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The architecture, construction and engineering industry (ACE) has long been a fertile meeting combination of human ambition, material reality and digital technology. Today, typical projects produce or encompass vast quantities of data, everything from performance metrics and component details to local climate data or design schematics. Digital in construction is still, however, in its infancy and Arup is pioneering the use of data and automation to achieve greater things for our clients and wider society.
Digital automation drives innovation, turning data into a wealth of useful insights and outcomes. It allows us to speed up the design process itself and produce multitudes of options for clients to consider. Automation is quietly improving the way we do almost everything, every day.
A digital approach across the project lifecycle
At Arup our mantra is to ‘automate everything’ wherever additional value or creativity can be generated. That’s why all our project teams carry out our digital and automation Digital Inception Plan in the early stages of all projects – unlocking the digital opportunities from the start, making digital and data core to project delivery. We also use our Digital Design Brief platform, to ensure all relevant project data is captured and organised such that it can drive the project to greater efficiency, creativity and sustainability throughout the design, construction and operation of a building or asset.
Automation also frees us up to reinvent traditional project processes, driving greater efficiency in workflows and confidence in outcomes. This is also how our powerful automation platforms, running on well-structured globally aligned data standards like Revit or Tekla and for infrastructure and consulting disciplines, can help shape a net zero built environment – credibly and commercially.
A data driven ecosystem
We develop and use automation at every level of built environment design, taking advantage of an entire ecosystems of datasets, platforms and tools, using interoperable data that flows from one platform or app to the next. Our Total Design Automation platform boosts automation creativity across the globe taking advantage of Arup’s unparalleled data sets and libraries of digital innovation tools globally. Examples include automations for tunnel lining around the world and automatic design for tens of thousands of structural beams. By adopting consistent data and cloud technologies these efficiencies allow our teams around the world to re-use data from previous projects, or learn and share from related work, sharpening insights on the next big challenge.
Here are just a few of the development principles that shape our use of automation, from inception through design, implementation and operation:
Automation in practice
Automation is behind the solutions to many built environment challenges including:
In all of these contexts, and many besides, automation brings greater rigour to our insights, more creativity to our designs, and greater confidence to our clients. It’s redefining our approach to quality across the built environment.
