Today’s construction industry faces several challenges. Too often information is still siloed, creating inefficiencies in projects, and yet construction companies are tasked with rebuilding failing infrastructure. If we look at the stats, they are downright scary. Nearly, half of national bridges in the United States were rated structurally deficient in 2017—and I am afraid we aren’t making progress fast enough.
Consider the example of Andrew Anagnost, CEO, president, Autodesk He takes the BART to work most days and goes through a tunnel that was designed in the 1960s in an earthquake zone. Every day a part of him thinks about that. Other days he takes a bridge over the bay—a bridge that desperately needs updating.
Now, the industry is tasked with building and rebuilding processes that were built in the early part of the industrial revolution. He explains that the rest of the world has this same problem, with the exception of China, which is building most from scratch. Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles is that “there is not enough money, people, and materials,” as Anagnost, says.
To combat this, the construction industry must work smarter, leaner, and leverage technology. At this point there is no other option, especially for those working on large infrastructure projects.
Such is the case with HNTB. Adam Horn, civil integrated solutions, section leaders, HNTB, says, “For us, as a United States AEC firm, we see, and we know that digital transformation is not an option for this industry. There is simply too much to do. We have an aging infrastructure. We have aging staff in our public agencies, so we are seeing a lot of turnover. Digital transformation, for us, is just not an option.”
What is needed for many is integration without translation. Historically, CAD (computer-aided design), BIM (building information modeling), and GIS (geographical information systems) have historically been stovepipe in their respective technologies, but now that is all beginning to change, as Autodesk and ESRI are partnering.
“This new framework allows us to provide a design planning experience where we are not saying you have to be a GIS user to do planning, or you have to be a designer to do design,” says Horn. “We are saying this framework provides you with the data to do your job, you don’t have to understand where the data is coming from or how it is stored or how it is managed necessarily. For us, the opportunity that we see is with a lot of our public agencies, specifically, we see the data is the currency of that digital transformation for a lot of our customers.”
Together, ESRI and Autodesk are looking to the convergence of GIS and BIM to assist customers visualize, understand, and analyze infrastructure within its real-world context. Anagnost says the partnership requires shared vision and trust, explaining that “Autodesk is dependent on ESRI to do important things for our customers now.”
“That trust goes to our customers,” adds Jack Dangermond, president, ESRI. “They become codependent with us in their work, just like we are connected, creating a system of systems.”
Together, the companies have done the foundational work: product integration. Customers can now edit the GIS data inside of AutoCAD, as an example. The next step is working on specific workflows that deliver specific values for a specific type of customer. Anagnost says it will be a combination of top-down workflows and then bottom-up enthusiasm.
Anagnost also points to what comes next, especially with the rise of gen AI (artificial intelligence). Autodesk is planning to both automate “the daylights” out of everything and reimagine processes in new ways.
The 2024 State of Design & Make Report from Autodesk finds more than three in four professionals say they trust AI for their industry, having embraced it to enhance productivity, become more efficient, and reach sustainability goals. Also, more than half say they are approaching or have already achieved their goal of incorporating AI. But to be clear, we are still in the early stages, and we still have a long way to go to maximize AI’s potential.
At the end of the day, Horn of HNTB says, “It is about the data. It is less about am I doing CAD, BIM, GIS. This is data driving digital transformation.”
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