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Key benefits H A good quality BIM model at tender stage can reduce design costs on D&B projects by about 25%D CNC data from the Tekla model drives all of the CNC machinery to manufacture construction components.D Lower costs of remedial works, as potential clashes are designed out before they reach site.

s Caunton Engineering is one of the UK’s leading fully automated structural steelwork contractors, with over 45 years’ experience. It offers a complete service to the construction industry, designing, fabricating, applying surface treatments and erecting structural steelwork on projects ranging from 300T to 6,000T. Caunton operates in both the consultant design and design and build markets, working in collaborative partnership with many principal contractors.

compliant design in less time – we believe there could be a time saving of as much as 25% where a good-quality BIM model is available. It leads to more accurate and reliable costing of projects, and provides a more thorough understanding which allows us to arrive at the most competitive solution.”

He continues: “BIM also provides construction teams with a very powerful tool that can be used to identify the safest and best build sequence, which is of significant value. It’s hard to put a figure on the amount of money that is lost as a direct result of badly coordinated work on site. What we do know is that if one of our four-man installation crews has to stand still for

CAUNToN EMBrACEsTHE fUTUrE WITH TEKLA

s structural steelwork contractor Caunton Engineering selected Tekla’s Building Information Modelling (BIM) software to enable it to move beyond 3D modelling and embrace the future of construction.

Robert Berry, Director of Engineering and Innovation at Caunton Engineering, says the company has experienced a wide range of benefits since adopting BIM “The industry needs better design and BIM can help us deliver it. Having a Building Information Model allows our structural engineers to very quickly understand the building and produce a

“Caunton has invested in Tekla because we know that data from our model can be completely and accurately imported into almost 100 other pieces of BIM software”

- robert Berry, Director of Engineering & Innovation, Caunton Engineering

“We are actively using data from the Tekla model to drive other business processes.”- robert Berry, Director of Engineering & Innovation, Caunton Engineering

H With over 40 years experience Caunton are able to offer a complete service to the construction industry.

With a particular reputation for service to the Design and Build sector and for partnering arrangements with main contractors Caunton has become an enviable business within the UK steel manufacturing industry.

www.caunton.co.uk

an hour it will cost us at least £300. We are absolutely certain that the cost of remedial works on BIM projects is lower too, because potential clashes are resolved during the design phase – designed out rather than built in.”

Tekla aNd TRiMBle T Tekla was established in 1966, and today has customers in 100 countries, offices in 15 countries, and a global partner network. since 2011, Tekla has been a part of the Trimble Buildings Group.

Trimble Buildings Group’s solutions tightly link office-based process and information with the field crew. Trimble Design-Build-operate platform responds to the needs of owners and the AECo industry by increasing productivity and reducing rework.

a tekla.com/uk

MOdel dRiveN pROCeSSeS> Caunton creates a Tekla structures model for every project, and they have become a key part of the business. “As a manufacturer, everything we do is driven by data. Because Tekla structures is a database, the models are at the core of everything we do. for example, we can use the model to effectively monitor progress of information resolution during the design phase as well as physical progress of components during the fabrication stage of a project.”

Alongside Tekla structures, Caunton’s structural engineering team has been using fastrak Building Designer for many years. The release of Tekla structural Designer means they will shortly be migrating their 14 users to this new analysis tool. other Tekla programs extend BIM throughout the business. Tekla BIMsight allows non-design staff across the company to interrogate models and extract the data they need, while Tekla field3D allows people working away from the office to access models wherever they are on their mobile devices.

“Together Tekla structures, Tekla structural Designer, BIMsight and field3D make a very competitive offering,” says Berry. “Ultimately, if you’re in the business of designing and manufacturing, you’ll be able to use Tekla tools to do quite a lot more than you would with other packages.”

THe iMpORTaNCe OF iNTeROpeRaBiliTY> Caunton Engineering took the decision to migrate all 20 of its 3D modelling staff to Tekla structures in 2011, when it became clear its existing 3D modelling software was not capable of delivering accurate, constructible Building Information Models that could be shared in the form of IfC data. “We’d been looking at Tekla for about four years,” says Berry. “The single most important thing was the software could satisfy our internal requirements - producing data for our workshop CNC machinery – without that the business would grind to a halt”.

The other key benefit is Tekla’s interoperability – it can exchange information accurately and completely with a wide range of other software packages. Caunton’s models can be shared with the rest of the project team, no matter what programs they are using.

since implementing the software, he has noticed a big difference in design team meetings: “on projects where BIM is not used, 70% of the time is spent explaining problems and only 30% on agreeing solutions. We have seen almost a reversal of this on BIM projects – 30% of the time spent reviewing problems that are evident from the model, and 70% spent agreeing solutions collaboratively during the meeting. It is very easy to show that queried items work in the model, without having to trawl through old drawings and meeting minutes.”

Longer term, Berry believes this shift from organisation-centric to project-centric decision making facilitated by BIM has the potential to change the adversarial nature of construction.