This job, more than any, has to be right first time. There’s no scope to have a contractor cut rebar on site. Instead, every section or pre-cast module must be delivered and installed as specified in the design.
AB : So we anticipated this need to have really consistent quality procedures in place. And the way that we went about this was to invest in BIM development. So from the very outset of the project, we had this team developing a series of tools which would work with existing design software that we're using.
AB : So we have now this suite of around 50 tools which our team is using, not all of them on a daily basis, but many of them on a daily basis. And each of these tools serves its own unique purpose.
AB : So we have a tool which runs clash checks for us. So within a CAD software, you're going to need to run clash checks to ensure your design is clash free. Now, in our industry, due to the complexity of the nuclear industry, we have multiple tolerances for multiple types of objects, depending on the origin of those objects and the purpose. So it's not just as simple as clicking a button and running a clash. So we developed a tool which is going to run a series, a variety of tolerances. It's going to ensure that the selection of objects is perfect for that. So for the user, they do have to just click one button and they get a report.
AB : Other examples are BIM data quality checks. So there's a lot of complexity to the structure of BIM models, and you need to have correct data within them. So we have some tools that will ensure the correctness and validity of that data, as well as kind of manufacturing tolerances. So, for example, the constructors have very stringent tolerances that they can bend their reinforcement to. So they have to place orders with fabricators and there's, you know, some geometries which just aren't possible. And the list of requirements is incredibly long that we have. So there's a tool set up to click a button, check the dimensions of your rebar and get a definitive report on whether that rebar is correct or needs updating.
These aren't new jobs for an engineer. They’re a better way for an engineer to get the job done.
On any project, direct experience matters.
AB : It is a decades long project with multiple stakeholders involved and that provides a lot of collaboration problems.
The single source of truth that BIM provides is vital to collaboration and shared institutional memory.
AB : There's a whole host of softwares that allow really good collaboration between multiple stakeholders regardless of whether they have direct contracts with each other. So they can all look at one source of truth in a model they can and all comment directly within one software.
AB : Instead, you get the picture of exactly what they're looking at, exactly what they're thinking, and you can fix it in that scenario directly. You don't need to go somewhere else to resolve the problem.
BIM tools simplify planning, and allow frictionless collaboration. But they come with vulnerabilities that must be guarded against in nuclear, more than almost any other project type.
AB : A problem that the nuclear industry specifically has with this kind of type of collaborative working, and this has perhaps been a blocker in the past, is that a lot of these innovative collaboration softwares are based around cloud platforms.
And the cloud isn’t somewhere in the ether. It’s a network of data centres, in actual places. These might be somewhere you trust. But they might not be.
AB : Now the nuclear industry has a lot of rules mandated upon it by the ONR (which is the office of nuclear regulation) and some of those rules involve the import and export of data so unfortunately putting your data onto a cloud platform can count as exporting data so if that cloud platform is actually hosted somewhere that isn't within your import export rules, suddenly that prohibits you from using the cloud platform
Egis handles these vulnerabilities by taking all of the power of cloud sharing, and combining it with rugged security.
AB : So a good example is we've worked with CAD software vendors to utilize their kind of model sharing cloud environment, but using our own on-premises servers. So we had to work with them to set it up and we have an extensive IT set up within our companies to allow that. But it allows cloud-like collaboration, but using servers hosted on our premises.
AB : There's two concepts I've talked about today which really will help speed up the delivery of future projects both in nuclear and in construction as a whole.
AB : So firstly we have the kind of BIM development approach which we put in place so this is a proven method for us now and we're transferring this to other projects there's an initial cost initial hill to climb in order to get these kind of tools set up. But once they're there, production teams can work much more efficiently into a higher quality standard.
AB :The second method is is the collaboration...
...and the ways that we can get multiple stakeholders efficiently collaborating on a project that's going to lead to ultimately a better design which meets the needs of more stakeholders.
AB : So instead of someone having a problem with a design which they weren't able to communicate at some point in time, you get over that hill and suddenly everyone can communicate and the design meets the needs of more people, as well as being done more efficiently, because there isn't this need for inefficient handovers of documents to tell problems and reports. It can all be done in a cloud platform and fixed inside that.
