Construction site management with advanced workflow in Construction Cloud

MARCELLA FARAONE: Hi, everybody, and thank you for being here today. I'm Marcella Faraone from FS Technology, Italy, Rome. And today I'll talk about our contribution to a project that regards the implementation of advanced workflow in Construction Cloud for the construction site management. This class is a follow-up of the class presented last year about the view toward construction site management with advanced workflow in BIM360.

I will describe the improvements made easier through the adoption of the build model, including the plan grade build mobile app for free workers. We have been widely extending the use of Construction Cloud with the digitalization of other construction processes in addition of those already implemented. Moreover, with the use of Forge and Construction Cloud Connect, we are developing integration with other company databases and Legacy IT systems to avoid data redundancies and to build up integrated dashboards.

We are focusing our attention on setting up workflows for safety environmental work in progress and quality checks in the work site. And now just a brief introduction of our company and our team. FS Technology is the hi-tech company of the Ferrovie Dello Stato Italiane Group. It has been created at the beginning of 2019, and its mission is to strengthen and support digital innovation in group companies.

I'm the Head of Competence Center BIM GIS. There is a team inside FS Technology. Together with my team, at the end of 2017, I started the successful project of integration between BIM and GIS. For this work we received the Special Achievement in GIS Award in 2019 by Esri. During the last two years, I focused my attention mainly on construction phase, setting up workflows for inspection surveys, safety, and environmental checks in the work site. I have BIM management experience acquiring the red line [? not ?] [? on ?] [? the ?] ground project in Doha, where I worked from 2014 as MEP BIM coordinator and as a BIM manager for the Italferr team.

So our work consists in the analysis of the current processes and workflows, and in the improvement of these processes also with the introduction of new technologies. We mainly support Italferr, which is the engineering company of the group, during the design and the construction phases, from the preliminary design to handover. And Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, which is the company of the group owner of the entire railway infrastructure for the asset management.

For this project we've been collaborating with Autodesk, and I want to thank especially Simone Coppochin for his support with Esri. And engineering-- in particular, I want to thank Raffaele Ausiello and Mauro Balcerini for their contribution for the development, the connections with other tools and the base with the use of Forge.

In the following, just a brief recap of where we were in 2020. In July 1996, the European Commission adopted a resolution to implement the Trans-European Transport Network TEN-T. The intent of this multiphase project is to provide coordinated improvements to primary roads, railways, inland waterways, airports, seaports, inland ports, and traffic management systems throughout Europe. When complete, the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor of the TEN-T project will stretch from Helsinki, Finland to Valletta, Malta. The Napoli by high speed railway project is a part of this corridor and was initiated in 2015. We've been focusing our activity mainly on these projects.

With BIM 360 document management field, we implemented quality checks and inspection surveys. We are talking about of all those controls that the construction management must do on site to check the works are built on site according to executive design. Starting from the standard procedure we developed a series of checklists. The control activities were divided for heavy work into different phases-- preliminary activities, construction phase, after construction, and final check documentation, every item with a closed answer. In the following video, the construction site manager will describe the project and improvements made with the use of this technology.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Hi. We are engineer [? Mark ?] [? Caruso ?] and [? Daniel ?] [? Borelli, ?] site inspector. We are part of supervision work team for the realization of railway doubling of the [INAUDIBLE] high speed, high capacity, Naples-Bari.

- Our role is to verify the works are executed in accordance that respect for the project police action and obligation imposed by current regulation.

- The route Naples-Bari is part of the initiative for development our sustainable mobility, promoted by the European Union to achieve the European Corridor System, Trans-European Transport Network, Scandinavian Mediterranean. The new line is going to extend for about 150 kilometers a route and to allow reduction of journey times. So you can travel two hours nonstop from Naples to Bari.

- Napoli-Bari project is divided along its length in several sections-- Napoli-Cancello and Cancello-Frasso [INAUDIBLE]. [SPEAKING ITALIAN].

The Cancello-Frasso [INAUDIBLE] site, where we are carrying out our direction of works. It stands for about 17 kilometer of double track line and crosses five towns situated on the border between Caserta and Benevento district. [INAUDIBLE] the most important works to realize there are, [? Monteggia ?] tunnel of about 4,200 meters, eight viaducts that cover about 3,700 meters total of line, and about 9,000 meters of mixed railway at water that includes embankments and trenches.

