Ramboll

Ramboll is a global engineering, architecture and consultancy company with more than 18,000 experts working to create sustainable solutions for governments and companies all over the world. Established in 1945, it is a global leader in AECO. Ramboll provides clients with innovative ideas that enable sustainable change.  

The Challenge: Inefficient workflows caused by disconnected tools and manual data transfers

Ramboll was struggling with inefficient workflows between structural design in Autodesk Revit and detailed modeling in Trimble Tekla.  The company was spending too many hours on manual file transfers between the two solutions. The lack of real-time collaboration across disciplines increased the risk of data loss and slowed progress toward sustainability goals. 

The company wanted to make smarter, faster, data-driven decisions earlier in the process, across all of its projects. When changes were made to a complete structural model in Revit, it needed to see the impact of those changes to the sustainability assessment in real time.  

A few years ago, Ramboll had a hypothesis that technologies were ready for data-centric delivery rather than file-based systems. After analyzing the pain points in more than a dozen real-life projects, they found more than half resulted from problems with interoperability.  

Ramboll had a vision of moving data seamlessly across product and organizational boundaries. The company recognized it was a need facing the entire industry. They decided to work with Autodesk and Trimble to find a solution.  

The APS Solution: Data Exchange API – bringing tools and teams together

Working with Autodesk Platform Services, they built a breakthrough bidirectional connector to bring tools and teams together using the Data Exchange API. The solution enables seamless data flows between Revit and Tekla. The result is a fully integrated structural model in Revit that can be leveraged by other disciplines for better decision-making. The Data Exchange API stands out in the industry for enabling interoperability between tools from different partners—not just Autodesk products. 

Business Outcomes: Faster, better decision making to meet goals

The solution transformed workflows from linear to radial, enabling faster, better decision-making that improved the quality and speed of design. The connector enabled:  

• Improved quality, fewer errors, and faster design processes. This sped time to market and improved margins 
• Simultaneous decision making by different teams working in different products 
• Instant visibility into how decisions impact the structural model or sustainability assessment 
• Enhanced collaboration among various disciplines 

More importantly, the effort demonstrated a collaborative vision for an interoperable future. All the parties saw it as an industry shift toward seamless data exchange and cloud-based interoperability.  

APIs and Services

Data Exchange API