AECOM

AECOM is the world’s premier infrastructure consulting firm, partnering with clients to solve the world’s most complex challenges and build legacies for generations to come.  Across the globe, AECOM works with clients in the public and private sectors to take on the most complex challenges and pioneer innovative solutions that push the limits of what’s possible–the world’s longest cable-stayed bridge, record-breaking sports events, the largest greenfield port development megaproject, life-sustaining disaster recovery programs, and the tallest tower in the Western Hemisphere.  AECOM projects span transportation, buildings, water, governments, energy, and the environment in partnership with their clients. In 2020, AECOM was ranked first in Engineering News-Record’s “Top 200 Environmental Firms” list, and Fortune magazine named AECOM as one of the “World’s Most Admired Companies” for the sixth consecutive year.

Challenge

Data is recognized as a project commodity, holding unprecedented value in the tracking and delivery of information. Accordingly, firms are seeing increased requests for data as a deliverable—and are searching for ways to pull varied data outputs from multiple stakeholders and models into central locations.

AECOM uses technology and innovation to meet challenges in the infrastructure, design, and construction industries. Firms must ensure the efficient management of budget, schedule, and procurement, while project leaders coordinate distributed teams. Performing digital design reviews using a single source of truth ensures teams are making decisions using the most current data, and it improves efficiencies and accelerates processes. Increasing transparency to project constituents increases the value to stakeholders while decreasing risk.  

APS Solution

AECOM addresses challenges to design and construction projects by maximizing virtual technologies, which resolves multiple issues before they arise in the field. AECOM harnesses the power of Autodesk Platform Services (APS) to pull together the necessary data, improve communications, and streamline workflows.

APS dashboards provide AECOM with comprehensive, robust analytics. They pull data out of several programs and populate to a SQL database that feeds into PowerBI. The data is then transformed into analytical dashboards. The BIM 360 API is predominantly used because that is where the majority of data is sourced. The firm uses dashboards to replace the time-consuming manual collection of data with triggered autonomous processes that run in the background while project teams continue to work, saving considerable time. APS moves the data to the cloud, storing it in a single location and removing the burden from local computers. This ensures that project stakeholders have on-demand access to data from any device and location, creating a better level of transparency. 

Coupled with AECOM’s virtual/physical strategy, APS dashboards support the delivery of predictable results that help keep projects on track with cost, schedule, and safety—removing all surprises short of weather. Dashboards empower project teams to monitor and respond to areas of concern before they become problems and potentially costly change orders. APS-powered visualization of massive data sets transforms project information into consumable formats, which has helped AECOM improve its project deliverables in more than 10,000 models across 3,000-plus projects in its North American hub to date. 

Autodesk Platform Services highlights include the following: 

• Autonomously pulls massive amounts of data from multiple sources into a single location.
• Translates large data sets into viewable, comprehensible formats.
• Improves project transparency, communication, and decision making.

APIs and Services

BIM 360 API