Topics - Kaupapa kōrero

Presented by Andy Lyon

KiwiRail's Digital Engineering Journey

In 2019, and with a portfolio of over $8BN of capital investment on the horizon, KiwiRail set out to improve its asset delivery methods by harnessing BIM and digital engineering.  Following the success of their pilot project, KiwiRail expanded their digital way of working across their capital works portfolio and put in place the digital engineering programme to help transform their business.  In this presentation Andy Lyon will share some of the experiences and learnings from KiwiRail’s journey, along with how they have leveraged digital engineering to reduce construction risks, deliver richer asset information, and improve the safety of their people. 

Presented by Sean Audain

Digital Twin in Local Government

Wellington City Council has been recognised as a leader in using Digital Twins in Local Government as a a way of achieving city outcomes from Emergency Management to Urban Planning and Climate Adaptation. This talk will give a look inside the programmes and look at what's worked, what hasn’t and where Digital Twin investments are helping take the city.

Presented by Keri Niven

Shifting New Zealand from BIM to Better (Information) Asset Management through Digital Engineering

New Zealand is facing considerable infrastructure challenges over coming decades – both to design and construct new, city-shaping infrastructure and to improve and extend the life of current infrastructure.   Industry is recognising that Digital Engineering (through a standardised, whole of life, approach to information, and a commitment to collaboration) can considerably improve our ability to respond to these challenges.   At the heart of DE is a recognition that information about assets is an asset in its own right – and it must be shared and optimised throughout its full life.

But what does this adopting this approach entail? How are organisations leveraging DE and what benefits does it offer? Importantly, what does return on investment look like in terms of improving the ability to design, construct, and maintain resilient and sustainable infrastructure for current and future New Zealanders.

Presented by Kylie Adamson

Digital for Heritage

Christ Church Cathedral is being reinstated after it was badly damaged during the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. The reinstated Cathedral will retain its appearance and many heritage features but will be safer, more resilient, flexible in use, and comfortable for the people of Christchurch and future generations. It is a unique opportunity, presenting unique challenges. Using digital tools and processes, the team will restore a symbol of hope, confidence, and sense of place to the city.

Further afield in Sydney, two state heritage listed buildings are being redeveloped to house a global IT company. The challenge there is to provide a digitally enabled workspace while celebrating the historical significance of the existing buildings.

This presentation will explore the journey of the design and construction teams and how they utilise digital technologies to understand, design, document, coordinate and construct these projects.

Presented by speakers: Farzam Farzadi  + Richard McIntosh

The Watercare Enterprise Model and Implementation of Practical Digital Engineering Solutions 

Watercare developed a new way of working and created the Enterprise Model (EM) to drive innovation, improve productivity and reduce risk in the Water sector.  As the largest water utility in New Zealand responsible for providing water and wastewater services to the approximately 1.5 million people in the Auckland region, Watercare created a unique procurement method that allows true collaboration during planning, design, construction, commissioning, and operation stages. The Watercare EM will support development of the New Zealand construction sector by allowing its design and construction partners to enter into long-term agreements that enable them to focus on innovation and agile improvement. The EM team has a specific focus on the development and implementation of data-driven approaches to create digital information that can be utilised during the life cycle of assets. During this presentation, Richard McIntosh General Manager of the Watercare EM will share his insights about this innovative procurement method. Farzam Farzadi the Enterprise Model Digital Engineering and Implementation lead also will share how the EM has enabled him to innovate and implement data-driven solutions across the EM projects.

Presented by speakers: Jae Warrander + Glen Stricot-Tarboton

Design Making

We at Makers’ engage in the process of 'design making', this approach takes advantage of emerging technologies allowing us to be innovative, accurate and sustainable in our design planning.

Makers has evolved from a desire to bring the architectural and construction environments closer together. We care about what gets designed and built as it directly affects our environments; natural, built & social.

