In conversation with Meg Davis, Enterprise Marketing Director, Bentley Infrastructure Cloud at Bentley Systems, as she discusses how Bentley users are leveraging data, AI and the use of Digital Twins to turn complex infra projects into reality.
Transport and Logistics infrastructure can be considered as the backbone of any industry, how is Bentley Systems helping users maintain this infrastructure, better the output and achieve their goals?
Absolutely, these are important networks and not only industries but civilization depends on this kind of infrastructures. As we all know, there have been a lot of challenges in the last few years, and there are a certain number of industry issues that almost everyone faces, whether they’re an owner or an engineering consultant or a contractor.
Labor shortages including qualified manpower and a skill shortage is one of the biggest challenges; with so many retiring and lack of younger employees to fill this skill gap. It’s huge. The cost of goods has gone up considerably, so the supply chain issues can very often be a problem. Organizations are trying to be more efficient, trying to do more with less because you have fewer people and all these constraints. That’s where we come in.
What we’re finding is with our users that whether they’re in the design or build or operate phase, they are using digital twins. Whether they’re flying a drone or using sensors to capture information, using digital delivery to take them from 2D plan sets to 3D digital sets, digital twins are extremely helpful. One of the things you would have heard in last year’s YII 2022 Keynote is about Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, which you will hear more about this year. One of the real benefits of Bentley Infrastructure Cloud is a common, collaborative, managed environment to access your plans, your data, all in one place. It has an open, federated environment to ensure the right people have the right information at the right time to manage projects and share assets and project information according to their functions/need. You have the most current and updated information at your disposal. Collaboration is a major focus for us where we help our users save time, save money, increase safety, reliability and reduce risks. Many of the project challenges can be solved when you have access to the information you need and collaborate between teams. So, the use of technology to provide intelligent infrastructure, and collaboration, helps our users achieve their goals and positive outcomes.
What other constraints can you think of when it comes to setting up the design for complicated projects?
Regardless of you working on a road or a bridge or any kind of transportation project, you’re again, working with constraints. The winner of the Roads category, the I-70 Floyd Hill To Veterans Memorial Tunnels is a great project in Colorado in the United States where ATKINSRÉALIS working with Colorado DOT needed to provide roadway improvements along an eight-mile section of the corridor. Now, this is an area with severe congestion and traffic bottlenecks, not only for people who live there, but also for visitors to their world class ski resorts. So, it’s very busy at certain times. There was an original road and bridge through there that was laid very low next to the river, next to parklands where people hike and fish etc. which needed to be rebuilt and elevated. There were many site-specific challenges and constraints such as minimizing impact to adjacent environmentally sensitive areas, reducing impacts to floodways, reducing rock excavation, and phasing the construction works to reduce impact to existing roadways and adjacent environmentally sensitive areas. Using digital twins and working in a connected digital environment saved them USD 1.2 million in coordination time, and 97% of effort developing and publishing digital twins for review. This allowed them to quickly update the models to mitigate environmental and social impact. And this happens to a lot of our users that they have to work in an environment where it’s not all greenfield. They have to figure out how to best work with the environment. One of the ways we help is in the design process to run different scenarios, different simulations, to look at the different options for their design.
And this is what you would have heard in the keynote too, we were talking about generative design learning and relearning from things they’ve done before. And that absolutely helps. We’ve seen numerous examples where this approach has enabled users to learn from the technology and make decisions that save time and money through faster designs and improved quality of design and construction.
And if I can add on to that, another thing we are seeing with AI, is the Robert Street project which is a great example of using AI and digital twins to augment traditional inspection methods. This is a historic bridge that they needed to be able to inspect very thoroughly without shutting it down entirely on a regular basis. Using drones, Collins Engineers working with Minnesota DOT captured over 29,000 images and generated a high-fidelity 3D digital twin of the bridge that was then uploaded to the cloud. Bridge inspectors in the office and in the field could then access the digital twins via computers or tablets and record their inspection information directly on the models. Now, as compared to manually doing this inspection, inspectors are physically spending a lot less time in the field with this method. Less disruption, reducing safety risk to the public and to the employees and you are not shutting down the bridge as often as well. So that’s another challenge that Bentley is solving with the help of AI and digital twins for its users.
Since we are talking about AI, what other ways are users leveraging data within digital twins, including AI and ML?
Well, working across organizations, working across supply chains, one of our favorite examples is the Elk River project in Minnesota where they needed to convert a highway into an expanded freeway with upgraded interchanges, bridge, and underground utilities. By using digital twins and being able to collaborate really saved them a lot of time and a lot of money. The key with the digital twin is making sure that everybody has the most current, and the single source of truth in current information. Making sure that they’re not working off of old plans or not working off of old data. The most exciting feature of a digital twin is, that you’re constantly getting information and you’re constantly refreshing that information. Data is of the utmost importance here and that too the right data. With bad data, you’re going to make bad decisions. That’s the key and that’s what we really see with digital twins, Improved decision making and better outcomes at the end.
Can you share a success story from last year’s projects that made it as one of the finalist?
Well, all of those projects have success written on them. But I can talk about the Elk River Street Bridge – Elk River Expressway project which I spoke about earlier. MNDOT was using a construction manager/general contractor (CMGC) delivery method, and that meant everyone – MNDOT, the contractor Ames and the design firm WSB – needed to have access to the most current information. By using digital twins, and a collaborative environment, they were able to use that information to make better decisions. The highway is in a congested area where people head north for their cabins and vacation homes and people were very unhappy about the traffic delays caused by the many grade level crossings. So, by flying a drone along the site corridor, they were able to gather data, put it in a reality mesh as the base for the design to make better decisions. One of the things they noticed was that there’s a lot of utility work that needs to be done but without impacting people too much. So, they got all that work done and then they went back and started to rip up the existing roadway and start construction. And all along the way, the local constituents and the supply chain, had access to information about the project. They used LumenRT to show the public what they were doing. And this is another thing I think is just brilliant that a lot of our users do in these projects. They used LumenRT to be able to go and show the public the plans and project status and how would benefit the community. This collaborative approach saved the project significant time and money by providing better meeting presentations, improving collaboration and reducing design iterations.
