Beca, one of Asia Pacific’s biggest advisory, design, and engineering consultancies (ESPs), is innovating with the adoption of Autodesk Construction Cloud Build. The firm is utilising ACC Build to replace multiple dispersed platforms and connect teams and content into one central location. The result is connected workflows, operations, teams and data at every stage of its projects. The technological advancement is helping to move Beca towards its three-year organisational strategy, with top-down endorsement for the approach key to the success of this innovation.
Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, Beca has over 4,000 employees in 25 offices around the world and has delivered projects in more than 70 countries over the past century. Beca makes every day better for its clients through advisory services, project management and delivery, technology, and its skilled international team. Over the past six months, Beca have consolidated into one single platform: ACC Build a multitude of platforms including PlanGrid, SharePoint, local drives, etc, to drive efficiencies in its digital project delivery.
Connecting operations and information, making life easier for the team at Beca, prompted this innovation
According to Chris Flynn, Senior Associate and Automation Lead at Beca, the greatest challenge for the team at Beca was disbursed operations and disconnected information. “Searching for the right information at the right time was difficult,” said Chris. “Prior to the transition to ACC Build, for example, at a site inspection our team would take a camera and a note pad. They would then come back to the office, download the photos, open a MS Word template and fill in the site inspection form. It would take time to search for and upload a photo that supports an observation statement. It would then either be printed or emailed to a senior engineer for review and approval before being sent to the contractor – often the next day.
“The entire process of uploading the documentation for a site inspection took four hours of effort back in the office,” said Chris.
The Beca team shares that site inspections are only one example of the shifting ways of working. “There are more and more ACC features and functionality being released every month that our team is observing, evaluating and deciding if we should invest in to transition our business further. This is an ongoing evolution, and those who remain stationary will be left behind,” said Chris.
Chris Flynn, Senior Associate and Automation Lead, Beca
The team at Beca has adopted Autodesk cloud technology for years, with BIM360 and now Autodesk Construction Cloud. Combining these storage locations has given them a single, connected source for the team to work from and has reduced the number of platforms its IT team needs to support.
The discussion around adopting ACC Build started with taking advantage of the opportunity to innovate by increasing its use. “Beca has a long-standing relationship with Autodesk, and recently began encouraging significant adoption of ACC Build within the business, as we know it helps us to enhance project outcomes. With the diversity of services that Beca offers, having access to the Autodesk platform is a key differentiator and point of appeal for us in the marketplace,” said Chris. “Any shifts in processes need to be proven before some people will adopt a new platform, and we’ve seen significant take-up of ACC Build at Beca already which is testament to the software.”
Business tool adoption and usage indicates success
Beca’s enterprise journey of innovation includes business tool adoption and usage as a priority. In the first six months of its three-year plan, Beca has already achieved an over 200 per cent increase in user adoption.
“Beca is now working towards earlier delivery of our three-year plan alongside higher than anticipated user adoption rates for ACC Build,” said Chris. To support adoption, the Autodesk team facilitated workshops focusing on the most integral tools to target first and mapping out the Build functionality against Beca’s business structure and the teams’ activities. Project managers have been early adopters of ACC Build at Beca, with influence when considering a common data environment (CDE) as well as benefits to having connected data.
How Beca is leveraging ACC Build for its Auckland and Melbourne office developments
Beca is currently using ACC Build for its Auckland office fit out project and recently has done the same for its Melbourne fit out, streamlining the processes, reporting and communications between teams to enhance outcomes. In Melbourne, the project management team, Beca design team (building services), the contractor and architect were all included in the ACC site and used 9 of the 13 tools in ACC Build to complete the project with exceptional results. In Auckland, the Beca team is just starting its fit out journey and is connecting with the Melbourne project team for key learnings.
Chris Flynn, Senior Associate and Automation Lead, Beca
