PBC Today recently attended Bentley Systems’ ‘Going Digital’ webinar series, where the winner for Enterprise Engineering at the 2022 Year in Infrastructure Awards, Mott MacDonald, explored their work on the new Smart Object Library on behalf of the Environment Agency
The Mott MacDonald webinar is the first in Bentley Systems’ new ‘Going Digital’ series and featured Andy Barnes, Moata Intelligent Content Product Lead at Mott MacDonald, who explored their win at the Year in Infrastructure Awards for their work on behalf of the Environment Agency.
The Year in Infrastructure Awards celebrate the best engineering products across the global construction industry, and last year was the first semi-live event since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Environment Agency is investing £2.5bn to help to protect people against flooding and coastal erosion
Andy Barnes starts the session by exploring the project with the webinar audience.
The Environment Agency in England and Wales has a stated priority of increasing the resilience of people, property and businesses against the risk of flooding and coastal erosion and are investing over £2.5bn over the next 10 years to achieve this.
The Environment Agency recognise that to maximise its efficiency in achieving its purpose; it needs a more efficient design process in which the use and re-use of its existing designs are maximised.
It also identified a need for rapid prototyping of solutions that adequately consider a greater range of options for selecting a preferred solution.
Finally, it required better consistency in the creation and exchange of digital information to ensure that the right decisions are made about the asset through its lifecycle.
The Smart Object Library: What were the objectives?
The challenge that the Environment Agency brought to Mott MacDonald was to create a centralised library of parametric smart objects that promoted the use and re-use of design content in a standardised way.
The Environment Agency also required that the Library be easily accessible to the supply chain and that the objects complied with the format and rules stated in the Environment Agency’s object standard and their data requirement library.
The Smart Object Library also needed to provide metrics data so that they could calculate a return on their investment.
What were the four key areas that were targeted?
The Smart Object Library targeted four key areas during its manufacture.
- Advancing digital capabilities of the entire supply chain:Â The Smart Object Library would help to remove barriers to BIM adoption.
- Supporting the Environment Agency’s net zero ambition: Achieving net zero by 2030.
- Eliminating design waste: Promoting the use and re-use of quality objects and more rapid design processes.
- Benefiting Quality: Using objects from the Smart Object Library will improve the consistency and quality of information deliverables.
The journey to creating the Smart Object Library
The Environment Agency’s desire to create a Smart Object Library is part of a desire to accelerate digital transformation.
Aligned with the Government’s 2016 BIM Mandate, the EA laid the groundwork for a brighter digital future by creating a comprehensive data requirement library in 2018.
With the development of the CAD and Object Standards defining the graphical requirement, the EA delivered its foundational strategy in 2019.
From there, the Environment Agency worked with Mott MacDonald alongside Bentley Systems in 2022 to create the Smart Object Library.
Kanita Dogra, project manager, of The Environment Agency, said: ” The ability to rapidly produce objects in a streamlined and efficient manner will certainly aid and support successful capital project delivery in the Environment Agency.
“The time and cost savings can be expertly measured and recorded to showcase the benefits and positive outcomes of the Smart Object Library.”
