The VINCI and Autodesk 10-Year Partnership: 30,000+ Hours Saved Annually

ERIC MOREIRA: Hello, everyone. I'm Eric Moreira. I'm the AI in BIM portfolio manager of I Project Its a BIM engineering department at VINCI construction. I'm excited to be here today to discuss the impact of our 10 year partnership with Autodesk. I'm here with Mhedi Mouhab.

MHEDI MOUHAB: Yeah. Hi, everyone. I'm Mhedi Mouhab. I'm working at Autodesk as a customer success manager, so helping VINCI to achieve their goals and success. I'm really happy to be here today with Eric.

ERIC MOREIRA: So in this presentation, we will explore how this partnership has resulted in saving over 3,000 hours saved annually. There is a thing that we need to start with is the difference between France based projects and outside France based projects. So the architect and design in France stay involved as a key actor in a more intricate workflow through all project stages.

So while [INAUDIBLE] collaborative framework can present challenges in France, it also enables projects to commence earlier and allow for modifications and adaptations as the project progresses. Ultimately enhancing flexibility and responsiveness to evolving client needs. But this also have a different consequences as the project processes continually evolve along the construction project. It's important to recognize that the software and tools that were maybe created outside France based market cannot be adapted directly to the French space market.

So there's Watts Humphrey that said that, "Every business is a software business." In a way we should approach the construction industry with the same mindset. By viewing construction through the lens of software development, we can identify numerous processes that can be automated and industrialized to enhance adaptation and flexibility.

This new perspective allows us to either leverage the existing software solutions or develop new applications tailored to a specific construction project's needs, ensuring that our tools align closely with the unique requirements of each project and organization. In my current organization, VINCI we embodied this approach, particularly within VINCI construction, the construction branch of VINCI SA.

VINCI SA is a world leader in concessions, energy and construction. We are active in more than 120 countries. We are the center of the challenges facing today's world. And our ambition and our main ambition today is to play an active part in the energy and environmental transition of living spaces, infrastructure and mobility.

Today we have around 68 billion Euros as a revenue making VINCI the second world leader in tolls in concessions, energy and construction. In 2023 we also made-- we also have a net income of 5 million euros. We have around 4,000 business units and we operate within 120 countries with over 314,000 worksites across the globe.

Within VINCI construction, we have the I Project department that is tasked with the overseeing outrage design management, doing design and construction coordination, and driving the development of AI and BIM technologies. Our AI and BIM development, especially expertise, involve more than 1,400 active teams across the globe. We have data center specifications where we can capitalize of what we already did with new project developments and project construction.

We apply AGILE development to do a step by step development with our internal community and we ensure to have a tailored solution to each one of our project, scope and user requests. So our team, it's locally-- we have many locations worldwide, and our partnership with Autodesk provides us with on-demand tools that empower our users. So I hand over to Mhedi to tell us a little bit more about this partnership.

MHEDI MOUHAB: Yeah, thank you, Eric. Yeah so I'm happy to be here and to share a few words about this partnership that has become more intentional since 2015 when we signed the first EBA, enterprise business agreement with VINCI construction. So if you go to the next slide, please, Eric.

So for the ones who don't know what is an EBA, here is a key component of an EBA. An enterprise business agreement. So users get access to all the Autodesk technology, the entire portfolio. We put in place an enterprise licensing system using tokens to access products with accurate consumption reporting, accessing cloud services, also. And the third big component is global services, where we have Autodesk, Autodesk consulting. So with a number of days included in the contract that has to be delivered over the period of three years, the EBA period is generally three years.

There is also a customer success management. This is specifically my role here. This is why I'm here today. And we have also the Enterprise Priority support, which is also a key element of an EBA. So if you go to the next slide, Eric, please.

So just as a snapshot, as of today, we have more than 8,800 desktop monthly active users. We have more than 1,400 cloud active users, and we have been delivering over the past 10 years 2,500 days between 2015 and 2024. Helping this team, I Project team to build those tailored tools that Eric was talking about. So it's around-- it's 74 custom tools that has been developed with the help of Autodesk consulting.

So yeah, just handing over to Eric, that he will go through the results and how we achieved that.