- There are multiple and articulated check to making site. And for this reason, it offer as chosen a pilot testing process, including ours to optimize and digitize standard controls to make the contest of direction of works activity. By use of an IT platform, available on tablet, smartphone, and PC. It is possible to write both inspection report and standard control plan by the [INAUDIBLE] end of this year.

- Among the advantages of the digitizes of the management of the checks inside the building site, you can highlight a time reduction of reports compilation of daily inspections. Drawings [INAUDIBLE] on a cloud. Therefore, the possibility to have any time [INAUDIBLE] contract document or project paper, a digital memory. The previous control [INAUDIBLE] outline, and this allows to compare the preceding results with the current situation.

[END PLAYBACK]

MARCELLA FARAONE: Despite the good feedbacks from the field, there are some lack of capabilities in the use of BIM360 Build that convinced us for the adoption of Autodesk Build during this year. Analyzing the outcome expected from either construction managers, we listed the lack of capabilities in Autodesk BIM360 to understand in which way we could fix the issues. For example, major issue was the difficult to synchronize the checklist in absence or weak internet signal with the consequent loss of data.

Some limits in adding different sections inside a checklist like workers, vehicles, or weather or lack of information about the activities made from the user on the checklist or the availability of some kind of report or format. Starting from this analysis, we decide for the adoption of an Autodesk Build. In order to avoid the loss of data in the past to BIM360 Build to Autodesk Build, we had to do some technical step.

First of all, change permissions on BIM360 and made all products read-only to avoid creation of new checklists in the old environment. Second step, with the use of Insight, we downloaded [INAUDIBLE] checklists from BIM360 and uploaded them inside a proper folder structure and Build. All of these checklists has been saved in PDF format. The use of [? Insight ?] allow us to maintain inside the PDF the links to the checklists in BIM360.

I want to highlight only one point that can create some difficulty in this passage. In BIM360 Build, we have the possibility to automatically create the project and its folder structure with the use of forge APIs starting from an Excel file. At the moment in Build, we have to create manually the folder structure, usually using a desktop connector, because the same APIs are still not available. Anyway, in one of the latest releases of Autodesk Build, the functionality of [INAUDIBLE] checklist template has been released. Obviously, this functionality will pass to avoid the work in creating checklist templates again.

Another useful functionality recently released in Autodesk Build is the possibility to import location using the same Excel file used to create location in BIM360. Moreover, in this case, we also have the possibility to update these locations due to the fact [INAUDIBLE] is assigned to a single WBS. So respect to the outcome expected from [INAUDIBLE] construction managers, what are the improvements made with the use of the Autodesk Build? Referring to the previous list of the lack of capabilities BIM360 Build, we can see in this slide all the fixed issues.

Now let's see just some example of these improvements. That allows during week or absence of internet signal. With the use of new [INAUDIBLE], we can download data and use the app offline-- for example, inside the tunnel. The data are stored until the app is again online, allowing the workers in field to upload the saved data.

Another important improvement-- now we have the list of all activities made by the user on the checklist. We have the possibility to visualize the photo not only inside the checklist but also in a section that allows us to share them. Made report and visualize the map with a photo georeferenced.

It's very simple now for the field workers to insert a section like weather, workers, and vehicles. Weather can be inserted directly on the checklist and not only on the project. We have the possibility to duplicate a checklist already filled in and upload many photos at once.

And these are the remaining expected capabilities we hope to have soon available in Autodesk Build-- the possibility to edit the photo in the app, the export in PDF format of the checklist with only the section filled in and the possibility to insert a large number of characters inside the open answer. First feedback from the field-- the new app has been very appreciated and has been seen as an improvement of the previous app and not as a new app and a new way to work. Very much appreciated the resolution of synchronization issues and the fact that we have no more differences between the iOS and Android app. The video functionality to record [INAUDIBLE] status of the construction site, the upload standard checklist to the PDF file, and the integration of the app with other instruments like Winzip and signing PDF.

As already mentioned above, at the moment, we are waiting for the release of a series of four [INAUDIBLE] to connect other companies that are bases and legacy IT systems to avoid data redundancies and to build up integrated dashboards. Now I just want to show you two examples of what we are going to develop through construction [INAUDIBLE] and Forge-- creation of a new project filled in with data from another application called Construction Line and definition of users and rules from the same applications. During this year, we started to develop a new workflow included Autodesk Build and the Esri platform as a part of a project we call the virtual construction site supervision.

