Thames Water, the UK’s largest water and wastewater services company, faced significant challenges in managing information for the delivery of their capital projects. Prior to the implementation of TWEXnet, information management was not well controlled. Delivery partners were based within Thames Water offices and information was shared via email, CDs, and shared drives. However, after a change in the business model in 2005, the partners were based back in their own offices and the use of multiple systems to share information proved to be neither productive nor secure. Thames Water works with a large number of external contractors to deliver its capital investment works, which involves significant volumes of information including contract documents, design files, and general correspondence pertaining to some 1500 live projects. Each party is responsible for keeping related documentation and activities up to date, essential to the decision-making processes involved in a project. The staff churn that occurs on all construction projects means that having a controlled central repository for information is absolutely essential to ensure efficient delivery and contractual and legal compliance.

Ala Abdulhadi & Khalifa Hawas Consulting Engineering Company (AHCEC) was tasked with the challenge of accommodating the growing number of pilgrims visiting Al-Madinah, the second-holiest city in Islam, located in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia aimed to increase the annual visitor capacity from 8 million to 30 million by 2030. This required a comprehensive plan to expand transportation systems, hospitality facilities, and routes to historical, cultural, and tourist sites, while preserving historical sites. AHCEC was also required to develop a reality model of a 55-square-kilometer section of the city and conduct mobile mapping of 7,000 kilometers of roadways. The project timeline was shortened from two years to one, adding to the complexity of the task.

ASGC, a leading construction services and manufacturing facilities provider, was tasked with constructing the Coca-Cola Arena, a state-of-the-art multipurpose arena in Dubai. The arena, spanning half a million square feet with a capacity of 20,000 people, was to be the only all-purpose indoor and air-conditioned arena of its size in the region. The project required meticulous planning and scheduling to manage the many steps and workflows involved. The arena was designed to accommodate large-scale international music concerts, sporting events, and other entertainment events, and was to feature an advanced infrastructure, including four levels of seating and hospitality suites. The project also required the construction of an adaptable layout that could be changed depending on the scale of the event. The challenge was to manage the complex construction process efficiently, ensuring timely completion while maintaining high standards of quality and safety.

LLC Volgogradnefteproekt, a leading independent design firm serving the oil and gas industry in southern Russia, was tasked with delivering an as-built 3D digital model for the seven platforms commissioned for the Vladimir Filanovsky offshore field in the Caspian Sea. The project involved the construction of seven complex facilities, designed by six different companies. The client needed a process for managing engineering and technical information at all stages of the project, from verifying that the technical designs met project requirements, through planning construction schedules, and managing the logistics of materials and equipment delivery. With multiple contractors and subcontractors participating in the project, the client also needed to produce high-quality construction documents and monitor as-built work against the plan. The project was further complicated by a tight deadline imposed by the client and regulated by the government of the Russian Federation.

In West Bucharest, Romania, a land developer initiated a EUR 2.5 million project to construct the city’s first residential building over the subway tunnels. The structure was initially planned as a 10-story building with a basement for parking. As a pioneer project located in the tunnel protection zone, it presented an irregular footprint and required approval from the subway operator, needing to demonstrate minimal displacing of the tunnels and effect on the structural forces. SAIDEL Engineering was tasked with providing structural and geotechnical design, with the goal of reducing the overall effect of the building on the tunnel lining by providing a safe and cost-efficient foundation. The project was complex, requiring SAIDEL Engineering to modify the shape of the footprint to reduce the irregularity of the building, while still complying with its functional and architectural needs, compounded by the mandate to obtain the conservative subway operator’s approval. Having previously been rejected, it subsequently lingered for two years before SAIDEL Engineering’s involvement.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the largest municipal utility in the United States, was facing significant challenges with its engineering data management. With over 100 years of records stored in various systems across the enterprise, finding accurate information for new project designs was a time-consuming and often unsuccessful task. Drawing data, foreman’s prints, and job addresses were stored in three different Oracle databases, while CAD files were on a Linux server using an in-house configuration management application. Scanned foreman’s prints with field markups were stored in a Windows server, and Office documents, photos, and PDF files were scattered across multiple file servers in various departments. This disorganized system was causing lost productivity, project delays, and increased costs. Significant labor was required just to maintain the many repositories and custom software. New projects required hours of research to locate reference files and resolve inconsistencies, often resulting in designs started with incomplete or inaccurate information, leading to revisions during construction.

