Bentley Systems Focuses on Leveraging Infrastructure Digital Twins

At its annual Year in Infrastructure conference, Bentley Systems, the infrastructure engineering software company, described 2023 as a “groundbreaking year” for infrastructure intelligence. Following Greg Bentley’s keynote address, Bentley Systems’ product and technology leaders explained how the company’s offerings increasingly help users derive greater infrastructure intelligence from their data. 

Mike Campbell, Chief Product Officer at Bentley Systems announced the addition of iTwin capabilities in Bentley Open Applications, for modeling and simulation, starting with MicroStation to systematically introduce the benefits of digital twins in the design phase. Mike expressed his views in an exclusive interview with ARC Advisory Group’s President & CEO, Andy Chatha.

The Background

Bentley Systems and ARC Advisory Group have nurtured a mutually beneficial relationship for over two decades, sharing knowledge and best practices. “In the industrial marketplace, ARC has been talking about IT/OT integration (Information and Operational Technologies) and from Bentley it learned about ET (Engineering Technologies),” said Andy, initiating the interview. Mike spoke about his previous work experience at PTC and how he got into the IoT and Augmented Reality (AR) space. Then he began exploring the challenges and opportunities in the infrastructure space and found them exciting and decided to join Bentley Systems.

Integration of the Design-Operate-Maintain Phases

In manufacturing the supply chain is much more integrated, whereas when you come to infrastructure it’s been mainly about design for constructability. “There was no digital thread story,” said Mike. Engineering firms are now recognizing that their models are not sustainable, and things have to be done differently. Even small firms recognize that much more needs to be done in the operations phase. Bentley is in the process of leveraging these insights working with the engineering firms. Further, Mike spoke about the value of the digital twin that was also an important part of his product and technology keynote presentation.

Value of the Infrastructure Digital Twin

There’s tremendous amount of value to be unlocked. “We are still constructing buildings like we did 50 years ago; change has to come, but it’s a process still being set in motion,” said Mike. The objective is to get more people to use Bentley Infrastructure Cloud by adding more value to it. Engineering data serves as the foundation and digital twins as the building blocks of infrastructure intelligence. With iTwin Platform, engineering data in Bentley Infrastructure Cloud can be aligned, queried, and managed to increase infrastructure intelligence over the lifecycle of projects and assets. Finally, it is the integration and orchestration across these three product stacks - ProjectWise for project delivery, SYNCHRO for construction, and AssetWise for asset operations. Bentley Systems estimates that the company’s engineering users accumulate at least 100 million new unique digital components per month within their respective ProjectWise environments, teeing up potential infrastructure intelligence benefits across construction, operations, and maintenance. As an indication that digital twins are becoming mainstream, the proportion of Going Digital Awards finalists using iTwin has risen to 64 percent in 2023.

“Bentley Infrastructure Cloud, including ProjectWise, leverages infrastructure digital twins to unlock data in order to apply AI and accelerate infrastructure intelligence,” said Mike. The onus lies in creating the digital twin upfront to make it seamless, transparent, and automatic. With iTwin capabilities and workflows natively integrated, Bentley Open Applications will be able to automatically create digital twins during the design process, enabling users to collaborate in real time, evaluate the impact of changes more seamlessly, reduce rework, and expedite infrastructure intelligence. “Today, digital twins are critical enablers of how infrastructure assets are built and operated. With iTwin-powered capabilities coming to Bentley Open Applications, all our users will be able to leverage digital twin technology to improve their efficiency and effectiveness during design,” said Mike.

The next part of the discussion veered toward Bentley’s secure multi-tenant architecture and adherence to regulatory compliances and standards. Bentley has the solutions and has been leveraging AI, but it now has to educate and convince customers in diverse fields. Exciting times lie ahead, especially in the energy transition sector. The focus is on a clean energy future and there’s a lot of opportunity for Bentley to help in that space.