Enterprise BIM Pilot in Elia Group
2023 was very successful for the digital acceleration team, especially in the Infrastructure and asset domain. In this post, we present some of the team highlights in the Building Information Modelling (BIM) pilot project in Elia Group.
Common Data Environment
A Common Data Environment (CDE) is a centralized digital space that facilitates the storage, management, and dissemination of information across all stages of a construction project. This environment is pivotal in BIM methodologies, as it ensures that all stakeholders, from architects and engineers to contractors and clients, have access to consistent, updated, and reliable project data.
The CDE supports collaboration, improves efficiency, reduces errors, and helps maintain a single source of truth for the project, enabling various parties to work with harmonized and integrated models and documents. It plays a crucial role in streamlining workflows, enhancing communication, and ensuring that decision-making is based on the most current project information.
For the BIM pilot at Elia Group, we conducted market research. We chose BimData.io as our candidate CDE. It is a SaaS platform, API-first, supports opneBIM formats and has a modular architecture that we favour for enterprise-level integration scenarios.
Our BIM solutions selection criteria included the following:
- Open standards support: supporting industry standards like IFC and BCF.
- Modular and open architecture: avoid vendor-lock-in and adopt microservices and API-first software philosophy.
- Customization and extensibility: possibility to integrate the solution with other solutions in multi-environment and multi-domain eco-system.
- Deployment flexibly: be multi-cloud, Kubernetes and docker-ready.
Modular System Architecture
The following architecture diagram illustrates a high-level system architecture we introduced to integrate the BIM CDE into our toolchains, processes and infrastructure.
The BIM platform includes many components, here we list the most relevant to us:
- The core component: manages the building information models (read, write and modify) using IFC. Importing and exporting models are also a feature of the core.
- The web-based UI: features a files and folders viewer, 2D & 3D viewer and project management capabilities.
- The REST API: provides all features in the UI via fine-grained API. User management, project management and IFC model querying are some of the available endpoints.
- Custom apps and UI: we extended the core functionalities of the core for more advanced use cases using .NET and Python. We developed a custom plugin for the UI to meet the needs of our users.
The 3D models in IFC formats are stored in PostgreSQL database. The related documents (PDFs, Word, Excel…) are stored in a dedicated file storage.
Each engineering discipline in the enterprise has its toolchains and processes. For example, civil engineering uses Revit for 3D modelling, and there is an out-of-the-box plugin for model synchronization with the CDE. The towers team uses Tekla, we have implemented a custom application for model integration using Trimble Connect and the REST API. The High Voltage team uses Bentley tools for modelling substations, here we have a more complex integration workflow since Bentley products do not support IFC out of the box. The proposed integration solution involves multi-stage model conversion with the help of ITwin.
The CDE should be the single point of truth for building information, therefore, its data should be available for other functions and systems. Asset management, grid operations, maintenance, and safety are some functions that can consume CDE data via the API or custom applications.
Vendors, contractors, orders, and equipment master data are some examples of data managed in SAP solutions, with the help of a custom integration based on the SAP S4/HANA and BimData REST API, we have linked the models to SAP items and documents.
Further integration scenarios include MS Teams bot for notification, Jira board integration via custom UI plugin, Microsoft Power BI using the API and direct queries to the database.
Now we explore some of these integrations in more detail for real business use cases.
Business Use cases
During this year, the BIM team interviewed and collaborated with many customers within the group to identify and prioritize the potential used cases to be implemented. Here we explore 3 use cases for 3D model construction, workflow automation and SAP integration.
3D Models Construction
Many existing assets and some ongoing projects don't have 3D models. Therefore, we had to be creative and find a way to construct the building's 3D models. We used Plan2Bim to generate the 3D model from 2D blueprints in IFC format.
We created a workflow where we upload 2D blueprints to the tool, create the 3D model for each story, and then merge all models to create a single model that represents all floors, facades and elevations. The final step is exporting the IFC model and importing it into the CDE for further data enrichment.
Documentation Exchange and Workflow Automation
We configured and customized a workflow to handle the exchange of technical documentation of equipment. The vendors have a dedicated space in the CDE to upload the requested documents. The workflow then validates the file against business rules (naming convention, file extensions…) forwards the valid files to the right project space and notifies the responsible project manager to check the content of the files.
We extended the basic workflow mechanism provided by the CDE with a custom implementation based on the REST API and ELSA workflow.
SAP Integration
SAP solutions play a crucial role in managing orders, equipment master data and supplier data. It was important to create a seamless user experience and give the BIM user the possibility to search and explore all SAP-related data within the CDE. For example, a Project manager may navigate through a building 3D model, and select an object like a door, then view the order history and all related documents.
The custom implementation was built using the SAP S4/HANA APIs and CDE API to link IFC objects to SAP entities using custom IFC attributes.
We are committed to continuing the development of an enterprise-level BIM solution in Elia Group and supporting all engineering, assets, and project management teams by providing technical capabilities and implementing world-class digital products.