Oman Gas Company (OGC), the principal gas transportation company in Oman, faced a significant challenge in managing the performance and reliability of its numerous plants and widely distributed assets. The company's small reliability team was conducting manual performance calculations for reliability and availability using manually collected data stored in disparate databases. This scattered data, lack of resources, and manual processes were prone to human error. OGC recognized the need to initiate an advanced reliability and integrity program to achieve operational excellence as a world-class, midstream gas value chain company. The company sought to eliminate human fault analysis and improve resource effectiveness by digitizing and automating all data and processes within its reliability and integrity program.

AAEngineering Group was tasked with the design, procurement, and construction of a new gold processing plant in Aksu, Akmola Region, Kazakhstan. The project was part of an initiative by gold producer Altynalmas to expand their annual ore processing production up to 5 million tons. The USD 230 million project included the construction of a new gold processing plant, a dam, accommodation camp for 600 people, water pipelines, and a 220-kilovolt electrical substation. The challenge was to upgrade the existing energy and mining infrastructure, ensure environmental protection and occupational safety, and determine an optimal construction site that mandated a 1,000-meter sanitary protection zone from adjacent pits and uranium dams. The new plant also needed to be interoperable with the existing processing facilities in terms of equipment and materials, and seamlessly integrate with the operating systems. Additionally, AAEngineering faced challenges meeting the technology demands to comply with the client’s Digital Mine initiative on a tight timeline, compounded by coordinating a remote team during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AAEngineering was tasked with the design and construction of a gold processing plant in the seismic Talas region of Kyrgyzstan, amid a global pandemic. The USD 75 million project was located at an altitude of 3,500-meters in a dangerously seismic area with seismicity up to 10 magnitudes and increased risk of avalanches due to slopes reaching 75 degrees. The project location presented extreme conditions and was subject to strict environmental standards. In addition to the geographical and geological complications, AAEngineering had to also overcome technical, engineering, and coordination challenges among the globally dispersed project team, as well as accommodate the limited construction period. The area has a very short construction season, lasting only four or five months. It rains the rest of the time. They sought to simultaneously organize and perform multidiscipline design and construction works. To carry out these processes concurrently required integrated digital workflows and accurate modeling and analysis applications for visualization and simulation.

London's outdated Victorian sewers were causing increased pollution and water contamination due to frequent overflows into the River Thames. The city needed a newly designed and constructed sewage tunnel system to reduce overflows and improve the river's water quality. The joint venture project among Costain, Vinci Construction Grands Projets, and Bachy Soletanche was expected to be completed in seven years. Mott MacDonald, the lead designer for the project, was contracted to design and build a new, modernized sewerage system for the east portion of the project. This involved approximately 10 kilometers of tunnel works located 70 meters beneath central London and six shaft sites. Mott MacDonald faced challenges in bridging communication gaps among team members across various locations and with diverse design principals. They also needed to control the information accessed by team members and stakeholders while developing a streamlined, but accurate, workflow to meet the tight project deadline.

Sweco Nederland (Sweco NL) was tasked with extending Bergen, Norway’s Bybanen light-rail system to promote urban development and reduce pollution. The NOK 6.2 billion project involved adding eight new stops, including an underground depot and two tunnels totaling 4.5 kilometers in length. The project required an optimal design that connects to existing infrastructure within a limited footprint and aligns conflicting stakeholder interests and needs. The project team consisted of 18 engineering disciplines spread across five countries, using different software, and included 24 contracts. The team faced challenges surrounding data integration, alignment, change management, collaboration, and communication. Traditional manual processes were deemed insufficient due to the project's complexity, client requirements, and overall scale. The team required a new, digital-driven approach to successfully deliver the design on a tight timeline.

Cornell University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the United States, was facing challenges with its e-procurement bidding systems. The software products they had implemented in 2004 and 2011, while an improvement over manual processes, were not user-friendly and required too many steps for common tasks. This led to difficulties for vendors in submitting bids, often necessitating assistance from procurement staff. The university was in need of a more efficient software that could accommodate its unique business needs. They were looking for a system that was easy for suppliers to use, supported the sealed bidding process, and provided other functions such as supplier prequalification and approval.

