With over 90 years of experience providing engineering, environmental, construction, and architectural expertise for infrastructure projects globally, GHD recently transformed their approach to site surveys across six of their global projects.
These projects were assessments of historic tunnels, groundwater piping, rockfall hazards, and a rail corridor, as well as coral studies and landslide emergency response planning.
While each of these projects were unique, they shared common safety and collaboration challenges, compounded by time constraints and inefficient change management methods that required an integrated technology solution.
Faced with dangerous site conditions, access constraints threatening safety, COVID-19 challenges, and tight timelines, GHD realised that traditional survey methods would be insufficient. They wanted to find digital capture and processing technology to survey the areas and generate high-fidelity 3D reality models that could be shared via a cloud-based platform among the team, as well as with stakeholders.
They needed flexible, integrated digital processes that could be applied across all projects to minimise time on site, ensure accurate modelling, and streamline workflows and information sharing. To achieve these goals and meet the varying project deliverables, they required comprehensive, collaborative modelling applications in a connected data environment.
Already familiar with Bentley applications, GHD adopted ContextCapture and ProjectWise to establish a digital context for capturing, processing, and sharing information. They used unmanned aerial vehicle, ground, and submersible digital data capture methods, with ContextCapture processing the images into 3D reality meshes of the existing sites.
ProjectWise provided the connected platform, facilitating data sharing in a cloud-based environment. Using Bentley’s integrated collaborative modelling solution, GHD quickly processed large data sets, producing highly accurate reality models that could be shared among the team and with the clients on each of the varied projects.
The ability to reference the reality models in MicroStation allowed the team to directly make analysis and annotations in the models for more efficient planning and change management.
While each project realised specific outcomes, the flexibility of Bentley applications provided a new way of working that can be applied across all projects, digitalising and standardising company workflows.
Overall, by implementing reality modelling, GHD improved quality, speed, efficiency, safety, and continuity, significantly reducing time required on each project site.
The digital capture technology and 3D models enabled virtual site surveys and provided accurate visualisation and analysis to optimise design, construction, and engineering.
Working in a cloud-based platform facilitated true stakeholder and client engagement, providing accessibility to models and data that previously was not possible.
The successful application of Bentley software is driving GHD to further technology advancements by augmenting reality modelling with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things, providing full digital twin solutions.
“The success of developing and adopting this solution marks the beginning for GHD,” Dahna Gallantree, Communications-Technology and Technical Applications, GHD.
“It has created the launch pad for us to continue to push the boundaries and explore what’s possible by augmenting our reality modelling with artificial intelligence, machine learning, and IoT.”
GHD Australia was a finalist last year in Bentley’s ‘Year in Infrastructure’ Awards under the category of Advancements in Reality Modelling.
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