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Summary
Bentley Systems held its Year in Infrastructure 2017 Conference at the Marina Bay Sands Exhibition and Convention Center in Singapore, October 10 through 12. This was the first time the company held its annual global gathering in Asia, which certainly made it more convenient for professionals from this region to attend. Around 1,500 delegates from around the world attended, including over 100 invited journalists and analysts.
The three-day event featured many presentations, including keynote presentations from Bentley Systems’ CEO Greg Bentley and CTO Keith Bentley. There were also presentations from the company’s global alliance partners: Bureau Veritas, Microsoft, Siemens, and Topcon; plus the 51 Be Inspired Awards finalists. Bentley Systems announced several important new products, including iModel 2.0 cloud platform and its first new service, iModelHub; new ProjectWise CONNECT Edition cloud services and CONNECTservices, powered by Microsoft Azure; new OpenRail solutions; and the completion of its CONNECT Edition applications portfolio with the release of OpenPlant CONNECT Edition.
As the General Manager of ARC Advisory Group’s China organization, this analyst was most impressed (and more than a little surprised) by the impressive showing of Chinese building information management (BIM) solution users among the 2017 Be Inspired Awards infrastructure project finalists and winners. Of the 51 finalists, 12 were from China; and eight of the 17 winners (including two from HongKong), were from China. In addition, two Chinese projects received Special Recognition awards.
As Greg Bentley explained in an interview with ARC Advisory Group, Bentley Systems has a strong presence in China’s infrastructure market. China has become the company’s second largest market for new projects, and its third largest market globally.
In conjunction with the Chinese government’s huge ongoing investments in the country’s infrastructure, BIM solutions from Bentley Systems can help China’s construction companies increase efficiency, safety, and quality, while reducing costs. These solutions have already been widely applied in both industrial and infrastructure sectors, including for manufacturing plants, road and bridge projects, rail and transit projects, power generation projects, among others.
Six Winners from China
The Be Inspired Awards jurors selected six projects from mainland China as winners for this prestigious award. All six were large and complex projects with significant engineering challenges. All six had positive business outcomes thanks, at least in part, to Bentley Systems’ BIM solutions.
Tongzhou Water Works Project
The Tongzhou Water Works project, delivered by the Beijing Institute of Water, received the 2017 BIM Advancements in Water and Wastewater Plants Award.
Tongzhou is one of the biggest water plants in Beijing. The plant’s phase 1 capacity is 200,000 m3 per day and can serve a population of about 900,000 people. Using Bentley solutions, 13 three-dimensional models were developed, which helped avoid over 100 collision points during the design process. The plant was designed to reduce underground water usage by approximately 50 percent and energy consumption by 10 to 15 percent.
In naming this project the winner in this category, the jurors said, “By deploying a BIM methodology using 14 Bentley applications, this company is increasing the capacity of safe drinking water for an urban development project. While solving demanding regional water supply challenges, their multi-discipline team achieved a 50 percent increase in design work efficiency, while their 3D model collision checking reduced audit drawing work by 40 percent.”
Meiguan Expressway Project
The Meiguan Expressway Project (delivered by CCCC First Highway Consultants Co.) received the 2017 BIM Advancements in Roads award.
Due to the relentless expansion of Shenzhen City, the Meiguan Expressway, a six-lane road initially designed for a rural environment, needed to be converted into a road more suitable for urban environments. This challenging project - involving restricted land availability, high workload, and limited time - required close collaboration between many disciplines. To help meet these challenges, CCCC FHCC selected Bentley Systems as its BIM partner, and applied a variety of Bentley solutions, including ContextCapture, Bentley LumenRT, MicroStation, Power Civil for China, ProjectWise, and others for this project.
The final results are very encouraging. They include saving about 43 days off the project schedule and total cost savings in the area of $340,000.
In awarding this project the BIM Advancements in Roads prize, the jurors said, “This project implemented a BIM approach to satisfy a fast-paced design and build schedule by saving design time, reducing project costs, and delivering ahead of schedule. The project will also help drive BIM standards and going digital throughout China with the use of interdisciplinary workflows in a collaborated work environment.”
Wugangchong Reservoir Project
The Wugangchong Reservoir Project, delivered by China Water Resource Pearl River Planning Surveying & Designing Co. Ltd., received the 2017 BIM Advancements in Power Generation award.
