New ProjectWise and AssetWise innovations empower high-performing project teams

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AMSTERDAM — Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley and SVP Bhupinder Singh have announced the company’s progress and plans for leveraging information modeling, both for increasingly integrated projects, and for operations of high-performing, intelligent infrastructure assets.

The announcement was made to infrastructure executives in attendance gathered from 35 countries to participate in Bentley’s Be Inspired: Thought Leadership in Infrastructure event held in Amsterdam. Following the morning keynotes, the 400 executives attended thought leadership presentations by finalists in the 2010 Be Inspired Awards program.

The morning conference keynotes offered insights on innovations driving the company's software for infrastructure design, construction, and operations. Included were highlights of the V8i (SELECTseries 3) release of Bentley’s project team collaboration platform, ProjectWise, and its newly announced AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations information modeling. Each innovation presented was underscored by examples from among the projects of Be Inspired Awards nominees.

“Our commitment to leveraging information modeling across the infrastructure lifecycle empowers architects, engineers, and constructors to deliver integrated projects to owners,” said Bentley. “And information modeling enables owners to operate intelligent infrastructure assets, which are safer, cleaner, and more efficient, for superior returns on investment.”

Bentley emphasized that returns to owners and their constituents during infrastructure asset lifecycles are the ultimate benchmark for infrastructure professionals. He then described Bentley Systems’ plans to further extend its well-received approach to information modeling and dynamic collaboration in design and construction projects, towards dynamic handover — fully exploiting owners’ investments in information modeling for improved asset performance.

“We continue to progress towards the goals of our AssetWise initiative, which was first announced last February,” said Bentley. “We are increasingly enabling owners to benefit from intelligent and continuous handover from their project teams, and thus to leverage information modeling throughout the operations lifecycle. Uniquely, our AssetWise platform will manage AEC deliverables as structured data so that all dependencies are maintained and understood, assuring information integrity and operational compliance. Unlike ‘asset management’ systems limited to unstructured documents and their associated metadata, AssetWise comprehends the network of information relationships connecting the engineered and as-built asset to the operational asset. Through the combined and shared services of ProjectWise and AssetWise, information modeling can finally reach its potential for higher-performing, intelligent infrastructure.”

In the course of his keynote, Bentley reported on the following:
• Resilience in the company’s business during 2010 sufficient to achieve sequential and year-over-year organic growth, an expected return to record GAAP revenue runrate, and continued market-share gains;
• Notable and diverse new opportunities for Bentley across the infrastructure lifecycle, including:
o Among engineering applications, the company’s newly released OpenPlant Modeler V8i offering, the first to fulfill iRING international standards requirements, is garnering a great deal of market interest — and evaluation downloads — from users of UNIX-legacy competitors.
o In construction, information modeling is being embraced at an unprecedented pace, with leading firms, especially for design-build, increasingly adopting Bentley’s Navigator V8i, and then ProjectWise V8i, for dynamic collaboration.
o Among infrastructure owners, major municipalities are expressing strong interest in Bentley’s distinctively comprehensive 3D City solution, with record attendance at the company’s ongoing 3D City eSeminars, and with this subject attracting the highest registration of any roundtable at Be Inspired. Characteristically, Bentley’s 3D City solution goes beyond location and visualization, to support and simulate infrastructure performance.
• The inaugural release of the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the largest public- and private-sector owners, in 46 countries, with infrastructure value representing cumulative net investment of over $13 trillion — available at www.bentley.com/500;
• The growing breadth of Bentley Passport Subscriptions, to enable individual infrastructure practitioners to affordably advance to an information-modeling level of practice by combining annual named-user licenses for multiple pertinent Bentley applications with Bentley LEARN subscriptions and applicable catalog content; the recent availability of the Civil Engineer for Wastewater Collection Passport Subscription brings the number of professional roles supported to 23;
• Bentley’s entry into the market for geotechnical engineering tools, by way of the forthcoming Civil Engineer for Geotechnical Analysis Passport Subscription, uniquely comprising the full spectrum of 18 established software modules developed in Europe by FINE Software for geotechnical requirements (from settlement and stability analyses to sheeting and foundation design), and the Civil Engineering for Advanced Geotechnical Analysis Passport Subscription, which adds specialized modules for finite-element modeling, ground loss, and tunneling. Bentley subscribers who have previewed the FINE Software modules, including their localization for American requirements, are enthusiastic about their comprehensive scope and superior quality by comparison to their existing assorted tools from fragmented suppliers. In conjunction with Bentley’s market-leading gINT geotechnical data management products, the new offerings mean Bentley Systems can now enable the under-served geotechnical engineering profession to finally take advantage of both technical and commercial software integration;
• The continuous expansion of Bentley’s online software services, from:
o ProjectWise ONLINE, and
o Exor Managed Services, to
o the company’s public-private partnership for New Jersey DOT’s oversize/overweight vehicle permitting, to
o Be Communities networking,
o the Bentley Institute’s live training via virtual classrooms through Bentley’s LEARN Server, and
o the Be Careers Network’s new STUDENTserver, to
o the upcoming launch of a new website for Bentley iWare – software available from Bentley at no cost to promote interoperability and information reuse; examples to date include Bentley View, Structural Synchronizer V8i, Structural Dashboard V8i, i-model plug-ins for Revit, and, coming soon, a new i-model Previewer for Microsoft Outlook.
• Bentley’s investment to become the largest shareholder in BLUERIDGE Analytics, whose breakthrough SITEOPS site design optimization technology is delivered through cloud computing. A research project has been initiated to incorporate Bentley’s industry-leading hydrology and hydraulic modeling within the SITEOPS service, for yet more sophisticated drainage optimization.

