Willemen Construct is one of Belgium’s largest construction companies. The company designs, builds, and renovates all types of buildings for many diverse sectors, with a promise to customers that it will deliver the highest quality projects on time and within budget. Willemen Construct relies on BricsCAD BIM as its trusted tool to help deliver on this promise.
Dieter Froyen, Head of Work Preparation Construction, explained why the company chose BricsCAD as its tool of choice for building information management (BIM).
“A project easily consists of hundreds of plans. A person cannot comprehend this, so it is more manageable if all information is contained within one BIM model. By using BIM, many labor-intensive tasks such as drawing up measurement sheets or coordinating plans become automated, which lowers development costs while preventing failure costs.”
Implementation of BricsCAD BIM
As a contractor, Willemen Construct often works on IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) models from designers, building partners, and suppliers.
“We use 2D plans from the designers as the basis of the project and then create a 3D BIM model of the project from those plans. We usually receive and send out .dwg files which are fully compatible with BricsCAD.
“For projects where there is no BIM model, we apply a reversed engineering approach. By converting building plans into a BIM model, we can provide more precise advice to our suppliers, and accurately calculate material quantities. By checking the design models and eliminating errors in the preparation phase, we avoid failure costs and the associated loss of time during implementation,” explained Dieter.
There is a very minimal learning curve required to use BricsCAD, which for Willemen Construct is vital for a wider company rollout.
“We want all project teams at Willemen Construct to use BricsCAD, so it is important that the software is user-friendly and easy to learn which we have found it to be. Also, the integration of 2D, 3D, and BIM in one platform enables a person to grow into a modeler. If they haven't modeled in quite a long time, they can easily pick it up again in BricsCAD. The Quad tool and online learning platform help with that.”
Bricsys 24/7 for smarter collaboration
For effective collaboration on all design and build projects, Willemen Construct uses Bricsys 24/7 as its preferred document management system.
“Documentation for our construction projects generally consists of more than 10,000 documents and e-mails. A well-thought-out design and proper follow-up of the use of Bricsys 24/7 is crucial to prevent chaos.”
Looking to the future
“Sustainability analyzes and augmented reality are just some of the many future possibilities to look forward to in BIM. I think the most promising technology is the application of artificial intelligence, which BricsCAD already uses in some applications. For example, through A.I., BricsCAD can identify floors, columns or other building elements automatically.
“We are looking forward to exploring the future capabilities of BIM with Bricsys,” concluded Dieter.
Belgium
Construction
Willemen Construct
- www.willemen.be
