Published on the 26/10/2022 | Written by Heather Wright
Five local projects named as finalists in Bentleys…
New Zealand and Australia are punching above their weight with five projects gaining finalist status in this year’s Bentley Going Digital Awards in Infrastructure.
A/NZ companies are represented in five of the 12 global award categories.
The project has reduced environmental impact and project design costs by 50 percent.
The annual awards honour the work of Bentley software users in advancing infrastructure design, construction and operations around the world.
More than 300 projects from 47 countries vied for finalist status, with 11 independent jury panels selecting the 36 finalists.
New Zealand’s sole finalist status comes in the Roads and highways category, where Beca’s Waka Kotahi Takitimu North Link project is a finalist. The initiative, to provide more varied public transport and improved safety in the Western Bay of Plenty, is harnessing open modelling applications to establish a connected data environment and digital twin to simplify construction in the constrained location.
Collaborative digital modelling and 3D visualisation has reduced modelling time by 15 percent, Beca says, and improved design efficiencies by 20 percent, while achieving higher-quality deliverables compared to previous design methods.
The digital twin enables data integrations for both construction activities and future management and maintenance of roadway operations.
The project is up against a digital twins project from Iowa in the US and a Swedish test track for autonomous and electrified vehicles.
The four Australian projects to garner finalist status in the awards cover a wide geographic range, with finalists from Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
Melbourne’s Southern Program Alliance project to remove dangerous level crossings through establishing a connected data environment and digital twin to streamline workflows and provide ‘unparalleled insight’ into constructability and construction monitoring, is a finalist in the Construction category, alongside Chinese and US projects.
In NSW, Sydney Airport’s Maps@Sydney is a finalist for the facilities, campuses and cities award where it is up against a 3D city model project from Japan and a digital twin project from Lithuania.
The project has seen Sydney Airport implement a cloud-based, self-service portal to support facilities planning and operations by integrating spatial and survey information, making it accessible to all staff across the organisation.
Integrating financial and asset data and metadata, models and documents from multiple systems, the offering provides real-time collaboration and 3D viewing capabilities for planning, auditing and facilities management in a move the airport says has increased efficiencies, improved productivity and the quality of deliverables and reduced costs and resource hours across all departments, and set the foundation for an airport digital twin.
A Queensland project by GHD to integrate geological data using digital solutions and create 3D reality meshes at Cressbrook Dam in Toowoomba has garnered finalist status for the Geoprofessional award, while Port Macquarie’s Essential Energy intelligent substation design seeing it in the running for the grid award, alongside two Hubei, China projects.
Port Macquarie’s project aims to use intelligent digital design systems specifically for small utility projects with Essential Energy attempting to find a low cost, low resource solution for small capital projects to provide economic support to NSW. By automating previously manual processes, the company says its team significantly reduced design hours across the entire capital works portfolio, reducing environmental impact and project design costs by 50 percent and decreasing risks involved with manual on-site work.
“The digital solution establishes the basis for transitioning to a more comprehensive digital twin for intelligent asset management and operations,” Essential Energy says.
Winners will be announced on November 15 at a gala event in London.
