Delivering digital solutions in this day and age may seem simple from the outside, however it is something that can easily go awry if not planned properly from the start.
To deliver the best digital solutions in Queensland, IAQ’s Sustainability, Innovation and Productivity Taskforce will be leveraging key learnings from the UK Crossrail project to implement across Queensland’s major upcoming infrastructure projects.
London’s Crossrail is the UK’s biggest railway infrastructure project, consisting of over 42 km of tunnel under central London. The project will provide 200 million passenger journeys per annum when the Elizabeth line in Central London opens to the public in 2021. This incredibly complex project includes 34 works contracts, 23 design contracts, 45 delivery contracts and 14 other, and at times is constructing 50 cm from existing train lines and assets. There are plenty of opportunities for the Queensland industry to take on board Crossrail’s learnings and recommendations.
The key distinction that sets the Crossrail project apart from other projects is the fact that Crossrail is building the physical and digital railway simultaneously.
For Crossrail, applying Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been crucial in both physically and digitally delivering on all aspects of the project. However, BIM is not only about 3D models, but also allowing opportunities to incorporate aspects of the operational project phase, such as track repair and timetabling for commuters.
BIM modelling also achieves client goals by facilitating collaborative data environments and creating consistent and standardised processes, which can be duplicated digitally to streamline future stages of a project.
From 1 July 2019, Queensland Government construction projects with a value of $50 million or more are required to use BIM from the early planning phase, with all major government infrastructure projects expected to transition to BIM by 2023.
The Queensland Government has said transitioning from paper-based plans to digital ones, will deliver significant benefits during the design, construction and, most significantly, the operational phase of a project’s life. Queensland has a great opportunity to hit the ground running, to learn from and better the efficiencies made in the UK.
Collaborative ways of working and productive work methods are enabled by digital processes. Our next step is to lead the industry transition to BIM, taking inspiration from UK contractors who are generally more on board with using this type of technology. Our approach moving forward should be to go above and beyond the ‘easy stuff’, look at the effective classification of metadata needs and plan from the start ways that we can make delivering digital solutions simple.
Hear more about the Crossrail and how BIM can benefit the Queensland industry here.
Author: Zoe Quinn, Communications Consultant at Struber and Jane Evelyn, Lawyer at MinterEllison
Sources: Department of State Development, Tourism and Innovation – Building Information Modelling (BIM)
