Part Two: Building on a foundation of collaboration

Andy: The biggest uptake I've seen across the AEC, is not from GIS professionals, it's actually from designers who can now connect directly from their familiar design platform into the Esri geospatial sources of all this information. And they're designing, they go, my God, I can see the content great, off we go.

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Wayne: Welcome to GIS Directions. I'm Wayne Lee Archer.

Mary: And I'm Mary Murphy.  

And today we’re once again joined by, our now podcast regular, Andy Lovell from Esri’s AEC team. Thanks for agreeing to come back and chat with us Andy.

Andy: Hey guys. It's absolutely my pleasure to be here.

Mary: Now we covered a lot in the last episode so we’re gonna pick right up where we left off so, make sure you go back and listen to the first part of this episode – because we don’t want you to miss anything. 

So very briefly, we’re talking AEC, architecture, engineering, environmental, and construction for those in the know.  

And we’re talking about GIS and BIM – Building Information Models – and specifically how we can use these, how they come together in the form of a digital twin and what all those business challenges are that come with that, and we’re also looking at some real-world examples as well. 

Now, today we’re tackling something that’s a very hot topic at the moment, the need for BIM to be digital twin ready – and we’re hearing that a lot in this space Andy, so Andy, I’d love for you to jump in and explain what that actually means?

Andy: For me, when we, when I hear that phrasing, and again, much like when somebody says, whether it's in an RFP, it's like, you need to deliver a digital twin. Well, for what purpose?  

Well, the answer is you need to be very clear on what is it you're trying to solve? You can do amazing things using geospatial technologies or design software. And you can do these great things if you know what you're trying to do.  

Being digital twin ready? My take on that, is being aware that there is no one magical silver bullet. There is no one piece of software that will do everything for everybody. And being open that we want to have information. 

We want that to maintain its integrity, maintain the quality and the details that are within it, so that it can be used by whoever needs to use it next.  

Uh, it was always used to drive me nuts. It's like you'd ask for some information from, from one party. They'd send it across, it'd be in a format you'd have to then convert and you'd know, it'd truncate the field names or it'd change the number values, or you'd kind of reinvent it and you'd spend a bunch of time, and honestly, you'd waste a whole lot of hours recreating content. 

You’d do your thing and they’d go yep, I’ve done my job, and then the next group, yeah well I’ve got to hand that off to somebody else. So for me, being digital twin ready is being aware of, you are receiving content and information from one group or multiple groups, you will do your thing. Now, whether that's analytics or your value add or whatever service you are providing. 

And then the data shouldn't die with you. It should then be handed on to the next group. Now, that may be in this cycle so that it's in a form and a structure that can then relatively easily assist them in doing what they need to go, what the decisions do they, and then onto the operate side or, and whether that's facilities management or asset management, whatever. And then closing that loop comes back to, well, at the end of the day, a facility or piece of infrastructure will complete its life cycle, it's useful function that it's needed.  

And then you bring that back around to the planning side again and say, okay, we are decommissioning this bridge or this building, or we're refurbishing or we're, I don't know, removing an old railway station, we're gonna put in something else that goes in. 

So, having that flow of information and understanding that the data shouldn't die with you, it should move on to the next group.

Mary: That flow of information, that's very key for me having worked with some of that, those types of data models previously. Because that's where, for me, it's probably, not exactly overly exciting, but it was one of those things where it was an inefficiency for me that just was a hair pulling moment where you would get the data in, you'd do all those things you were talking about, you work with it and then you put it into another format potentially and flick it on to either back to that person or someone else.  

But then all that in between data then just sits there that you might have value added to it and never gets used again or accessed by someone else to even look at it and so on. So, there's lots of this lost data in between just to get to those one or two points, but that we could leverage for other things. 

And it was just so massively inefficient. And yes, there's lots of little, cool tools like, CAD to G D B in ArcGIS Pro was one of the ones that I just absolutely loved down through the years, when that came along, because it's so simple, but it's a really simple solution. 

But then on those bigger scales to now see people realise that they can collaborate on this data, is really, really exciting to me. What I would like to know as well, just because you've talked about the flow of the data there as well, is that context side of things, because we've brought up digital twins a few times here accidentally on purpose potentially. I'd like to pick your brain a little bit more on the context to the projects, because when I talk to people in the space about this, they go, what do you mean, why? 

