SUCCESS STORY
Swinterton Delivers Value and Achieves ROI with Leica RTC360 Scanner
Customer Challenge
When renovating buildings, Swinerton starts with as-built measurements provided by clients. Because those drawings rarely include updates, Swinerton relied on their architects to manually measure spaces, put those measurements into Autodesk Revit, and provide PDFs of the information to the designers, who used them as the starting point for renovations.
Swinerton started getting laser scans of structures at the beginning of renovation projects using external companies to perform the scanning. “The laser scanners led to great improvements,” said Matt Zwetzig, VD&C Manager, Swinerton. “Measurements were gathered in a fraction of the time, teams knew they were working with accurate information, plans were created faster, correct parts were ordered the first time, and the parts fit as expected.”
With business growing and timelines shortening, Matt determined it was time to compare costs for hiring external providers versus purchasing a scanner and completing the work in house.
Project Goals
“With all the information together, it was clear that it was time to move laser scanning in house and the Leica RTC360 scanner was the best one for us,” said Matt. “Although the initial investment was higher than other models, it is the fastest in field scanning and processing, meaning we could scan more buildings in less time. I estimated a complete return on investment in just two years, where the other three options on my short list didn’t hit ROI between three and seven years.”
Solution
Matt contacted Leica Geosystems, who recommended that he work with the reality capture experts at IMAGINiT Technologies. Impressed with the IMAGINiT team’s in-depth knowledge and commitment to developing a solution to ensure success, Swinerton engaged IMAGINiT to:
• Facilitate the Leica RTC360 laser scanner purchase and associated software licenses.
• Utilize IMAGINiT’s RTC360 Jumpstart Service to lead a comprehensive one-day online training session for eight Swinerton team members on the successful use of the Leica RTC360 scanner and Leica Geosystems processing software. This customized service helps users get up to speed quickly and provides best practices for continued adoption and to maximize scanner utilization.
• Provide ongoing technical support.
Business Outcome
“We ended up scanning more buildings than projected and reached full ROI within just six months,” said Matt. “In addition to using the scanner to get accurate as-built measurements, our teams coordinated the ‘as is’ data from the scanner with the ‘to be’ data in the 3D models to further ensure that any adjustments needed were made early in the project. Everyone was blown away by how easy it was to spot and mitigate problems, so projects went much faster than originally anticipated.”
In just two years, Swinerton scanned more than 2.25 million square feet, and the technology paid for itself more than two times over. “The direct cost savings are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the improvements to reputation, safety, win rate, client and employee satisfaction, etc., are immeasurable,” said Matt.
Conclusion
“IMAGINiT helped us realize the full benefits of the scanner,” said Matt. “We gained tremendous tangible and intangible value almost immediately, and the value increases with every project. We expect the benefits to increase even further as we expand the use of the scanner from mainly renovation projects to new construction.”
Project Summary
Delivery Date
2020-11-17
Project Duration
1 days
Autodesk Solutions
- Revit
Services Provided
- Configuration & Deployment
Customer Industry
- Construction