Wugangchong Reservoir Project, one of the primary water resources in Guizhou province, provides water supply, irrigation, and power generation. The main Bentley Systems applications used in this project included AECOsim Building Designer, GEOPAK, MicroStation, OpenPlant, Power Civil, and ProjectWise. The seamless interoperability between the Bentley applications used enabled China Water to parametrically design the multi-tiered dam structure in the complex geography of the river, helping to increase design efficiency by 30 percent, reducing design defect rates by 85 percent, and reducing costs for the owner by $450,000.
The jurors said, “This project’s innovative use of BIM technology led to an increase in design efficiency of 30 percent, a reduction of design defects by 85 percent, savings of 3 million yen for the owner, and created a much-needed source of irrigable water and electricity for the local population. These workflows are now being implemented by the winner in other projects and sectors.”
Shenzhen Qianhai Municipal Infrastructure Project
The Shenzhen Qianhai Municipal Infrastructure Project, delivered by Huadong Engineering Co. Ltd., received the 2017 BIM Advancements in Municipal Operations award. Qianhai is a modern demonstration area developed and financed by Shenzhen Qianhai Development and Investment Holding Co. Ltd. Upon completion, the total investment will be Chinese yen 68.2 billion. Project engineering challenges included complex geological and boundary conditions, the large number of sub-projects requiring coordination among 19 main contractors, numerous overlapping relationships, and development of both ground and underground levels. Bentley’s BIM solutions supported the new methodologies and technologies needed to implement such a huge and complex project.
In awarding this project the BIM Advancements in Municipal Operations prize, the jurors commented, “This organization made full use of the opportunity to plan and develop a new greenfield city by excelling in the use of BIM methodology by improving collaboration with innovative designs. By integrating 3D BIM processes for the plan, design, construction, operations, and maintenance of public infrastructure, this project delivered a truly smart city with a long-term vision.”
PL19-3 Joint Oilfield Development Project
The PL19-3 Joint Oilfield Development Project (delivered by Offshore Oil Engineering Company Limited) received the 2017 BIM Advancements in Mining and Offshore Engineering award.
PL19-3 is a joint development project between CNOOC and ConocoPhilips. Two new wellhead platforms and one new central platform will be built with a total investment of $1.35 billion. Using Bentley Systems’ offshore engineering solutions, COOEC developed a Fixed Offshore Structure Design Tool (FOSDT), which helped reduce cost by $615,000 and project implementation time by four weeks, while improving safety and quality control. FOSDT has now been used successfully in more than 10 offshore projects in China.
The jurors said, in awarding this project the BIM Advancements in Mining and Offshore prize, “The process innovations realized on this impressive project will create dynamic change to energy development in this high-demand region. Optimizing the virtues of existing technologies to meet their project demands, they drove efficiencies, their efforts netted a savings of over 2,000 resource hours, allowing delivery of the project two months ahead of schedule.”
Heihe-Blagoveshchensk Heilongjiang River Road Bridge Project
Heihe-Blagoveshchensk Heilongjiang River Road Bridge Project, delivered by Long Jian Road & Bridge Co. Ltd., received the 2017 BIM Advancements in Bridges award.
This project is the first modern expressway bridge constructed along the Sino-Russian border. The Long Jian Road & Bridge Co. Ltd developed a cloud-based project management platform, leveraging Bentley’s ProjectWise solution. MicroStation, Bentley Navigator, ProStructures, and RM Bridge are also being used in the project design to help ensure delivery of this bridge by 2019.
The jurors, in presenting the award, said, “This project is located in incredibly challenging weather conditions of negative 30 degrees Celsius in the winter and over 40 degrees Celsius in the summer. The project maintained a fast-paced schedule, and the project team used Bentley’s BIM applications to work in a collaborative environment for digital delivery of the infrastructure project.”
Conclusion
Clearly, BIM solutions, such as those offered and supported by Bentley Systems, are already helping to reduce costs, compress project completion times, and increase quality across a wide variety of 
infrastructure and industrial projects in China. However, it is also important to recognize that using of this type of advanced BIM technology is still in its infancy in China.
To date, most BIM solutions have been applied in the design of new projects. With the help and encouragement of leading BIM suppliers like Bentley Systems, ARC believes that the industry will see an increasing number of BIM applications in China, expanding from design to construction, operation, and maintenance to help support the total lifecycle management of infrastructure and industrial assets.
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