Sweco saves 150 hours each week on the Bergen Light Rail project using the Forge cloud platform

Overview

Sweco is a European engineering firm with the goal to “plan and design the communities and cities of the future.” With over 15,000 employees and a commitment to innovation, the firm was a natural choice for the development of the Bergen Light Rail in Norway. The project involved developing a 10-kilometer extension, tunneling through rock, and connecting Bergen to the suburb of Fyllingsdalen.

The firm was challenged to move beyond following a standard Building Information Modeling (BIM) process. By leveraging the Autodesk Forge™ cloud platform and Autodesk Consulting, Sweco was able to maintain a strong relationship with its client and improve its  efficiency.

Images Courtesy Sweco

Challenge

Sweco’s client wanted regular updates on the progress of the project in the form of cloud-based visibility linked to the 3D project model. The customer reviewed the currently available solutions and found all of them lacked the capabilities to track issues and aggregate models to all stakeholders. Without these functions, Sweco would experience losses in time and efficiency. In order to deliver on its promises to the client, Sweco turned to Autodesk Forge and Consulting to find a solution.

Images Courtesy Sweco

Solution

Autodesk Consulting worked with Sweco to create its own tool. Instead of developing a solution from scratch, the team assembled it from proven components. Turning to a familiar platform, the team leveraged Autodesk® Navisworks® software to consolidate design work into a single 3D model housed in the cloud.

With this merger in place, Sweco needed a way to track detailed issues at the task level. Jira, a widely-used enterprise software development tool from Atlassian, was chosen for this solution. Finally, the team linked the issue tracking with the 3D models, which is where the Forge Application Program Interfaces (APIs) were leveraged. The Forge Model Derivative API translated the Navisworks model into visual displays in the Forge Viewer. To store, retrieve, and link the model to Jira data, the team used the Forge Data Management API.

Images Courtesy Sweco

Success

The team began using the Forge platform after only a few months of development. With this platform, the team quickly sees issues tracked by Jira within the context of the 3D project model. These issues can be filtered by location within the model, speeding up the review and resolution process. The improved workflow saves up to 150 hours each week across the project team. Scaled up, Sweco saves 6,900 hours per year—calculauted at 150 hours multiplied by 46 work weeks each year.

The new solution is known as the Sweco Model Review Tool—or SMaRT. Today, over 300 users across more than 30 disciplines use SMaRT to view the latest design model, track issues, and collaborate. The team tracks approximately 3,000 potential problems at any given time. And as promised, the client is able to regularly review issues and view the progress with ease.

Images Courtesy Sweco

“With expertise from Autodesk and Sweco, we solved complex business issues and developed a platform that gives us a competitive advantage. This is one of the key reasons that makes it so good to work at Sweco.”

- Geir Frode Trondseth CAD Manager Norway