force to deliver a BIM to FM solution, using the Autodesk products, might work quite well. And we're very, very happy. And we stood up in front of many rooms of people very much like this, and we've said as much.

So currently, we're mobilizing a fleet of robotic vacuum containers. It doesn't sound very impressive when you see it there. But the labor involved in cleaning is huge on our sites, on our projects. And this has been massive for us. And just with that, you see, in the areas of these schools, [INAUDIBLE] pictures. So we have robotic and [? Moore's ?] as well. All of this has been of massive value to us.

But we're trying to link it back into the Building Ops, using the APIs and the Building Ops, to manage all of these things, to control them, and to use the reports coming from them. We're working with some of the sensor manufacturers. [? It is ?] actually fantastic on these schools, these courthouses. Within these assets, the infrastructure is there to link sensors via Wi-Fi into the systems-- unfortunately, not fully there on construction sites yet. But these assets are leveraging that technology, as well.

So this is what my colleague [INAUDIBLE] sees for the future of FM and how he sees it working-- people to automation, robotics, and IoT. I'd also be saying this about construction sites, as well, but definitely on schools and courts and prisons and hospitals, and everywhere else, it's a real, it's a real bonus. Knowing where you are in these facilities without having to depend on QR codes, just being able to use Google Maps and have that interaction [? within ?] Building Ops, is something that the team has been working on.

When we talk about sensors in these facilities, it's detecting gases. It's detecting leaks. It's detecting absolutely everything-- energy use, electricity, gas, you name it. There is no end to it. But if we can link it back into the Op system and make it as easy to use, and see the data as what we've been doing already, it's going to be a massive win for us.

[INAUDIBLE] actually wants [? Brooke ?] to work quite hard on this. So it's [? been ?] able to send a ticket to a 3D printer. Imagine that just for parts-- a very, very simple concept. And printers are available. This is just linking the technologies together, so it's not a closed loop just around Autodesk on its own.

The wearables-- we did a lot of work with Daqri. Daqri had their European headquarters in Dublin. And if you're an operator and you're going to [? sites, ?] you have a Daqri helmet on, and you're changing a [? pump, ?] again, you're using the same logic QR codes, everything that's actually laid out, using these wearable technologies. And that's it. So I hope that was of benefit. And if anybody has any questions, please shoot.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] create [INAUDIBLE] and to create them, would you use the [INAUDIBLE]

PAUL BRENNAN: We didn't create a [? classic ?] [? O&M ?] manuals. And the NDFA, the National Development Finance Agency, who were actually procuring [? those ?] at the time, it was a big leap of faith for them to trust that the digital copies that we actually had in the structured environment could replace the traditional O&M manuals. But that was a client that was willing to take that leap of faith. And at the end of the day, they were going, well, it is your facility for 25 years. So it was the wrong decision. We have plenty of time to make it up, but we're very lucky that way.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] established at the FM systems, like Maximo or [INAUDIBLE]?

PAUL BRENNAN: Sorry, what was the start of that question?

AUDIENCE: How do adjust your work flow? You've just described was you've got a client [? that has an established ?] FM system, like [? Autodesk ?] or Maximo [INAUDIBLE]?

PAUL BRENNAN: All right, the story I told there is a BAM story, where we can actually control the CAFM system. We control how we bring the data together, because we know what we're going to do at the other end. When a client is talking to us about a different CAFM system the likes of Maximo, we're telling the client that this is how we're structuring the data. This is how we're putting it together.

And it's up to you to have a conversation with IBM to see if Maximo can accept it this way. And if they can't, tell us how you want this delivered, and we will adjust our settings to do that, whether it's FSI or Maximo. So whether it's FSI [INAUDIBLE], it's very flexible. But it's up to the clients to have those conversations with their providers.

AUDIENCE: For Autodesk, though, really [? you have ?] [INAUDIBLE] that all of us [? get ?] on [INAUDIBLE]

PAUL BRENNAN: Yeah, yeah, and we've had some clients back home, especially in the UK, as well, that would be-- they become concerned not to [? administer ?] that, about using something like Building Ops.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

PAUL BRENNAN: Yeah, what we found, with some of the more complex projects and using [INAUDIBLE] Maximo, and FSI, they're very robust tools. But we found it very hard to talk to them three and four years ago about trying to accept a clever way of design and construction data. It was very, very difficult. They didn't want to talk to us about that, and they wanted things to be done the way it was always done. And they were very much segregated-- the construction and the delivery of asset with the operation of the asset. And that's something-- that's a barrier that we've worked hard to bring down.

AUDIENCE: Do you charge [INAUDIBLE]? Are there two separate contracts for construction and building management, or do you just have one contract? And how does that [INAUDIBLE]?

PAUL BRENNAN: A contract, I suppose, in delivering these projects, is it?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

PAUL BRENNAN: Yeah, I suppose, the way the PPP contract is set up, you do have a CAPEX, which is all about procurement and asset delivery. And then you have OPEX, which is all about asset management. So there are two separate contracts. It's being done by a lot of the same people, but you have your FM teams, which is a different company [INAUDIBLE] to your construction and your construction delivery team.

But the way we're set up around the technology side of it, and [? Field, ?] and [? Gluf, ?] and BIM 360 Docs, and because we have the Enterprise agreement with a vendor like Autodesk, our RM teams are using those two as the very same as our construction teams. And they're not [? spitting ?] up new [? field ?] projects, for example. They're just continuing on with the one that was used to deliver the asset [? intimation. ?] So that full history is there, sitting in the background.