ERIC MOREIRA: Thank you, Mhedi. So these 74 custom tools allow us to save around 30,000 hours within a database of 800 targets, Revit active users of our community. We have an average adoption rate of 20%. The adoption varies according to expertise, methods. Engineers are more-- adopt more the technology than other specialization within VINCI, for example. So we can have forced specialization like methods engineering around 80%, 90%. And for another more another specialization, a very lower adoption rate.

When we also created learning paths tailored to for each one of the expertise that we can find in VINCI construction. But the portrait that we have today didn't start like that. We start 10 years ago in 2011, and we had so many challenges to face back then. And I'd like to share some of these challenges with you.

So the first challenge is that VINCI required custom tools because off-the-shelf tools lacked the flexibility that we have in our projects. So the tools needed to be finely tuned to project requirements to ensure operational efficiency at every stage of the construction process.

We also need tools that automated repetitive tasks and reduce errors. The idea is to save time for on-site work crew, but also for engineers integrating all those workflows within the BIM methodology. But you also face challenges related to the construction tradition, because there's a resistance for adoption of new methodologies. And teams are usually accustomed to traditional methods. So we had to manage those changes effectively and ensure the smooth transition from traditional methods to more modern ones.

How we achieve this. We have three key elements to achieve this. This final result. The first one was Autodesk technical expertise. That was always available to our own domain to our needs. We had also a robust community, fostering collaboration and share expertise across the globe. And we have the emphasis on training and upskilling teams to meet their new digital demands.

The EBA contract that Mhedi told us a little bit about, we have two different tools inside [INAUDIBLE] that we can use for addressing those challenges. We have the advisory services that can help us assess, but also design and shape this new solution as we can adapt, create custom tools to these project requirements. And we also have a second tool that's called implementation services, where we really develop what we planned with the advisory services. So they are really complementary in a way of building a particular tool.

Each time we build a tool, we also thought about the value that these tool brought to the community. So here we have an example of a tool that generate parameters and values within the BIM model. When to got out, we had a current adoption of 300 users and our projected adoption was the 800 Revit users database. We had, for example, for some of the parameters that were generated, we had around 40 minutes that the engineer took his calculator, calculate everything by hand or in Excel. And then he put the data back into the BIM model.

And for this kind of process, we could save around 39 minutes of his time. And that needs current adoption rate of 2% according to the amount invested to this particular project, and the future adoption ROI. It's more around 172% if all the project adoption user database are able to use this tool. Sorry.

So it's for sure, it's not an exact science. It varies across user database, but it took the worst case scenario to ensure that the data that we have here, the methodology that we have here, it's stressful. It's volatile. And with this methodology, we are provided with key performance indicators.

So for example, we can all across the product, all across the product deployment, we can ensure that we have a target adoption ROI and we can compare it to our current adoption ROI that we can measure in the same way that we taught with Autodesk for the value capture of one product. We also have trust metrics source to be able to track, to monitor this key metric all along the product.

We also know that the amount that one product should cost to be effective and to respect the ROI. And also we all along the user, the user adoption, we can ensure that the quality of the work and the feedback from the user are positive according to the quality that we want to have in our custom tools.

So talking about our custom tools. Just to have a general idea of what we can do with those 74 custom tools. We have tools that allow us to have multiple specializations, do BIM quality control, BIM model comparator. We can generate the parameters and for a particular model parameters that north that are not native to Revit itself.

We can also do automation. We can also have automation to create plans, create view plans, create worksheets and many documents that the boom of bill of materials for quantity surveyors. We also have multiple structural analysis tools, and finally methods tools that allows collaboration between structure and methods engineer, but also allow us to better phase our BIM models.

So for example, for the construction phasing tool here, it's a demo of one of our tools in Revit. We can phase the floor according to what we've done within the construction site, and we are able to create multiple phases and see the different-- and navigate across these different tools, different phasing that we can have for some of our projects. So this functionality is exist partly in Revit today because we do not have a phasing model that we're dealing with two methods engineers and the way that it work today.

The idea, so, was to build this and save time for the methods engineer. We are able to save around 2,430 hours for methods engineer, for example. We also had a tool that's called Structural-methods. Structural-methods model link. That today we have something Revit that's called Parts that create temporary objects within a model to be able to phase it. But it doesn't work very well for some particular objects like stairs.

