Thames Tideway Tunnel benefits from a digital strategy

Official Project Partner : Tideway

Ahead of the UK Infrastructure Show 2018, we speak to the event partners about the importance of infrastructure. In today’s article we speak with Michael Gaunt, BIM Manager, Mott MacDonald about the Thames Tideway project.

Mott MacDonald provided innovative leadership on the UK’s largest-ever water industry infrastructure project by enabling a going-digital strategy for the CVB JV project team (a joint venture of Costain, Vinci Construction Grands Projets, and Bachy Soletanche). The Thames Tideway Tunnel project sets the standard for construction projects around the world, as it connects diverse teams and improves collaboration.

The project’s primary objective was to reduce sewerage overflows into the River Thames, improve water quality, and create new infrastructure that will last at least 120 years while meeting strict European environmental standards. An additional objective was meeting the UK government’s goal of adding 182,000 new engineers by 2022.

Mott MacDonald was the lead designer for the CVB JV responsible for the East contract from Chambers Wharf to Abbey Mills, as well as a connection tunnel from Greenwich to central London. Its responsibility included 10km of tunnel works located 70m below the city of London, with six publicly visible shaft sites. Faced with coordinating 12 design disciplines and numerous participating firms spread across Europe, Mott MacDonald had to ensure the coordination and collaboration of all stakeholders. Some of the challenges included reducing the number of deliverables on the project (over 50,000), controlling the vast amount of data, standardising processes, reducing rework, and streamlining the review process.

By adopting Bentley’s building information modelling (BIM) methodology, Mott MacDonald ensured 3D digital engineering models would provide the immersive environment to support the planning and design phases. Project participants also took advantage of a connected data environment, leveraging an Azure cloud platform for improved collaboration and access to the right data at all times.

Mott MacDonald drove significant change in process and culture, which was key to achieving these project results. By adopting BIM processes and a going-digital strategy, the project team improved collaboration and cooperation with the supply chain and stakeholders. 3D digital engineering models enabled immersive simulation for review and approvals, and provided engineering-ready data required for handover. Mott MacDonald and the CVB JV utilised Bentley applications to ensure a 32% saving on developed design.

“The project common data environment, hosted on ProjectWise, allows us to easily access the latest information and has improved and simplified design approvals. Bentley ProjectWise provided the tool to coordinate over 80,000 documents totalling 685 gigabytes of data to give 300 users across 12 design disciplines the latest controlled information on which to base design and construction decisions.”

Article supplied by Michael Gaunt, BIM Manager, Mott MacDonald

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