Can quality architecture be prefabricated? Makers focuses on the whole process from design through to construction, delivering high quality, attainable projects. Challenging the perception that good quality design must be slow, costly and built on site. Our focus is on creating a ‘system of knowns’, a set of constraints, that can support our design team to make effective decisions to achieve an efficient model of construction while also achieving a desired, high quality design.

The known constraints are set out in a set of healthy BIM families for designers to use. The models support helpful hints early on where waste can be reduced or clashes might be occurring. The ‘system of knowns’ has been created with; design quality, waste minimisation, offsite manufacturing and constructability in mind.

Jae and Glen will be speaking about learnings from their businesses, of designing and constructing high quality architecture through off-site practices. Building Information Modelling is core to Makers practices, as it flows through the design, shop drawing, procurement, and construction processes.

Presented by speakers: Adam Tindall + Christian McCartney

Foodstuffs HQ at Auckland Airport - The Journey from Design to Handover and Beyond

The Foodstuffs Head Office project at Auckland Airport provides a case study in how the practical application of BIM tools and processes through the design and construction phase lead to a successful handover.

With Assemble leading project BIM Management during the design phase, Hawkins driving construction coordination and asset data collection, and Assemble verifying and facilitating model and data handover to AIAL, the project was successfully handed over four weeks early, subsequently winning the 2021 BuildingSmart International openBIM Awards Handover category.

Through the use of collaborative platforms such BIM360 and Revizto, along with detailed modelling and coordination across a variety of authoring tools, the various design challenges of a complex curving building were able to be easily resolved, making the construction on site a smooth process.

The validation of final handover models and asset data using mobile devices on site also ensured a highly accurate record of what was built, adding significant value for AIAL into the future.

Presented by speaker: Rebecca De Cicco

Women in BIM: The growth of a global community.  How the Importance of Diversity, Future Skills, and Knowledge for the Built Environment will impact on our future workforce. 

As the founder and Global chair of Women in BIM Rebecca will deliver a presentation focused on the core ambitions and activities undertaken by Women in BIM over the last 10 years. Women in BIM was founded in 2012 as a response to the lack of Women in BIM and Digital roles across the built environment and our main ambition is to ensure there is equal representation and a stronger focus on retaining women across the industry on a global level. As an industry group founded in the United Kingdom as a response to the BIM policy across government in 2011, WIB now span across over 35 countries with over 70 regional representatives across the globe. WIB members and regional leads are all in place to support and encourage each other as well as the methods and processes which continue to evolve in digital across our projects. 

With skills and knowledge in digital being required on a global level as we move into the future, WIB is more important than ever in encouraging and celebrating female role models across the world. This session will also discuss the importance of diversity and gender equality as a key ambition of the United Nations Sustainability goals and how this can aid in knowledge, skill and the future of the digital built environment.

Presented by speaker: Emily Newmarch

Delivering Net-Zero: BIM enabled carbon calculation

The iconic question, how much does your building weigh? Is becoming of increasing importance when aiming to understand the environmental impact of buildings during early design. The question is rapidly transforming into how much embodied carbon does your building emit before the client gets the keys? And how do we access this information during the critical early design stages? For many who engage with digital (BIM) workflows, the answer is already sitting on your desktop. Many 3D models built to explore the initial vision hold enough information to calculate the amount of embodied carbon to inform low-carbon design decisions. This presentation will showcase the potential of using a BIM workflow to enable embodied carbon analysis in the early design stages. The real-world case studies presented will demonstrate the integration of carbon tools to actively calculate embodied carbon during all design stages, with a specific focus on early testing and rapid digital prototyping to advance both understanding and measurable reporting required for low-carbon Construction. The presentation will also highlight the use of automation and AI through machine learning to improve accessibility, speed and accuracy of the carbon analysis resulting in a more significant number of project typologies being assessed, potentially pathing the way forward for a national carbon benchmark to be established. Overall, this project highlights the vital role BIM and accurate and open digital information plays in enabling New Zealand's low carbon future, underscoring the urgency to advance the education, adoption and integration of BIM and digital workflows across the entire construction sector.