And we had a tool that was built to improve the link between the structure and methods engineers, because as these elements were-- as we couldn't create parts over some elements, we are forced to remodel every model specifically for the method. So we were able to enable the digital continuity between structure and methods model. But you also-- we are also enabled to enhance productivity of our methods engineers that had all the elements that they need to face directly in our own model. Sorry.

We also had another plugin that's called Security Platform Generative. Basically, when we have a very complex Revit family, it can be a little tricky to place it and to work with it. So we create a plugin that take this secret platform, Revit family that's pretty complex, and place it across the building. The building construction.

So the security platform, it enables the work crew to be able to work in the breakout layer or around the building itself. And the we also, we today we created each one by hand. And now we have a plugin that can position them automatically over a particular building for every level of the building. So these allow our users to gain around 1,700 hours, for example.

And as I said before, we also had multiple learning paths created for each one of our specializations for methods engineers, for structural engineers, BIM fundamentals for BIM management, BIM coordination, but also BIM for contract managers to be able to check the contract and the terms of agreement that we need to evolve within BIM to be able to work correctly.

And just a little bit about I would like just in retrospect to tell a little bit about how we work with Autodesk and the different gaps that we had to bridge across the 10 last years, the last 10 years. So we require at the beginning a very diverse skill set capable of bridging the gap between construction teams and information technology expertise.

And over time, as we created templates, learning paths, resources and custom tools, they consolidated resources were the foundation that we created with Autodesk to be able to empower later on and to implement that communication plan to do a quick learning path for each one of the users that wanted to adopt Autodesk software. And today we continue to build on the foundation laid by the pioneers before us, adopting new technologies with greater ease.

As AI and data emerges as the most valuable assets of the center, we are also prepared for this new challenges that are bringing by AI because we also have this foundation of consolidation. Consolidated resources. And custom build tools, but also a community that want to adopt this new technology.

About the lessons learned. We have things that works well. We have the risks, but also we had improvement areas that we need to address today. So what works well is that we encourage collaboration with our community.

Everyone can share their tools, their templates, their way of work. We also had a linear approach for the development, so we wanted to do it quickly and give a tool to the user as quick as possible so they can test it and they can give feedback ASAP. And we also maintain constant communication about ongoing activities and development with the community. So we ensure that their engagement is there.

But as a risk, so our attempts to automate our entire process across multiple specializations and involving multiple skill sets, we're likely to fail because more. It's easier to go step by step and do small implementations than to attack a whole set of challenges right on.

The second thing is that you really need to ensure that we have regular AGILE meetings with external consultants to essentially to avoid budget overruns to keep on track, to keep the budget on track, to keep the subject on track. Also, we have to invest in an internal team capable of ensuring adoption of these users, but also to ensure the knowledge transfer from Autodesk to VINCI. And to also engage in the development process, given the limited availability of construction personnel.

And for the improvement areas, we think that today we would like-- it would be best to have a dedicate team to deploy the solutions that we build. Because that's a key part to ensure adoption for the users. And we also like to integrate the HR onboarding procedures. So new employees, they quickly learn they can quickly learn how to use those custom tools and being able to work directly with the resources that we have at disposal for their work.

So just to recap. For this, for the key metrics that I showed you before, with this methodology, we were able to save around 30,000 hours annually for a group of 800 target active users. We have an average range of 20% and multiple learning paths. And as a projection, if we get to 100 adoption rate, and if the AutoCAD users and another desktop software users migrate to Revit, we would have something around 150,000 hours saved annually over the tools that we already built and that are available to deployment.

And as a learning path, we are also developing a AI copilot to answer our apprentices and our different teams that want to find the best tool that will answer for their particular workflow. And for in about our path forward. We look into four different projects. One is to be able to create a building project life cycle, to be able to manage and to ensure that our model can be used all across the over workflow, to be able to operate the building. A likewise-- a little bit like in the industry section where we have more life cycle approach of the process that we do.

We are building tools that enable that use generative AI web tools. We are also exploring with geographic information system how we integrate GIS with BIM and another technologies and other data that we have inside the company. And we also integrating the environmental impact analysis integration across models, allowing teams to evaluate carbon footprints and other sustainability metrics earlier in the design process. So that are for best that we see for that we are exploring today.

I think the work with Autodesk it was a very-- it is a very good partnership. We are looking forward to face those challenges and the path forward is surely-- Autodesk will continue to be a great partner to address those challenges. So thank you. Thank you very much.