Are you using the right tool for the right job? Have you adopted a ‘dual strategy’ approach?
What are the important factors when choosing the right structural design tool for the job? How do you know you are doing things most efficiently, or are you just using the processes that you have always used? These are all the questions international BIM, simulation, fabrication and data management software developer Graitec has been asking their customers. The responses have been very insightful.
Graitec’s customers, are typically structural and civil engineers, who are using methods from hand calculations or Excel spreadsheets through to full finite element analysis (FEA).
From the conversations we have had with our customers, their main areas of importance are:
- BIM integration (Reuse of data).
- Ease of use.
- Flexibility to design different types of structures.
- Functionality.
- Software support.
- Familiarity (Used software in a previous role).
- Price.
- Continual development based on customer feedback.
One of the biggest challenges they face is keeping data consistent through the entire workflow when communicating between different platforms/stakeholders. For example, member orientation, offsets, boundary conditions and material and section libraries. If not managed correctly, this can severely affect timeframes and efficient collaboration on projects.
In reality, companies adopt multiple tools in what we call a dual strategy. Depending on several factors including the type and material of the main structure, specific project requirements or simply which team or person is available to work on the project.
In some industries, there is a need for design checks to be completed by separate teams within the same business, using a different tool to verify results. The dual strategy further complements those business requirements.
A Graitec customer, who is a leading consulting engineer based in central London, allows their engineers to choose from a pool of tools developed by different vendors. This allows the firm to play to the strengths of the individuals within the team as it is vital that the engineers are confident with the tools and the outcomes they deliver. The firm also believes in investing in their staff and encourages self-learning along with structured training sessions.
When you consider there are so many powerful technologies out there, very few businesses are really leveraging their full potential. Not only in terms of functionality within the tools but in data/models communicated through the full BIM workflow.
Within steel, concrete and timber structural workflows, Graitec typically covers one or more of the following areas: Design, Simulate, Fabricate and Manage.
Our focus is to answer our customers’ needs across the entire process, so not only do they benefit, so do their customers.
Advance Design is a mature and easy to use FEA Structural Design solution dedicated to structural engineers, who can realise a process that allows a ‘round-trip’ and reuse of data when integrating with other BIM workflow tools in the process.
Advance Design benefits
- Fully designs any type of reinforced concrete, steel and timber structure.
- Powerful, easy to use and operate.
- BIM native: Fully compliant with Revit®.
- Supported by a strong team of experts.
- Eurocodes and North American standards.
- Steel connections design.
- Automatic 3D climatic load generator: Wind and snow.
- Multicore FEM engine: dynamic, seismic, non-linear and large displacement analysis.
Useful facts
Advance Design has been used for 60,000+ projects all around the world. Examples include:
- BMW Sculpture at Goodwood Festival of Speed, UK.
- Pompidou centre in Metz, France.
- Hargrave Place in London, UK.
- Alfacon, Romania.
- Malabata Hills, Morocco.
- Jean-Bouin Stadium in Paris, France.
- Zbuch Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic.
- Confluence Museum in Lyon, France.
Advance Design has a community of 25,000+ users around the world and will celebrate its 15th anniversary in 2020.
Advance Design is provided with a validation guide having more than 1,200 pages and 600 tests run automatically before each update of the software.
The software is always updated with the latest versions of design codes, with one major release and several updates per year!
The 2020 release of Advance Design represents an investment of 2,500 dev days, 1,250 engineering days, 100+ of new features!
Customer case study
“Advance Design has a very user-friendly environment to navigate and inspect the results, especially the dynamic and non-linear analysis results. We used Advance Design to develop a BIM workflow with the steel specialist for flawless and effortless transfer of design, loads and section sizes.”
– Hooman Baghi, associate director and structural engineer, Diales.
About Graitec Headquartered in Bièvres, France.
One of the strongest international Autodesk Platinum Partners, 3rd largest in the world!
Over 50 000 customers worldwide.
Extensive BIM workflow technology portfolio and tailored customer-success services.
Software editor with over 200 structural engineers across the development and technical teams.
50 offices worldwide with over 550 staff ready to help you succeed.
Graitec’s technical support has a satisfaction score of 4.57/5!
Financial stability with proven year-on-year growth.
Craig Mallard
Head of UK Sales – Simulate
Come and try Advance Design at one of our FOC test drives
Durham – 06/11/19
Bradford – 07/11/19
Nottingham – 19/11/19
Southampton – 21/11/19
Please note: this is a commercial profile.
