By Claire Rutkowski, Chief Innovation
Late last year, Bentley held its annual Year in Infrastructure Conference. The main focus of the conference was on our Going Digital Awards finalists. Click here to get inspired by the amazing ways they each applied technology to solve engineering challenges.
The conference was also a great opportunity for Nicholas Cumins (COO), Mike Campbell (CPO), and Julien Moutte (CTO) to discuss the ways we are supporting the infrastructure industry with an emphasis on openness, collaboration, and full asset lifecycle management. You can find a recording of the keynote here.
If you prefer reading or are pressed for time, below is a skinny version that can help you decide what you’d like to hear more about from your success manager.
Right now, we are at a tipping point as an industry: backlog and investments are up, but resource availability is scarce and client expectations are growing. Bentley is here to help bridge the gap between increased expectations and limited resources in several ways.
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Applications are evolving to become data-centric and open
Our applications are evolving to become data-centric and open, enabling more sharing of data across various disciplines.
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The iTwin technology platform is the foundation on which we build solutions
The iTwin technology platform is the foundation on which we build solutions to help you evolve from being file-based to data-centric, enabling you to take advantage of the data you already hold in siloes around the company. You will be able to leverage three different products:
iTwin Capture – Create engineering-grade 3D models from simple photographs or point clouds, which provide artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect, locate, and classify reality data. Set your designs in a detailed, real, as-built, or as-exists-today world.
iTwin Experience – Bring together multiple data sources, overlaying ET, OT, and IT data, and visualize, query, and analyze critical infrastructure data at any level of detail or scale. All geospatially referenced.
iTwin IoT – Seamlessly incorporate internet of things (IoT) data from sensors and condition monitoring devices, providing real-time safety and risk monitoring in construction and operations, ensuring infrastructure digital twins stay evergreen. (Editorial comment: You might think the iTwin IoT solution is just for owners and operators. Imagine if you as an engineering firm offered to host and maintain the digital twin for the owner. That would be a whole new revenue stream and could open the door to new services like remote inspection, recommendation engines, etc.)
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We introduced Bridge Monitoring and Dam Watch
We introduced Bridge Monitoring and Dam Watch, each built on digital twin technology.
Bridge Monitoring and Inspection – Transforms traditional bridge inspections into a modern, digital workflow that can be done remotely. This avoids costly and potentially hazardous field trips and allows you to tap into expertise that may be remote. Furthermore, Bridge Monitoring leverages AI to automatically identify and classify defects, which is then seamlessly accessible to maintenance, design, and construction teams, and can create substantial savings and expedite repairs.
Dam Monitoring – A purpose-built solution for dam operators who are modernizing their dam safety programs and meeting increased regulatory requirements. Users can easily incorporate sensor data to inform their infrastructure digital twin for a contextualized view of real-time data, associated metrics, and alerts.
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We discussed the Bentley Infrastructure Cloud
We discussed the Bentley Infrastructure Cloud which includes:
- AssetWise
- ProjectWise – Traditionally a project-based design, work in process tool, ProjectWise is evolving to become an enterprise-wide system that includes:
- Digital-based delivery (such as improved workflows, iTwin generation, and automation).
- Portfolio-based intelligence (you can now search across multiple projects to search, learn from, and reuse rich project data).
- Data governance, to ensure the right people access the right data at the right time, across the entire supply chain.
- SYNCHRO – We’re expanding SYNCHRO’s ability to leverage design data to create the 4D/5D construction digital twins that transform how projects are planned and executed in the field by:
- Providing better web and mobile tools that extend the value of infrastructure digital twins to construction team members and other stakeholders.
- Adding model-based cost and performance management tools, to ensure that field teams can effectively track actual cost and time against project plans.
- Adding authoring and reviewing of 5D models and model-based quantity take-offs.
The products above already exist, but each evolved to work together more seamlessly, enabling full asset lifecycle management. The Bentley Infrastructure Cloud understands data files. It uses digital twin technology to unlock the data from files, tie to GIS, and leverage this in workflows. This shines a light on all infrastructure data through our infrastructure schemas, which underlie everything and are now linked to reality modeling and IoT devices. If that wasn’t enough, we have partnered with EC3 to incorporate carbon calculation and subsurface data, all helping you derive more value from your data.
