Major Australian projects in the limelight at innovation awards

Workflow solutions used on the likes of NorthConnex and Gateway Upgrade North have been recognised at the 12d International Innovation Awards 2016.

The Lendlease and Bouygues joint venture undertaking the NorthConnex project was one of two overall winners at the awards, announced at the end of July as part of the 12d International Conference. The other major award recipient was SMEC.

The awards recognise leadership and innovation in the design and execution of construction, engineering and surveying projects.

Lend Lease and Bouygues’ David Mares was awarded one of the top awards for developing workflow solutions for the NorthConnex project – the deepest tunnel in Australia, which will use 19 road headers working around the clock.

The amount of data involved with a project of this scale meant that traditional methods of data management were insufficient. Mr. Mares’ designed workflows, based around 12d Synergy’s Data Sync tool that standardised survey output, provided a route for quality assurance checking of survey work, and ensured that surveyors are using the most up-to-date datasets, pushed out from a central data store.

SMEC was recognised for a combination of entries, all of which showed innovative thinking and problem-solving. Brisbane-based Arvind Chovatia, developed a unique way to check point-to-point sight distances quickly and easily. Initially created for the Gateway Upgrade North, the technique is intuitive enough to be used across any highway project. Meanwhile, Melbourne-based colleagues Joshua Allison and Michael Bozikis developed a Central Hub for all the tools designers require for drainage and sewer design.

The winners of the various other categories at the event included:

• ‘Banishing the Drafting Demon’ – Duncan Whiteley (PCB).

PCB is a surveyor and designer involved in land development. Having researched bottlenecks in the process of drawing creation from 12d Model designs, Mr. Whiteley taught himself the 12d Model macro language and produced a macro to assist with the process. His project demonstrated quality assurance and time saving advantages in keeping the drafting inside 12d Model, and has quantified this in monetary terms.

• Drainage – Mal Peaker (Engineering Solutions Queensland)

Mr. Peaker created a complex horizontal and vertical design of water mains (pressure) including joint deflection, bends, and stacked bends. He took the tools inside 12d Model and wrapped them into a macro for water main designs. Extensive consultation with the designers on his team led to a design tool that fit their needs perfectly.

• Customisation – David Greaves (Department of Transport Main Roads Queensland)

Under Mr/ Greaves’ leadership, TMR developed a set of configuration files, process specific macros, and workflows for use internally and by consultants working for TMR. These included macros for surveyors and designers, and innovative tools to work with Point Cloud data, and to interface with other software tools.

• Customisation – Niall Brady (Arup Cardno JV)

Working on Portion C of the Woolgoolga-Ballina highway, the project required the implementation of digital engineering processes during detail design to provide a BIM of the project. The project team developed workflows, design snippets, bespoke macros to deliver the highway design (including pavement), and stormwater drainage design as well as a fully-tagged Building Information Modelling (BIM) model of the design.

• Design – Aidan Bickhoff (Sunshine Coast Council)

Bickhoff developed a tool to provide smooth data exchange between 12d Model and SIDRA. Layouts of roundabouts or intersections developed in 12d Model have been easily passed to SIDRA for analysis. Any tweaks made in SIDRA are brought back to 12d Model. The “SIDRA-2-12d Bridge” cut development time from up to a week down to a few hours.

• 12d Synergy – David Healy and Phillip Stoddart (J. Wyndham Prince)

Mr. Healy and Mr. Stoddart pushed the customisation of 12d Synergy to a new level. Using PHP, Java and CSS, they were able to tap into financial data and present this to 12d Synergy users in a coherent and useful fashion. Users are able to see project milestones and financial performances on the 12d Synergy dashboard.