As we understood, we can use GeoBIM in the future to optimize the workflow we are setting up. The aim of the virtual construction site supervision project is to support the activity of interfering construction site with innovative work flow and technologies. The main objective are environmental check during construction, construction safety check, and quality check of the works.

To do this, we are processing surveys made with drones and total stations-- point clouds, orthophoto, fotogrammetry, termic camera-- and setting up a workflow with Autodesk Build and Esri platform. This project started with a proof of concept at the end of 2019 and is now work in progress. It's an experimental project, and final results will be available in 2022 at the end of May.

This is the current workflow. We start from the product creation in Autodesk Build with automatic creation of the product with the use of Forge and Construction Cloud Connect, the update of all the information regarding the product from other system, automatic authorization of the user on the document management, and upload of all project data-- models, drawings, et cetera following the product publication in the Esri platform and the creation of GIS web app through ArcGIS [INAUDIBLE]. And then [INAUDIBLE] plan the surveys through the use of project management and the creation of error files to identify the errors and the part of the works to be surveyed both in GIS web app and project management.

So we start with standard folder structure. This is an example of an existing project and this folder structure. Instead, for the drone survey project, we have to still define the standard structure.

After this definition, we will add this part of the structure to the main structure of the project. At the moment, a project such as drawings and Revit files are still not codified. No metadata are associated to this file.

This is just an example of a viaduct model inside this structure. Inside the document management, we use different folders where we upload the drawings to identify the areas to be surveyed to create the request for information. Inside the RFI, we have [INAUDIBLE] data the link to the GIS platform.

With the RFI, we can follow the survey activity. We need to define the standard and the best folder structure and the right metadata that we need to associate to the File to be compliant in the next future with [INAUDIBLE] BIM. And now how to set up and publish the project inside the Esri platform-- to publish the project data such as Revit models, Civil 3D models, and drawings, in ArcGIS Pro scene we used the Connection Cloud functionality following these steps.

First, creation of a local scene in ArcGIS Pro, then the connection to Autodesk Construction Cloud with the tool New Cloud BIM Connection and then to connect the RFI created inside the project management currently. We have to add the link of the RFI directly inside the local scene database as a metadata. This is an example of the published local scene completed with all product data-- the truck, the works, construction site areas, and viaduct models.

The areas to be surveyed are identified to the layer inside the local scene and connected with the RFIs created inside the project management. With [INAUDIBLE] BIM, we're expecting that once the areas are identified inside the local scene, we will be able to create the RFIs directly in this local scene. And this is a video made during one of the survey sessions just to complete the information overview of the project.

The survey station has been made on the Cancello-Frasso Telesino construction site inside the Napoli-Bari. These are [INAUDIBLE] and the user from a remote site need to have visualization of the results for further analysis. And this is what we do to help them with the instrument available at the moment-- power BI dashboard, point cloud publication with bubble view, and publication on GIS local scene and site analysis with Hololens, remote final testing of the works for handover, remote analysis of the surveys.

We need to publish bubble view point clouds inside Build for remote analysis of the works. Also, if we are experimenting, a lot of technical issues during the fabrication may [INAUDIBLE] pro. And this is the description of the current procedure to publish point cloud layers.

We add the Las file to the local scene. We use a tool define projection. We use a Tile Las and create dataset Las to transform the Las in dataset creation in lasd files.

We user the tool create package layer, upload the slpk [? packet ?] inside the enterprise portal and upload and create layer inside the web scene. As you can see, this procedure is a little bit complex and takes many hours. We expect to simplify this procedure with GeoBIM.

And this is an example of the resulting web scene with all product data-- the truck, the works, construction site areas, and viaduct models overlap with the resulting surveys taken at different times. As you can see, we can check the work in progress turn off, turn on off the point cloud layers at a different time, and compare the difference also with the models. At the moment, we are collaborating with Autodesk to optimize the workflow and to be ready when GeoBIM will be available. Expectations are to manage and improve the construction process of linear infrastructure project in order to improve data quality, reduce costs and times by 60%, reduce wastefulness, and promote sustainability in the upcoming years. Thank you very much for your attention.