Digital Drop-In November – Event Report

Constructing Excellence

The Constructing Excellence Digital Group hold informal ‘Digital Drop-Ins’ on the third Friday of every month to provide members with an opportunity to share ideas, best practice and seek advice around the key issues impacting our digital journey.

In November we were joined by James Franklin, Head of BIM & Digital at Kier Construction, taking us through the realised challenges and benefits in the digital delivery of BIM Level 2 for a modern £253m-new build resettlement prison at Wellingborough.

The active discussions arose around the following details of the project: digital design, data-rich decision making, 4D, 5D, FieldBIM, digital training schemes, site drone capture and a digital-first culture.

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Kier_Digital @ HMP Five Wells

Design and Digital Integration

The Wellingborough scheme adopted a ‘digital first’ approach to enable Kier to monitor, manage and communicate across the wider team. Standardisation was driven throughout the design to ensure the repeatable use of components. The level of details achieved provided informed decisions on Kier’s strategy to develop the precast moulds, cast the components, put together the construction programme. It significantly improved strategies for lifting components into position and integration of components such as the prefabricated services (MEP).

Kier implemented a new approach through standardising the design and using BIM data sets, created from the DfMA component library, to refine the design for some of the highest impact elements of the programme, such as the houseblocks. By optimising the component library, Kier reduced the number of precast concrete components by almost 50%. The real benefit of that optimisation was a programme saving of 18.5 crane-weeks per houseblock.”

Through the use of BIM and model-checking software the team accelerated the design and identified potential clashes, particularly assisting with interfaces between the M&E and the precast structure, ultimately enabling a right-first-time installation on site.

Every frame and facade component for Wellingborough was linked to the programme via Synchro, giving the team detailed 4D visualisations of the construction programme, against the as-built programme.

In order to control quality across all six factory sites, Kier also implemented the use of Dalux, a field tool that allowed the project team to track the status of components being produced by each supplier.

Find out more details in our full Case Study: Project Integrator Kier embraces DfMA and digital at the £253m new build Wellingborough prison

Join us for the next Digital Drop-In 18 December 2020 @ 10am – 11 am to find out more about BSI Group work and the role standards play in catalysing innovation to support the digitalisation of the built environment.

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