The Ferrovial Agroman Lagan Joint Venture has been recognised for its implementation of BIM in its traffic management strategy, helping the region avoid extreme traffic congestion.
On Thursday 10th November 2016, Ferrovial Agroman, together with Lagan, Amey and Scottish Roads Partnership, was presented with an award in the design category of the Irish BIM Innovation Awards 2016 for the M8/M73/M74 Motorway Improvements project in Scotland.
The complexity and magnitude of the £500m investment in the motorway link between Scotland's two largest cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh, including a new motorway project between Baillieston and Newhouse, improvements to Raith Junction 5 on the M74 and key upgrades to other sections of the M8, M73 and M74, has demonstrated the real value and benefit of applying BIM in a practical and pragmatic way during the end to end lifecycle of the project, encouraging integration and collaboration.
The information model included temporary road alignments and pavements into the permanent design solutions, saving significant work and additional traffic disruption. It also took into account other factors which add to the complexity of the project, such as aligning existing infrastructures with new ones, dealing with limited space, or managing drainage systems according to groundwater regimes and specifications.
By incorporating its traffic management into the project's BIM environment to maintain vehicular flow throughout the construction process in this way, it has proven itself to be an industry pioneer both in Ireland and the UK. The real innovation is the fact that by using BIM in this way, the project has improved safety, efficiency and productivity in construction processes, creating at the same time faster and more effective ways of communicating between site teams as well as with the different stakeholders.
Raul Pascual, Project Manager for the M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project, said: "The construction industry believes BIM is going to change the way we work. BIM will not be mandatory in Scotland until next year but Ferrovial Lagan JV wanted to promote innovation. "As one of the pathfinder projects for the Scottish Government, we are reporting to the Scottish Futures Trust as to the outcome of our experience of the use of BIM on the M8 M73 M74 project. We will highlight the benefits of it, what can be expected and what not to expect; the pros and cons and what we have learned; the costs generated and how much money was saved."
The Irish BIM Innovation Awards, organised by The Construction IT Alliance, seek to recognise the construction industry's capacity to present solutions for the varied and complex needs of the industry by adopting and using BIM technology as an innovative tool for managing significant amounts of complex information and communications. This information is then shared with all parties throughout the construction process.
The design category rewards projects that have demonstrated optimum use of BIM technology and processes currently available. Award winners have also proven that BIM implementation has been deeply rooted in the environment and surroundings of the project, uniting functionality with innovation and quality of the integrated design and an enhanced end-user experience.
The Irish BIM Innovation Awards 2016 looks at projects in Ireland and around the world. The awards focus on proven successes to highlight the significant progress made by the construction industry in projects implementing BIM around the world and to present an inspiring vision for BIM in the future.
Ferrovial Agroman's FILM strategy demonstrates a firm alignment with this vision as the firm strives to learn from BIM achievements across their projects to ensure informed and meaningful success for the projects of the future.
