Anne-Marie Walters holds the position of Global Marketing Director in Bentley Systems. She is responsible for the marketing and positioning of Bentley’s solutions and products that address the needs of the Process, Power, and Enterprise arena. On her visit to ARC event in Bangalore, she shares her insights on Bentley Siemens collaboration, Synchro Acquisition to extend digital workflows and the latest edition of OpenPlant CONNECT Edition with Electronics Media.
Electronics Media: Tell us about Bentley collaboration with Siemens and how Process Industries Academy will shape up the future?
Anne-Marie Walters: Bentley has been working with Siemens in the process industry since 2012 when we announced our partnership to bring about step change in the industry through better interoperability and collaboration. Since then we have seamlessly integrated Siemens COMOS and Bentley OpenPlant bringing together 2D and 3D plant design and engineering information using open industry standards. We are now working together on open, cloud based engineering portal solution that will enable users to leverage previously inaccessible “dark data” for improved asset performance across the life cycle and make the management of engineering information much easier so that is can always be trusted.
The development of new innovative solutions is one aspect of what we are doing together. We also see that in order to effectively use these new solutions, different ways of working are needed to both be effective and innovate. Modeled on the success of other academies, especially the one in the UK that has helped CrossRail educate its supply chain to deliver data so that as the physical railway is built and delivered, the digital asset is also being created for effective operations and maintenance. The Academy shares best practices and enables dialogues for best digital outcomes. It helps explore and define new workflows. The Academy is not about training in tools but it is about driving change in the process industry. Siemens and Bentley have partnered with the Process Industries Academy to help the industry accelerate digital advancement.
Electronics Media: Throw some light on The OpenPlant CONNECT Edition features, scope and advantage of the updated edition.
Anne-Marie Walters: OpenPlant CONNECT Edition is the first application in Bentley’s multi-discipline plant design to utilize iModelHub, Bentley’s cloud service, which tracks all changes made to project designs and notifies users of changes. Participants can choose to synchronize to and from particular timeline milestones and can visualize, summarize, analyze, and interpret the impact of ongoing changes. Utilizing the integration between OpenPlant and iModelHub, users can synchronize 3D models from OpenPlant with iModelHub, to view and query the model data in a web-based interface. Users can also perform 2D and 3D consistency checking through integration with OpenPlant PID. A full history of all the changes made to the 3D model and 2D designs are synchronized to iModelHub, including who made changes, what was changed, when changes were made, and the date the changes were completed.
In addition, OpenPlant CONNECT Edition with iModelHub improves plant design collaboration and saves project time with the following capabilities:
- Easy access to project data through ProjectWise and ProjectWise Connection Services for cloud-based workflows granting access to services for data editing, tag creation, reporting, and dashboarding of all user data that has been synchronized to iModelHub
- Improved isometric production with the additional ability to generate isometrics based on pipeline data that has been synchronized with iModelHub
- Enhanced interaction with third-party data via the ability to review PDMS, E3D, and Smart 3D data and models in the context of the connected data environment that provides all the change tracking implicit with the use of iModelHub
Electronics Media: What benefits Synchro acquisition has added to the Bentley portfolio?
Anne-Marie Walters: Bentley Systems acquired Synchro Software as they are a market leader (and the market creator) for 4D construction modeling software, for scheduling and project management, complementing our existing solutions. Synchro, “construction’s time machine,” has been globally adopted, in particular, for building and civil infrastructure projects. The acquisition broadens Bentley’s ProjectWise construction offerings—which already include ConstructSim, the leader for 4D construction modeling in project delivery of industrial plants. With construction project management in 4D, benefits of BIM can extend throughout infrastructure project delivery and asset lifecycles, as traditionally disconnected workflows become digital workflows.
By incorporating Synchro 4D construction modeling through the ProjectWise CDE (Connected Data Environment), infrastructure project delivery can now benefit from unprecedented digital workflow advancements. For the first time, change synchronization can assure that BIM deliverables are updated for changes which occur during construction, aligning the as-designed, as-constructed, and as-operated digital engineering models to improve both project performance and asset performance. And, in particular for civil infrastructure projects, construction engineering digital workflows can automate direct relationships between the project’s digital engineering models, the continuously-surveyed digital context of site conditions before and during construction, and positioning devices controlling construction equipment and feeding back as-built conditions.
