Royal BAM Group nv is a construction and engineering firm operating in five European home markets and niche industries worldwide. They employ approximately 20,000 people. BAM Deutschland AG is one of the ten operating companies of the Royal BAM Group and responsible for designing, building, and managing high quality and demanding construction projects in the DACH region and worldwide.
While BAM Deutschland AG has been using BIM methodology during the design stage for years, they wanted to undergo a digitisation in the field with the implementation of digital tools into their site management process. BAM Germany wanted to achieve certainty in cost, quality, and schedule through greater collaboration around project data. The answer was adopting a solution that would improve upon their traditional techniques for gathering, analysing, and reporting site data and then standardise that process across BAM Deutschland AG’s entire project portfolio.
The team took a calculated first step in its digitisation by setting standards and implementing best practices and procedures to maximise efficiency and quality onsite. The goal was to connect the office to the construction site to integrate highly fractured and siloed operations to create better collaboration for trade coordination and quality assurance in a common data environment.
In evaluating technology, the team identified the need for an end-to-end business solution that's scalable and interoperable with other systems to comply with project standards as mandated by the German government at the closeout of each project. With BIM 360 already in place across the BAM operating companies in the UK and Ireland, the deployment was a no-brainer.
By digitising its project management workflows and construction process the team would drive greater:
In close collaboration with the project team, the digital construction department set up the project, determined the required capabilities, and aligned the processes based on the requests from the site team, the content of the quality management system, and experiences from the BAM operating companies in the UK and Ireland.
With the project structure in place, the team turned to their partnership with Autodesk and the Autodesk Global Consulting team to create a customised training to rollout BIM 360 and onboard the team.
"The training was a crucial factor to success,” says Naveed Zargar, BIM Manager, BAM Deutschland AG. “We created a one-day internal training program with documentation that visually explained how to use the tool and standardised QA/QC process.”
To maintain adoption across projects, BAM Deutschland AG has a BIM coordinator onsite to support the client, site manager, and subcontractors. By offering continual training to its subcontractors, BAM Deutschland AG hopes to further standardise its process for issue management tracking to create further efficiencies across future projects.
"BIM 360 offers constant and real-time information without any involvement of paperwork and enables smooth communication with the client, designers, and subcontractors. This saves time and prevents the team from acting on incorrect or outdated information," says Zargar.
Onsite workers now get clear instructions that are standard for every project and use mobile devices instead of heavy folders where QA/QC and reports are updated from the construction site and viewed on or offline anywhere, and stakeholders receive concise, relevant, and timely reports.
With BIM 360, the site team can link photos with locations from the field on a mobile device. Photos attached to Snags, checklists, or site diaries are emailed directly to the assignee/sub-contractor, enhancing the use of a transparent and collaborative system for working. This feature gives greater access and visibility of data, which wasn't easily realised using traditional paper-based techniques and provides time savings of about 30% per week.
For BAM Deutschland AG, not only is BIM 360 a robust construction management platform, but the interoperability of the platform improves functionality with other systems. "The BIM 360 APIs are a key factor for bridging the gap between isolated systems and eliminating repetitive tasks," says Dr. Amir Elmahdi, Head of Digital Construction, BAM Deutschland AG. "Connecting these systems will increase performance and thereby the acceptance of digitisation on our projects."
BAM Deutschland AG’s new way of working has become an integral part of its digital construction success. The increase in time savings is a paradigm shift from focusing on repetitive administrative tasks to focusing on quality.
Since 2019, BIM 360 has become a standardised tool for digital collaboration and site mobility tasks across all projects. Every new project replicates BAM Deutschland AG’s master project template in BIM 360 to ensure project success. To optimise for the future, the team continues to measure the efficiency of BIM 360 across key performance indicators and refine as necessary.
"BIM 360 is a differentiator; it puts us four to five years ahead of the competition. With the right attitude and the right partner, there's no limit to what we can accomplish," says Dr.-Ing. Elmahdi.
