Beyond BIM: Transforming the AEC Ecosystem Through Productization

ROMEO SANCHES: Good afternoon, good morning, or even good evening, depending on the time you are watching this recording about the next LEGO Movie. You will see that we will speak a lot about LEGOs during this presentation. And yes, we choose the very long title class with buzzwords like BIM, ecosystem, transformation, but we wanted mainly to talk about productization, quite a fancy name for LEGO blocks in fact.

And yes, this could have been our exact summary slide. This class is about a construction company and the technology player joint vision about what should be and will be the construction industry in the future, when beam will go beyond design transformation and also impact the construction methods introducing modules, blocks, bricks, LEGOs, you name it. Just don't take a look at safety procedures in this picture. Definitely everything that shouldn't be in the future of the job sites.

Now, let's dive into the structure of this class. We will introduce ourselves and Bertrand will present more deeply with Bouygues Construction. And what is the point of view on actual steps made by Bouygues on productization, how it impacts people, processes, and markets.

I will then show what is Autodesk's point of view as a technology enabler and detail a new solution we are building to support digital workflows of productization. The last part will go through a long-term vision. And our big wish about our productization will impact the construction ecosystem in all its components-- players, tools, and projects.

As a reminder for this class, here are the learning objectives. Explore the why of productization. Discover from where it is coming and its impact on construction methods. And finally, feed your inspiration to implement productization from Bouygues's experience.

Sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Romeo Sanches. I'm a civil engineer who worked for more than 10 years for a general contractor before joining a startup incubator in France, where I supported business creators to develop their projects in the domain of sustainable construction. I also created a BIM and VR center there before I joined Autodesk in 2015 to support strategic Autodesk customers, like Bouygues Construction. Happy to be here to give some kind of context about how Autodesk is looking at productization, and how it matches Bouygues's vision on industrialization.

I will let Bertrand introduce himself and explain who is Bouygues.

BERTRAND DE PEUFEILHOUX: Hi, everyone. My name is Bertrand de Peufeilhoux, and after more than 10 years I spent in the structural design office of Bouygues Construction on major and iconic projects, I choose to take the turn of the BIM in our company. At first, as a BIM software manager during two years and then since four years in working to modernize a way to build and to transform our company.

I'm very happy to be here in front of you. It's my third AU, but it's the first time on stage. I'm fond of innovation. And I'm deeply convinced of the need for our industry to move forward and to transform itself. During this class, I hope to succeed in explaining you the transformation journey Bouygues Construction is involved in.

My French company, Bouygues Construction, is a subsidiary of the Bouygues Group. It is a main group in France business landscape. It has different activities-- building, of course, energy and services, medias, telecoms. Bouygues Construction and its size counts for more than 32,000 employees and has activities all over the world. It is a major actor in construction during all phase of projects and on every type of projects, building in France and abroad, infrastructure, industrial projects.

As you can see on this slide, here are some here are some key figures for Bouygues Construction last year, such as 9.3 billion of sales, 14.1 billion of backlog, and 60% of sales outside of France, and of course, as I said, worldwide activities on every continent. Since 2002, we have operated as a general contractor through our subsidiary, Americaribe, in the US and Caribbean construction market. Brickell City Center in Miami and Waterfront Hotel in Trinidad and Tobago are some of our iconic and large-scale projects. Our company carries out construction projects of all kinds with tunnels, bridges, public buildings, housing, offices, data centers, or even infrastructure for carbon-free energy, in brief, a very large scope of construction activities.

Now, let's dig into our today's topic. My purpose here is to share with you the state of our IOC industry and how productization could be a real opportunity from our point of view. As maybe many of you, me and my four kids are huge LEGO fans. So please let me now tell you a short LEGO story.

Last June, Bouygues Construction has celebrated the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the Order of Minorange. It's basically the elite of Bouygues workmen. On this occasion, our department was asked to illustrate to our best workmen the impact of digital on their daily work. What a tough mission.

We choose to make them realize it on their own with a funny challenge-- assemble our iconic [INAUDIBLE] you have on screen with LEGO bricks in 30 minutes. So 100 workmen had been sorted in 30 groups, each group had a part of the building to assemble. OK? A special attention was paid to the interfaces between blocks and with the base.

At first, on the right, they were given traditional deliverables of the building, such as 2D views or non-detailed 3D views. And the needed LEGO bricks had to be sorted. Then, on the left, they were given detailed assembly instruction. This symbolizing the know how embedded in the module thanks to the digital twin the platform, the workflows. And the sites components of the module have been sorted and kitted for a better efficiency. This symbolizing what digital could bring to logistics.