What do I need context for? Why do I need to collaborate in that space? So, I'd like to know if we're working with GIS and BIM in the world of a AEC, how does GIS in that world start to bring context to those projects and what's the value of that?

Andy: For me, the context, the value that it brings is that designs are not done in isolation.  That if we were talking about building a bridge, down in Melbourne, level crossing removals, big thing, ripping out lots of things, lots of safety improvements in there. Now you could go along and look at the grade separation work, road and rail crossings and the decision to go, which way do I go? Road over, road under whatever.  

Fine, you could do that. But by providing the geospatial context around that, you can then see you go, well, what's the impact and influencers to the surrounding community, the businesses, the people that live in this area. Well, hang on, if we go this way, we'll need to change the drainage on here and that might cause flooding on here. And if we're only looking at just the one little patch for the doing the design and not looking at the entire context, then you're not gonna be able to make what I would consider to be a more appropriate decision that takes into account the surrounding area.

Mary: So it's an easy way for us to provide an opportunity for them to model different scenarios as well.

Andy: Absolutely. You can take into context and then make what will become ultimately a better decision. And it's not just at the end thing, It's also throughout the construction phase. If you have an understanding of the surrounding areas, you can even plan where to put your lay down areas or how the concrete trucks are gonna come through, and all of those pieces in there.

Wayne: I work, traditionally at the moment in the utility space, so I'm always talking about, pits, pipes, and poles, electric lines, and I see a lot of tools come together to crunch this space. We talked to you just a little bit there, I'm hearing, a lot of collaboration  being one of the big requirements here, it seems, although we might be talking about building construction or very, small scale in the sense of things, not building things on national scales, not building things on state scales, not building things on necessarily even suburb or locality scales, we get right down to the building information side of things where we might be just talking about a location.  

And we all know that we've got a bunch of tools that really fit this space you know just so well, ArcGIS indoors. If we're talking about site construction, that we've got, Site Scan for site construction. 

But what I'm hearing here is it really is about that collaboration and sharing sort of space more than anything. So, are we talking about maybe some very typical GIS workflows we're talking about, ArcGIS Pro, getting the data on in there, publishing maps, Web GIS to, to, light up your own organisation and your own people tools like, ArcGIS Urban and ArcGIS Hub for collaboration with your public. Is this the sweet spot that we're seeing for AEC, those kind of tools? Is that where this is really heading?

Andy: Yeah, it is Wayne. It is. And again, I come back to, I've occasionally described working in this space as playing with Lego bricks, once you know what the flow is, you plug in the different piece that you need. Some projects would need a tool like ArcGIS Urban for that space or a managing the underground utilities networks, or it may need the community engagement side because we've got a connected environment and the collaboration, I completely agree, it is absolutely fundamental. That and having standards.

Mary: Yes.  

Andy: That are documented, like that you are using your standards and that you have the cloud to cloud, so connecting the Autodesk Construction Cloud from Autodesk Partners with the Esri side of the world, making that flow of information. 

Probably the biggest uptake I've seen across the AEC, is not from GIS professionals, it's actually from designers who can now connect directly from their familiar design platform into the Esri geospatial sources of all this information. And they're designing. They go, my God, I can put imagery, I can grab all this other data that's there, I can see it, I can understand. I cannot have to go back and forth and waste all this time. I can see the content great, off we go, and we can get on with a job.  

The collaboration side is absolutely huge, and the tools that you would use will vary depending on the individual project you're on. The country, the regulations that you're working in. That's something I've become much more well aware of chatting with the folks out of Esri Spain the other day, we use this, and we have these requirements. So being across the different tools and using them as you need to.  

Mary: And again, coming down to what you want to do, right? So, it’s that collaborative environment seems to be the place to start right, if you wanna start leveraging the geospatial in your AEC workflows, that collaborative environment. So, something like ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, start building with those. And then thinking about the specific workflows that you're after. 

So, if you're doing field mobility kind of workflows, maybe asset management and inspection, you could do something like get a Survey123 form going. Something in Field Maps etc. leveraging ArcGIS Pro then for your heavy hitting analytics, cuz I'm always gonna come back to Pro. 

