Bentley Systems Year in Infrastructure - 2014

Summary

Bentley held its annual Year in Infrastructure (YII) Conference in London, UK. This conference brings together a significant number of Bentley users, partners, analysts, and press covering the power; process; utilities; and architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries.

In conjunction with the YII event, the company holds its annual Bentley Be Inspired Awards event. The awards categories span major projects across power generation, process manufacturing, utilities, mining, and many areas of infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail, water and waste, etc.). ARC Advisory Group participated in the judging for projects in the Power Generation, Process Plants, and Offshore Engineering areas. The Offshore category was noteworthy in that it involved some very large projects in terms of size, scope, and cost, and demonstrated the high level of engineering and technology being applied to offshore platforms and the global upstream oil & gas sector.

Bentley made several significant announcements at this year's YII event, including unveiling the CONNECT Edition for comprehensive project delivery. According to the company, this will support a hybrid computing environment across desktop modeling applications, cloud services, on-premise servers, and mobile apps. The company also discussed the continued activity with Siemens PLM and announced the recent adoption of Bentley's Vortex point cloud technology by Siemens PLM's Tecnomatix digital manufacturing 3D simulation technology.

Once again, Bentley's YII conference illustrated that global infrastructure projects represent some of most challenging areas of engineering, project management, and international collaboration.

Infrastructure Projects: Bigger, More Complex, and Costlier

On the 30^th anniversary of Bentley Systems, CEO Greg Bentley's keynote presentation: "The Year in BIM Advancements," pointed out that building information management (BIM) systems are defining the way that all infrastructure projects will be run, from design through the entire asset lifecycle. Andrew McNaughton, technical director of HS2, the UK's national high-speed rail project, did an excellent job of illustrating this in his guest keynote address.

The HS2 project represents the largest capital project in the history of the UK at £42 billion (US $72 billion). The project's goal is to build a completely new high-speed rail system and infrastructure that links all major business and industrial centers in the UK, from Southern England to Scotland with the center in Manchester, England. The task will be daunting, but the goal is to build a highly efficient high-speed rail system that will link all major business and industrial centers throughout the UK and focus on providing optimal service to all users. "We have to build a railway that operates well in 150 years' time," said McNaughton. "We're trying to push our limits in every direction, and these four words describe the ambitious railway goals: capacity, availability, connectivity, reliability." The British government has established a national BIM system to which all infrastructure projects in the UK must conform. The BIM system will enable all stakeholders involved in the project – most importantly, the British public that will use the system – to communicate.

Bentley's largest facility outside of its headquarters in Exton, Pennsylvania, is in London. London has more infrastructure projects currently in progress than any other major global city. London and environs have more cranes on the skyline than any other major metropolitan area. According to the company, Bentley is very much involved in UK projects, with its AssetWise and ProjectWise solutions representing key components of infrastructure projects and the UK national BIM system.

Bentley Unveils CONNECT Edition and Announces Key Partnerships

The big product release news of the YII conference was the unveiling of Bentley's CONNECT Edition, its next generation of software for designing, building, and operating infrastructure. The new software supports a hybrid computing environment and provides a common environment for project delivery that, according to the company, will "complete the reach" to all project stakeholders. For each user, the CONNECT Edition provides a personalized Bentley Playlist of applications and apps specific to each participant's project role, with personalized learning paths and just-in-time recommendations. Bentley is using the Microsoft Azure Cloud Services for cloud deployment. For mobility, Bentley offers its complete solution set for the MS Surface and smartphone, as well as iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.

Another significant announcement was the Bentley and Siemens PLM partnership to integrate Bentley's Vortex laser scanning point cloud technology with Siemens PLM Tecnomatix Digital Manufacturing simulation solution set. This will enable users of Tecnomatix software to scan and build point cloud models of existing factory infrastructure in discrete manufacturing factories and design and simulate production systems to accommodate the building facilities. Bentley's industrial BIM applications have used several of Siemens PLM component software tools for years, including the Parasolid CAD modeler and the JT data format. This partnership is a win-win for both Siemens PLM, which can now penetrate more into BIM and infrastructure, and for Bentley, which can now penetrate more into discrete manufacturing.  

Bentley also introduced a new and complete mining industry solution, developed in partnership with Cyest Technology and users in two syndicated development teams. The new Bentley mining solution, called MineCycle, covers mine design, surveying, and material handling for a complete mining solution set. MineCycle Designer and MineCycle Survey work together to greatly accelerate mine planning and mine survey iterations.

Be Inspired Awards: More Competitive and Showcasing Cutting-Edge Technology in Infrastructure

Bentley's annual Be Inspired program continues to grow in terms of the sheer number of infrastructure and plant design projects submitted, range of industries involved, and technology and design solutions applied. Moreover, the program has become intense with the ever-increasing level of complexity, cost, and size. This makes the job of judging the winners increasingly challenging.

ARC was asked to participate in the juried process to select the finalists and the eventual winner in the Power Generation, Process Plants, and Offshore Engineering project categories. The Offshore category involved some very large projects in terms of size, scope, and cost, and were highly competitive overall. The winning finalist project for Offshore Engineering (Dockwise Shipping B.V.) involved over $1.5 billion in cost. The sheer size of the platform was staggering, with the jacket (undersea tower) and the topside coming in at 22K MT and 30K MT respectively. The engineering required to build and launch the jacket at sea was state of the art. This high-risk project used Bentley products for marine engineering. These included MOSES hydrodynamic simulation and SACS marine structural applications.

Conclusion

Interestingly, Bentley Systems views the future of infrastructure and plant design in the same manner that leading PLM suppliers view product, process, and production: create a 3D virtual model that represents the physical world to design, build, and validate that physical world. Bentley's partnership with Siemens PLM in the factory design and build sector further emphasized this.

Once again, Bentley's YII event brought together some of the best and most innovative designers and builders of global infrastructure and afforded these customers the opportunity to showcase how the Bentley solution set enables design/build innovation for some the world's most complex projects and engineering challenges.

All signed-in ARC Advisory Group clients can view this report in pdf format at this Link

If you would like to buy this report or obtain information about how to become a client, please Request ARC Info

Keywords: Year in Infrastructure, Be Inspired Awards, Bentley CONNECT, BIM.