Success Story | Mott MacDonald/SYSTRA working with Balfour Beatty/VINCI Joint Venture High Speed Two Sectors N1 and N2 Main Works Civil Contract

High Speed Two Sectors N1 and N2 Main Works Civil Contract

Birmingham, County North Sectors, United Kingdom

 

Project 

High Speed Two (HS2) is Britain’s first new, intercity railway north of London in over 100 years. As part of this large, GBP 55.7 billion project, Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA are working together as part of a design joint venture for two main works civil contract lots N1 and N2. The design teams are collaborating with the Balfour Beatty/VINCI (BBV) joint construction venture, who is working on behalf of HS2. Together, Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA are designing the railway route from London to Birmingham. The GBP 4 billion Area North project is a 70-meter stretch of the 354-kilometer-long HS2 project, and is divided into 350 assets, including 53 tunnels and 74 kilometers of cuttings associated with surrounding civil works. With 1,850 project participants, the team had to contend with 43,000 incoming files and the production of 61,000 design files, not including iterations of those designs.

Solution

Collaboration was key to delivering this important project. For a project of this size and scope, the project team realized that traditional means of collaboration and information management would not work. Instead, the best way for Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA to manage all the data for effective collaboration was to create a digital twin. The team began by developing a connected data environment, using a template as the foundation and then enhancing it to meet BBV’s requirements. Workflows built into the platform were based on British information management standards, allowing the many disciplines to work with the data and create deliverables while knowing that the information was suitably checked and verified.

Outcome

Using the data housed in ProjectWise, Mott MacDonald, and SYSTRA were able to implement model-based delivery to minimize drawing production. The project team produced over 4,000 design information models and saved significant design time, allowing team members to focus on enhancing the quality of the design and improving client and stakeholder collaboration and engagement. The design has led to better construction management and helped meet the engineers’ needs. The approach developed by Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA has achieved behavioral changes and skills development among both the project team and stakeholders. Moving forward, both organizations plan to share the lessons learned on this project so that their peers may use this approach for the success of their projects. With a single source of truth for all information, project insights were easier to access, as the information was always up to date, verified, and located on user-friendly dashboards. The client was involved throughout the design phase to meet expectations, leading to greater confidence in the entire design process.

Software

ProjectWise was used to create the project’s connected data environment. ProjectWise and ProjectWise Deliverables Management helped quickly and seamlessly sync data, creating a single source of truth for users and offices around the world to access. By creating a component catalogue housed in ProjectWise, the team had a commonly agreed project reference that covered all the involved disciplines and their components. Working with the data from ProjectWise, the team used LumenRT and SYNCHRO to create virtual reality environments and interactive fly-through videos. Seeing the designs in this format enabled stakeholders and the client to better picture what the final design would look like, which led to more streamlined decision-making as the project progressed.

Outcome/Facts

  • Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA are part of a design joint venture for two main works civil contract lots for High Speed Two (HS2), Britain’s first new, intercity railway north of London in over 100 years that connects eight of the ten largest cities.

  • ProjectWise’s connected data environment helped connect 1,850 users and organize over 61,000 design files, creating a single source of truth to capture 100% of design risks, visualize them, and remediate.
                      
  • The project team produced over 4,000 design information models and saved significant design time, allowing team members to focus on enhancing design quality and improving collaboration and engagement.

  • Mott MacDonald and SYSTRA achieved behavioral changes and skills development, and both organizations plan to share lessons learned so that others may use this approach for their projects’ success.

quote

“There were a lot of different assets and different disciplines that needed to come together to produce one design. Data is at the heart of what we do, but it wouldn’t have been possible without a ProjectWise connected data environment. It allows everyone to work with the same information.”

Kristof Komeny
Information Manager
Mott MacDonald

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