Ready for BIM in Highway Engineering 

At the same time, in the surveying field, a general introductory phase is taking place with the iTWO civil software from RIB. First, in the second half-year of 2017, new standards were defined as the foundation for the entire enterprise. After a 2-day workshop at the start of 2018, the so-called “rollout” took place. In the second half of the year, the surveyors at EUROVIA will once again receive further training. The goal is to deepen the knowledge in working with the IT solution after a six-month introductory phase and to profit from the experience gained in daily project work.

Around 30 surveyors currently work with the iTWO civil software at EUROVIA. Current projects are also being processed simultaneously with the previous system, STRATIS by RIB, until all the employees have truly got to grips with the new solution. New employees start straight off with the iTWO civil system. “The positive experiences made with the STRATIS software, which we have been using at EUROVIA for many years, are what have convinced us to rely on the supplier RIB, from Stuttgart, when instituting a new BIM-capable software system,” explains Mario Zink, construction billing and surveying officer at EUROVIA Services. Alongside iTWO and a further 3D solution for infrastructure engineering, both of them already deployed in the firm, the company has examined further software for working with BIM models. Of course, switching from the RIB system STRATIS to iTWO civil brings various changes in handling. The surface of the CAD system was a particular success in the company because of its closeness to STRATIS and the other software used at EUROVIA. A further criteria: Just like earlier programs from RIB, iTWO today is effectively the standard tool for all highway engineering authorities in Germany. Here, work is largely carried out in the classical manner and not with models; the use of this system, however, offers advantages in project information exchange.

“If the surveyors are comfortable with iTWO civil, its integration in the construction billing field should follow in the next stage,” Zink explains. The experience gained within the BIM competence team should then flow into this phase and support the creation of bills of quantities on the basis of model information. “BIM is currently of interest for very large infrastructure projects and in the future for all infrastructure projects; however, the experience and standards gained can be scaled to the level of fine detail without further effort, so that a large project palette can profit from them,” the expert confirms. Client requests for information are currently still a scarce commodity in civil engineering in Germany. This forms the foundation for successful and targeted work with BIM models. “We will further strengthen our team in this regard in the near future... but first we have to create the right conditions for our internal EUROVIA BIM process and then build further on these foundations,” he concludes.