Grupo Especializado en Obras Marinas (GEOMSA), a major developer of pipe-soil systems in the Gulf of Mexico, was faced with the challenge of designing and installing a subsea pipeline system that could withstand the forces of geological shifts. The Gulf of Mexico is known for its active geological faults, which often test the structural integrity of oil production pipeline systems. The project involved designing and installing an 8-inch to 24-inch diameter piping system. The primary objective was to develop a solution that would maintain the reliability and safety of the system. The team needed to evaluate how the pipeline interacted with the surrounding seabed environment and produce a safe, realistic design to reduce the risk of marine pipeline failure, which would severely impact the local environment.

SATRIA Technologies, a small start-up company in Selangor, Malaysia, provides engineering solutions for power utilities, industries, and infrastructure. The company was contracted by Malaysia’s largest electricity utility, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB), to design and supply control relay panels for its new substation in Pandamaran, Klang. The MYR 500,000 project required SATRIA to design six different protection and control schemes for 19 33 kilovolt/11-kilovolt units to fit in a compact space within the substation. Previously, SATRIA engineers were given a month to deliver conceptual drawings and schematic designs. However, for this project, TNB mandated that SATRIA complete initial and detailed electrical design and panel arrangement drawings within a 20-day time frame. To meet this tight deadline and design a variety of panel types to fit a narrow space, SATRIA needed a collaborative intelligent modeling technology.

iForte Solusi Infotek, one of the fastest-growing fiber optic network operators in Indonesia, was facing challenges due to decentralized data and unsystematic manual processes driving network engineering, planning, sales, and maintenance. The lack of synergy among its departments led to slow project delivery and customer response times. The company's network communications infrastructure includes more than 6,000 kilometers of fiber optic cable, 17,000 towers, 3,500 very small aperture terminal (VSAT) ground stations, and 240 points of presence (POP). Managing such a large infrastructure for numerous business applications required optimal workflows to efficiently meet customer requirements. To centralize data and information, streamline workflows, improve strategic analysis, and enhance decision making, the company committed to developing a digital fiber optic management system for more efficient collaboration and communication throughout all lifecycle stages.

The Taihong Yangtze River Bridge, a CNY 900 million construction project, is a crucial part of the 77-kilometer highway network linking the Nanchuan District and Lianjiang New Area in China’s Chongqing municipality. The bridge, designed as a suspension bridge, includes an 808-meter steel box beam with a complex structure required to sustain a high-load capacity amid complicated terrain. The scale and complexity of the project necessitated pushing the boundaries of engineering data to ensure construction quality and safety. The project owner, China Railway Changjiang Transport Design Group (CRCTDG), had to determine how they could use the engineering information to increase the performance, quality, safety, scheduling, and cost of each stage of the lifecycle. They also realized that they needed to digitalize engineering workflows and avoid irreversible and costly errors. Traditional manual and paper-based data exchange and construction methods would not be sufficient to achieve the accuracy and public safety that they targeted.

The Stone Arch Bridge, a historic pedestrian pathway in Minneapolis, required significant restoration to ensure its structural integrity and public safety. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) hired Collins Engineers to assess and restore the 140-year-old masonry bridge. The project required a detailed inspection of the entire bridge structure’s condition, including stone arches, embankments, piers, and underwater foundations. Given the age and size of the masonry structure, Collins faced challenges developing repair plans that traditional data collection and inspection methods could not accommodate. Conventional workflows would be time-consuming, significantly impact public use of the bridge, and might not produce the level of detail required to generate accurate repair plans. To overcome these challenges, Collins sought to digitalize inspection data and generate a 3D model of the bridge.

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is responsible for managing over 8,000 miles of state and interstate highways within Oregon, along with programs related to highways, roads and bridges, railways, public transportation services, transportation safety programs, and motor carrier regulation. Previously, ODOT managed their transportation assets using legacy systems that ran on various technologies, performed functions they were not originally designed for, and duplicated data across multiple repositories. Meeting government reporting requirements involved months of custom coding, manual updating, and vigilant error-checking. ODOT needed a new, comprehensive, linear asset management solution – one that would enable more efficient data capture, analysis, and information mobility that would streamline processes and improve regulatory reporting.

