Dura Vermeer is a family-owned Dutch company with more than 160 years of experience in construction, engineering and related services. The company’s core markets include residential and non-residential building, infrastructure, industrial construction, renovation and consultancy. According to Dura Vermeer Directory Board member Ronald Dielwart, the company’s corporate aspiration is to become one of the top three highest performing and digitized construction companies in the Netherlands by 2020.
Plotting Out the Path to Success
To achieve this goal, Dura Vermeer is focusing on improving operational results and achieving excellent customer experiences, by creating an agile and innovative organization and leveraging more digital solutions.
On an operational level, the company aims to reduce failure costs by ten percent each year, knowing that this number directly impacts the company’s overall profit margin. They also seek to improve Dura Vermeer’s project win rate, which is strongly influenced by positive customer journeys and overall client satisfaction.
A Digital Strategy to Improve Project Margins
Dura Vermeer’s Building division develops and operates projects commissioned by design and construction contractors. As a result, project margins are largely dependent on the subcontractor’s performance during various stages of the project lifecycle.
Dura Vermeer saw an opportunity to improve collaboration with its subcontractors while better coordinating the work of different trades by adopting the right digital solution. “We needed to adopt a solution that would reduce re-work and reduce the amount of time spent on 3D BIM model control and coordination,” says Sander de Zee, BIM Manager, Dura Vermeer. “The team also wanted a solution that was simple and repeatable, enabling quick implementation and training for Project Managers, BIM champions, engineers, and modelers.”
Dura Vermeer Adopts BIM 360 Design
Image courtesy Dura Vermeer: Huis van Delft in Delft, the complexity of the design is managed by BIM 360 Design
In April 2016, Dura Vermeer began researching the new capabilities of Autodesk BIM 360 Design. After an intensive testing period, the team decided in October 2016 to begin fully implementing Autodesk BIM 360 Design across the divisions.
Collaborating as a united team, Dura Vermeer and Autodesk executed a Proof of Concept, a first test project in Autodesk BIM 360 that could demonstrate the minimum viable functionality compared with current workflows. After a successful Proof of Concept demonstration, Dura Vermeer and Autodesk scaled up the solutions to take on a full project.
Getting Subcontractors Up To Speed
Controlling coordination and risk in an organized and transparent way is key to project success. This is why it was crucial for Dura Vermeer to invest in properly training project teams on their new tools.
“At first, the level of communication and coordination required for uploading and sharing the subcontractor’s models and related information took up significant time in the workflows and led to misinterpretation of versions or mixing up different aspect models,” says de Zee.
For each new project, team leads went through a time-consuming process of setting up and training new users on the Autodesk Revit server. Upskilling users on Autodesk BIM 360 Design was essential to streamline implementation of the software across the various teams. By training and guiding subcontractors in a hands-on environment on live projects, users now have the knowledge and skills to guide the implementation of Autodesk BIM 360 Design on each new project Dura Vermeer takes on.
Digital Implementation Yields Tangible Results
The implementation of Autodesk BIM 360 Design resulted in highly positive project outcomes, including reduced design re-work and reduced failure costs across projects. With faster design iterations that quickly led to a high quality and matured result, Dura Vermeer successfully decreased time to construction by 25 percent average per project—achieving construction readiness.
“According to our data analytics, Dura Vermeer is by far the highest and most mature BIM 360 Design and Revit adopter in the AEC industry. It’s incredible how quickly they can turnaround a full supply chain and mandate a standard way of work.”
- Giso van der Heide, Autodesk Success Leader NL
With the Autodesk BIM 360 cloud environment, projects can be set up in real-time, saving the IT department and project office weeks of effort each year. The new solution seamlessly integrates with current Autodesk Revit capabilities and Autodesk BIM 360 Docs. Project teams with new members or subcontractors can now implement the solution in only a few days due to the ease of use and reduction of complexity.
While Dura Vermeer’s BIM implementation has resulted in—and will lead to—valuable cost savings, the team also came away from the engagement with some key learnings. The biggest? Discovering that BIM is as much about change management as it is about technology. By taking the lead and making the investment in organizational transformation, Dura Vermeer can reap the benefits of the technology for years to come.
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