Bhupinder Singh began his presentation by discussing the software development strategies that set Bentley apart from other vendors.

“With our V8i SELECTseries, we deliver to our users continuous innovation without the disruption normally associated with software upgrades and enhancements,” said Singh. V8i innovations include improved collaborative workflows, by way of Bentley Navigator V8i for iterative project review and advances in information modeling such as model documentation. Together, these provide users better coordination during design and construction, earlier identification of conflicts and integrated clash resolution with Bentley design applications, improved civil visualization, and point cloud referencing and manipulation – to help them deliver lower-cost and better-performing infrastructure.”

In announcing the release of a new Navigator web part, Singh explained that users can publish key formats, including DGN, DWG, Revit, PDS, or PDMS, into i-models (containers for open infrastructure information exchange) and view their 3D models or 2D drawings in a web browser. This capability empowers even casual project participants to easily explore and manipulate models. The wider communication reduces project risk and improves project quality.
Singh also described or demonstrated many of the innovations included in the V8i (SELECTseries 3) versions of Bentley Navigator and ProjectWise, which are scheduled for release by the end of 2010. The innovations include improvements in interoperability, work-sharing for international teams, and mobile design review tools —each of which makes design and construction data more accessible to all members of extended project teams.

Specific enhancements to Bentley Navigator V8i (SELECTseries 3) include:
• Support for Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), enabling IFC files to be opened natively. Bentley users can also publish IFC files into i-models. In both cases, the geometry and intelligence in Building Information Models delivered in IFC format can be reused in design review workflows without the cost and risk of error-prone translations;
• Clash result groupings. By easily grouping clashes together based on user-defined criteria, Navigator now helps project teams focus on the set of clashes being reviewed, speeding project review sessions and improving team communications;
• Bidirectional dynamic scheduling that automatically synchronizes schedule changes between Navigator and scheduling software such as Microsoft Project and Oracle’s Primavera. This new upgrade saves time and reduces the chances of teams working with out-of-date scheduling information;
• Improvements in workflows and reporting for constructors who need to not only detect conflicts, but also to resolve them, through dynamic collaboration. This enables them to more quickly prepare a model for construction;
• New markup templates. The ability to customize markup reports using organizational or client standards facilitates the production of consistent project documentation;
• The ability to export clash result reports in GPX format. This innovative feature enables field workers using GPS devices to download clash reports to easily find the actual location of clashes. This is particularly valuable when doing field inspections on large geographically distributed projects like highway designs.
New innovations in ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 3) include:
• The Navigator web part, which enables 2D and 3D i-models to be viewed and explored through a browser or Microsoft SharePoint 2010 portal. This thin-client model review tool provides easy access for users, simple administration for IT departments, and secure access to drawings and models for distributed design review teams;
• Support for AutoCAD and Revit 2011, including 64-bit versions. This increasingly empowers projects and firms using Revit to benefit from ProjectWise to manage design and construction information, and to streamline information sharing throughout integrated project teams;
• Dramatic performance enhancements for work-sharing across high latency networks typically found in construction projects and with international teams. The improvements complement and enhance the accelerated file access delivered with ProjectWise delta file transfer in V8i by minimizing network delays and maximizing network bandwidth. Accelerated access to project information lets organizations employ their best talent on projects, regardless of geographic location, reducing travel costs, maximizing employee utilization, and speeding the exchange of project information;
• New tools that speed the process of setting up projects and defining user permissions. Time can be saved commissioning new projects through improved ease of use and the ability to delegate certain administrative tasks for approved team members.

Singh also announced the release of ProjectWise Dynamic Plot V8i (SELECTseries 2), which creates an intelligent link between paper plots and digital models, shrinking the time required to synchronize written comments and digital data from days to seconds. With paper plots and digital models always in sync, markup and review workflows become error-free, mitigating project risk. With this new release, dynamic plots can be created from any PDF file, as well as from design files, extending the value of this dynamic workflow to virtually all project documents. Support has also been added for dynamic plots to be published to PDFs, so they can be easily shared with remote offices for local hard-copy production, reducing shipping charges and saving time.

Commenting on his firm’s use of ProjectWise Dynamic Plot, Mo Harmon, vice president, design support manager, HNTB Corp., said: “ProjectWise Dynamic Plot is playing a key role in seamlessly integrating HNTB’s QA/QC process with design and production workflows without any disruptive learning curves. Our senior staff that are not necessarily CADD-savvy, can easily perform design reviews and have their input immediately integrated into our ProjectWise production environment, enabling faster, more accurate design review, with reduced risk of miscommunications, and cost savings on shipping.”

Singh next provided an update on the growing adoption of i-models within the infrastructure community. He reported that i-models are already being used in hundreds of projects, enabling highly interactive bidirectional (dynamic) collaboration among distributed, multidisciplinary project teams.

“Using i-models enables feedback to flow in both directions so that any project participant can add value during reviews, for truly integrated projects,” said Singh. “Through dynamic collaboration, firms and teams can achieve maximum virtualization of talent.”

Singh concluded by previewing the scope of AssetWise and its services. These services, many of which are shared with ProjectWise, are to uniquely support handover and operational workflows that are both dynamic and continuous over the asset lifecycle.

For additional information about dynamic collaboration, Bentley Navigator V8i, ProjectWise V8i, and i-models, please visit www.Bentley.com/DynamicCollaboration. For additional information about AssetWise, please visit www.bentley.com/assetwise.

For additional information about the other products in Bentley’s portfolio, please visit www.bentley.com.

For additional information about the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, please visit www.bentley.com/500.

For the press release in full, please visit www.bentley.com.