Tierra Group, a provider of geotechnical, water resources, civil, environmental, and geological hazards engineering, was faced with a complex slope stability project involving highly variable soil conditions. The project required the analysis of the corner of an earth dam retaining structure. The challenge was twofold. Firstly, the structure of a corner or a turn in the earth dam needed to be incorporated into the analysis. Secondly, the varying geo-strata beneath the foundation of the engineered earth dam structure posed a significant challenge. The combination of these two aspects made applying 2D analysis extremely difficult and ineffective for the project.

Zakum Development Company (ZADCO) faced a significant challenge when a 1,600-ton marine vessel collided with an operating wellhead platform in the Upper Zakum oil field, located offshore of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The impact threatened the structural integrity of the platform, causing a 6.6 percent loss in platform strength. The platform was capable of surviving seasonal storms post-impact, but could only support the landing of helicopters and docking of light vessels. With oil production halted until repairs could be carried out, ZADCO was tasked with quickly assessing and repairing the platform to minimize losses, ensure safe startup, and avoid environmental pollution. The company also needed to substantiate the accident and resulting damage for an insurance claim. The structural analysis of the platform was complicated by several factors, including the absence of a current SACS model for the required analyses, unreliable vessel speed data for modeling the impact, and the difficulty of modeling the nonlinear soil-pile interaction in combination with a nonlinear inelastic structure.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) was tasked with the Phase IV expansion of its metro system to improve rail connectivity between Delhi and the further regions of the National Capital Region. The project involved constructing a new 104-kilometer metro railway line connecting the Majlis Park metro station to the RK Ashram Marg metro station. The DMRC faced several challenges in this project. Firstly, Delhi is a densely populated area with over 27.9 million people as of 2016, resulting in heavy congestion and minimal land availability. This necessitated the proposal of alternative design options in the construction of the railway to circumvent congested areas. Secondly, the railway line had to maintain safe offset distances from historical monuments to prevent their deterioration. Lastly, the project team had to review the detailed project report and propose changes in the alignment design for the railway track section based on current requirements.

Khabarovsk Municipal Unitary Enterprise “Vodocanal” (Khabarovsk Vodocanal), one of the largest water and sewer service providers in the Far East, was tasked with shifting from surface to underground water sources. This shift was part of a program to implement intraformational water treatment technology, a process that treats groundwater within the geologic formation, costing 2.5 times less than conventional methods. The company constructed the RUB 10 billion Tunguska Groundwater Intake Facilities to deliver 106,000 cubic meters per day of water to the city of Khabarovsk. Aqua+ was commissioned to design, construct, install, and commission the intake facility’s automated water quality monitoring and control system. The challenge was to create a complex industrial control system for automatic water quality monitoring and control, which would reduce facility staffing requirements tenfold. The design of this complex system included the purposeful selection, connection, and programming of precision instrumentation for reliable supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA).

Indonesia, like many countries, faced a surge in COVID-19 cases that exceeded the capacity of existing healthcare facilities. To address this, the Indonesian government initiated plans to construct 14 new hospitals. PT. Wijaya Karya (WIKA) was tasked with building one of these hospitals on a 22,700-square-meter former soccer field in South Jakarta. The USD 4 million hospital was to be a one-story building with a capacity of 300 beds, 35 intensive care unit rooms, and 10 emergency rooms. The hospital was to be equipped with a negative pressure isolation system to prevent the spread of the virus, a robotic nurse, and an integrated command center to connect it to 65 other hospitals. The government required WIKA to complete the design and construction of the hospital and have it fully operational in less than a month. The project also needed to be cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. WIKA faced the challenge of meeting these requirements on an incredibly tight timeline, compounded by social distancing requirements.

WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff was tasked with the challenge of efficiently and sustainably delivering a 62-story, 278-meter glass-clad tower in the heart of London’s Financial District. The project, named 22 Bishopsgate, was to be built on the site of a previous unfinished building, the Pinnacle, where the foundation, basement, and partially constructed core of this structure, called “the stump,” remained. The new tower needed to incorporate the former Pinnacle’s foundation and three stories of basement structures. The challenge was to marry the superstructure, which did not correspond to where the foundations were. In addition to the site constraints amid several high-rise buildings, a tight timeline, and budget requirements, the project also aimed to achieve a BREEAM excellent rating and be the first in London to adopt the WELL Building Standard promoting the health and well-being of the building’s 12,000 occupants.