And if anyone was at the [? AC ?] [? keynote ?] [? today, ?] it's very exciting what Autodesk are trying to do with that BIM 360 ecosystem. And I think it's only going to get better and better and better.

AUDIENCE: So you set guidelines for your design teams and the way they set up their models and their parameters, so that you can then take that [? stuff ?] downstream through [? the field ?] and in the Building Ops?

PAUL BRENNAN: Yes, we do, [INAUDIBLE] no [? detente, ?] no [? detente. ?] And it's not that they don't want to follow them. It's too hard. They find it too hard. You really have to hold their hand and try and educate them and bring them with you. So we spend a lot of time doing a lot of work ourselves in the background about trying to take whatever way they give us the data. They are so concerned about the geometry. OK, so we're just focused on the geometry so [INAUDIBLE]. And we do everything else internally ourselves.

And unfortunately, we probably do need some clever Excel spreadsheets just to move data around at some of the [? Colby ?] plug-ins, for example, just to put that data in ourselves. Because if we were beating up our designers as our partners, we'd probably never get the designs finished so we could procure and construct. And that's just the reality of it today. But they're not all like that. And I'm hoping next year and the year after, it's going to get better and better and easier, as well.

AUDIENCE: So how is the data entry process? Do you get the data into the field or into-- so it's what makes it [INAUDIBLE] How does the data get there?

PAUL BRENNAN: So we just use fields in a very, very simple way, just for construction delivery, just around capturing that asset data on-site, the way we'd always have done it on paper. And it's only when an asset is installed, like a boiler, like an air handling unit, that we start capturing the install disk, the preconditioning information, that maybe a photograph of it being installed and the guy who put it in, for example, and the commissioning data, and where it is. And we verify that then, just a location-wise, with laser scanning, et cetera. That's all fine.

But when we do the transfer and [? ops, ?] and create the project in the Ops, Ops sends us a code that we put in the field. And the data just goes there, and it's done in minutes. And our RM team or Schools Bundle 3, like the suffering and pain that they had to do, one guard, in particular, for four months, and [INAUDIBLE] with Ops.

And hopefully, likes of Maximo, with IBM, will have a very similar system, no doubt. But it just worked very nicely for all a couple of year-- this was a couple of years ago. This wasn't is it this year or last years? It's a couple of years ago we were doing this, and that we were just able to bring it the whole way through. It was just a nice, clean system for us. And I suppose the constructors, at the time, felt that our FM team were the big winners in all of this, that you could very easily put a euro sign or a dollar sign to the savings and the money that was made by our FM team on these projects.

AUDIENCE: Tell us a little bit more about that, that [INAUDIBLE] of getting your clients to actually buy into Ops and the [? longer ?] value of it and how many [INAUDIBLE] construction process it [INAUDIBLE].

PAUL BRENNAN: It actually didn't impact the construction process at all. And getting our clients to buy into Ops took a little bit of work. Ops is new to the market, and nobody had heard of us. And there's a huge leap of faith involved. But we just spun up sandbox projects. We proved-- we did a proof of concept. We demonstrated the benefits that we were bringing from design and construction, [? tars ?] moving the state into operations.

And that probably impressed the client more than anything us. Because at the time, the biggest headache the client had was delivering these assets. He wasn't too concerned with the management [? or ?] the math [INAUDIBLE]. It was all about the delivery of these assets. And when he could see it all being linked together as nice as it was, [? they ?] bought into it.

But we were very lucky with the client we were dealing with then, at the very first project. And then the clients have just followed. They followed through since, all these other clients. If you can get one big client to buy into it, and that story goes viral, the other clients will buy into it, as well.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, so how [INAUDIBLE] work with your clients, and now that you [INAUDIBLE] working with them [? 10 ?] years or so, then how do you [INAUDIBLE]? Has the relationship between how Ops is structured with the owner, the manager, and the Ops [INAUDIBLE]. Has that been an issue?

PAUL BRENNAN: No.

AUDIENCE: Who's the manager and who's [INAUDIBLE]?

PAUL BRENNAN: Yeah, so every project, every site, we have an FM manager. So we have someone who owns the FM of that site.

AUDIENCE: Is it on BAM's site?

PAUL BRENNAN: On BAM's site-- sorry. So we look after it. We have BAM FM, we call it. So we look after the facilities management at all these facilities. But we're able to give access to the users who are in the schools. They're the principal and the teachers. And prisons are different. Hospitals are different. But they get to use the tool in a very similar way with their smartphones, in terms of raising issues or cases. There's tea spilt here, or there's someone [? out ?] for knocking a radiator off a wall because a broken chair. And they do that very simply.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] for that client and the one source that they want to go to? [INAUDIBLE] wants to see all of those [INAUDIBLE] consider being created?

PAUL BRENNAN: But we give them access to it. We do it in a very transparent way, yeah, yeah. So we're very transparent about it. And there's a cultural change there, as well. But the contract is set up that you have to react under the contract in [? that ?] commercial environment, and by a certain period of time. And working with the Ops team, we were able to develop Ops to suit the contract we were working with at the time. So that's how we were able to make Ops, I suppose, a keen product for us in Ireland, back where we started using it first.