A three year, $12M agreement has been signed between Balfour Beatty, the international infrastructure group, and 3D design and engineering software company, Autodesk. One of the first of its type and size in the infrastructure industry, the agreement will aid Balfour Beatty in expanding its adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM), an intelligent model-based process that provides insight for creating and managing building and infrastructure projects faster, more economically and with less environmental impact. This is an important move given that the UK government will mandate the use of BIM on public building projects beginning in 2016.
Balfour Beatty has already used Autodesk BIM on a number of high-profile projects including the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the widening of the M25 outside London and design and construction for the replacement of Terminal 2 at London Heathrow International Airport. For the new Terminal 2B, the largest ever airside project at Heathrow, the use of BIM helped the company coordinate more than 30 active stakeholders through 13 interfacing projects and enabled a peak workforce of 1,600 to complete work ahead of schedule.
‘Moving to BIM is about more than implementing new technology; to fully realise its benefits requires a process change. Through this comprehensive agreement, Balfour Beatty is demonstrating their commitment to this change and Autodesk is excited to work with them and help extend the value of BIM to their clients around the world,’ said Roland Zelles, VP, Worldwide Sales, Autodesk Architecture Engineering and Construction.
Through the agreement, thousands of Balfour Beatty users across all international operations will have access to a range of Autodesk BIM solutions including Autodesk Revit software products, AutoCAD Civil 3D software, Autodesk Navisworks software products, AutoCAD software and Autodesk 3ds Max Design software. Autodesk will provide training, support and strategic consultancy through Autodesk Consulting.
