London, UK: At the recent Crossrail Tier 1 Contractor Briefing held at Bentley U.K. headquarters, Bentley made two announcements. Now, a newly chartered Crossrail/Bentley Construction/BIM Academy will support the Crossrail “extended” enterprise with innovative applications of building information modelling (BIM) for the Crossrail construction phase. The new academy will help Crossrail project participants discover and assess, in a collegial environment, the benefits of advanced technology. It also will offer advice on accomplishing technology deployments in a coordinated manner, and is designed to support Crossrail’s goals of efficiency, cost savings, and increased safety.
In addition, Crossrail’s Enterprise License Subscription (ELS) for Bentley’s application software portfolio will be broadened to serve the extended “Crossrail enterprise” – now encompassing its Tier 1 contractors. Crossrail’s ELS connects project participants through the ProjectWise system of collaboration servers and services and eB software for controlling project information.
These two initiatives are the first components of an agreement between Crossrail and Bentley to augment the intent of BS1192 – the British standard for collaborative production of information – by introducing a project role for a strategic technology partner. Crossrail has asked Bentley to serve as this partner for its “construction enterprise” to enable the Crossrail contractors to collaboratively contribute to information modelling and business processes.
Crossrail Chief Executive Andrew Wolstenholme said, “Infrastructure projects of the scale and complexity of Crossrail do not come around very frequently. I want to use the Crossrail opportunity to move the whole industry forward in a number of areas which includes the use of BIM through the delivery and lifecycle phases of major projects. Many of our project contractors are already developing their own capabilities in this important area. BIM is not simply about the application of new software – it’s about a different way of working. If we are to take advantage of the opportunity BIM offers the programme, and our contractor organisations, we need to collaborate closely with our supply chains to make it happen. We are glad that Bentley has responded in creative ways to help us add an information modelling innovation stream to our construction enterprise.”
Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley said, “We are delighted to have the opportunity to continue our strategic technology partnership with Crossrail by helping to introduce innovation in information modelling. We share Crossrail’s view that there is much about construction that information modelling can advance in terms of efficiency, safety, quality and more. I am very enthusiastic about these two initiatives – the broadened Crossrail enterprise license subscription and the Crossrail/Bentley Construction/BIM Academy. Both represent unprecedented ways to assure the furthest and fastest take-up of technology best practices for this exemplary project.”
Source: Bentley