But then there are other aspects out there that might be a little bit more niche and I know there's one that you are interested in particularly Wayne, around this space and that's SmarterWX.

Wayne: Absolutely this is, the actual works management and works planning side of things. 

Not just, building stuff, but maintaining it and upgrading it and moving forwards. I think that probably fits well into this space. And one of the products that, that we've got, supports that kind of, that integration between different organisations for doing, public works. If I'm gonna go tearing up a length of road for one particular reason, and then the electricity company's gonna come along in six months and tear up that same bit of road. And then the water company's gonna come and tear up that same bit of road. 

Perhaps we could do this smarter. Perhaps we could coordinate smarter if we've got all of our GIS projects and our works projects in GIS, then surely we can share this and one of those products that we're really seeing come in to the play here is SmarterWX where you can actually integrate those works projects between different organisations. 

So, coming back to that whole collaboration space, have you had much experience in that sort of works management space Andy?

Andy: Yeah, absolutely, at the end of the day, it's all about building something that is needed for the community that it's within and use the different tools that you need to throughout the life cycle, both from the planning phase, all the way through to the operations. And then as it cycles back around again when you change that infrastructure over it or upgrade it or do whatever you need to for the next thing that it needs.

Mary: Amazing.

Wayne: We're gonna need to put links in the show notes to SmarterWX to ArcGIS Urban, to ArcGIS Indoors to BIM tools. Even ArcGIS Hub, there's probably a bunch I've even missed.

Mary: And there's a really good blog that I came across that's an excellent case study in one aspect of how we can leverage location to improve our workflows in this space and that was, using 3D and 3D GIS supports decision making for smart urban planning and design. I think it was the Gensler crew did that, and one of their key concerns was actually then that end point. I say endpoint, but the endpoint of many kind of sections of the workflow or the project lifecycle, which is communication. 

So how do we communicate with stakeholders and so on? And leveraging geospatial data and technology and integrating that with those BIM plans and designs, is really really helpful in communicating context to the people you wanna hit up for those particular projects.  

Are there any other learning resources or projects that you think people should jump into Andy just to get started or to get a taster?

Andy: There's a lot of content that's available. There's a number of pieces that are specifically about GIS and BIM, so it's not just ArcGIS, GeoBIM, but it's understanding how to get design data into your geospatial context. There's a number of workflows and learning paths.

Wayne: It sounds like GIS is the panacea to the AEC sector. Everything you need, is serviced by GIS. Andy, come on, what are your top three tech items for this industry before you leave it?

Andy: Number one, be very clear about what is the challenge you are trying to solve. Tech tip number two. Coordinate systems.

Wayne: No, Oh my gosh!

Andy: It's boring, it's dry. But the amount of time that I have watched in my own career and now that I work with. I get to work with hundreds of consulting firms all over the world, coordinate systems is an absolute killer if you haven't worked through it. That's the number two tech tip be very clear about your coordinate system, and that also includes standards. I know this is not the exciting stuff people wanted.

Wayne: Yeah, great.

Andy: The third tip that I've got on there is, be open to using different tools.

Mary: Yep.

Andy: You may have your favorite digital hammer and you pull it out and it's one thing you've got, and you use it all the time and you're comfortable with that tool. Being open to using other things.  For me, that's a big thing. It's just like. Yes, that hammer you've got may do a great job, but there's likely to be things that are actually better at doing it and knowing that there is a time to change over, you don't have to solve everything yourself. 

Mary: Yes. 

Andy: You know, reach out to hell, reach out to Esri. Reach out to all of us. Like happy to give people advice.

Mary: Absolutely. 

Wayne: I think those are probably some of the most concise and succinct tips that we've heard this series. So, Andy, thank you so much for your insights into this space. It has absolutely been a pleasure talking to you today. 

Andy: Absolutely fantastic guys. Thanks for your time.  

Mary: Okay, so again, thank you so much for joining us Andy, I think we’ve covered pretty much everything AEC that we actually can in two short episodes. 

But to help everyone get started with all the tips and tricks that we have mentioned, we'll add all the resources we've spoken about to our website, so that website is GISDirectionspodcast.com.au. and make sure you connect with us all on LinkedIn as well. 

And with that, until next time.  

Wayne: Stay spatial everybody, thanks for joining us Andy.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the hosts and guests, and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Esri Australia.