As you can see in the next slide now, the result is quite impressive. These pictures are more remarkable than a long lecture. Without digital, barely nothing has been assembled when 29 modules out of 30 were completed in only 30 minutes with digital.

Those guys, skeptical at the beginning of the exercise, were totally convinced at the end. They will be the first ambassadors of the transformation approach we are implementing at Bouygues Construction. They made a stunning proof of digital new way called productization. During this session, we'll explain to you what this consists of.

Today, IC industry faces several strategic challenges. Of course, obviously, we are all aware of climate emergency. Our industry is the world's largest contributor to solid waste globally. And this situation imposes us to act and to act now.

It is also a fact that there is a huge lack of productivity in our industry. In the same time, productivity of other industries has doubled but does remain flat for IC. Another challenge-- there is a main scarce of skilled workforce. It is necessary for construction companies to simplify the way to build.

Let's have a look now to the as-is situation of our industry. I propose you a parallel with the organization of human body. We, all of us, are all made of the association of different system-- blood, digestive, respiratory, muscular, bone system. Similarly, our construction projects are organized by trades-- structure, HVAC, MEP glazing-- as many layers overlapped in the project. It is then necessary to coordinate every mockup, every disciplines, but despite this coordination, all productivity troubles on site take place at the interfaces between these trades.

And to illustrate this interfaces between trades, we have chosen to study the case of a senior care home bedroom. On this slide, there is a logical diagram of this senior care bedroom as it is organized today with all the different systems, even if-- and I'm sorry this slide is still in French-- you can easily see that there are a huge number of interactions between each of these systems. In this case, based on this logical organization, it is almost impossible to industrialize this product.

In comparison, it will be like having the seat of your car, for instance, connected separately to the entire car chassis to the battery to the heating system. Hopefully, it is no more the case. Indeed, the city interfaces are standardized today-- a single rail, a single electrical cable with standardized plug. And our idea is to apply the same modular approach to construction.

As the human body can be modularized by members, we want to cut the building per blocks per multi-threaded modules, for instance, a global room, partitions, a wall with all layers, doors or windows, and so on. Therefore, with this approach, if the same logic diagram is drawn, multi-threaded modules are much more decoupled and less variability propagates from one module to another. As a result, it is possible to industrialize at the scale of these multi-threaded modules and on this case, technical riser, partitions, bathroom external wall, and so on. And this reorganization of the product is named system engineering. And it is at the core of a modular approach.

And this global philosophy is what we call productization. It is a new way to build through integration of ready to use modules. Each modules are designed with a mindset of virtualization of [INAUDIBLE], flexibility and maximal reuse of components. Each of these modules has a controlled but sufficient variability. And a special interest is placed also on the definition and standardization of interfaces between modules.

These modules are parametrical, embed generative design, and produce relevant deliverables for people on site. At the level of each module, industrialization generates a sensible financial gain but also a reduction in the carbon footprint. So global integration of modules brings enough customization to clients. To sum up, the will is to standardize the process but not the product.

During the past years, very promising proofs of concept have been carried out. I mean, non-bearing partitions in Thailand, concrete wall for educational projects, pre-assembled technical advisor, and so on. On that base, brick construction has decided to adopt productization using an incremental approach to create industrial product lines. We call them bricks. It is also the new name of our department. And these bricks are a tool to virtualize construction in order to better capitalize, to better share it to less skilled people.

To begin, we have chosen a simpler scope-- the residential sector. It is the largest market. It is highly replicable, and it is less sophisticated.

In fact, productization, this transformation Bouygues Construction wants to achieve, is at the junction of two main transformations-- industrial transformation in developing this industrialized bricks to create product lines for building, but also a digital transformation because we need a platform to virtualize, to store, to share these bricks. We need a tool to instantiate these bricks developed off-cycle and to put it in the cycle of the project. We need to make them used directly by people on site through simple tools, such as web tools, in order to create the [INAUDIBLE] model. Therefore, there are two major axes in Bouygues Construction transformation strategy-- collaboration to create the platform needed to digital transformation and industrialization through productization.

ROMEO SANCHES: Thank you, Bertrand, for giving the business context. That shows how industrialization and productization are key to really transform the industry. I would say that Autodesk is also in this journey of industry transformation since its infancy more than 40 years ago.

But what we realized with industrialized construction is that it is not just a digital transformation, as Bertrand mentioned. It has to deeply connect with the physical world and the many stakeholders of the construction industry. That is why we are aware that industrialization in the field will be a joint venture with our technology partners and thinking about hardware providers or digital specialist providers, but also with our customers, like Bouygues Construction.

To partner with our customers, it is important to recognize their challenges and understand where we could be of some help. It is a slightly different view from what Bertrand presented. But it is our way of capturing customer needs to develop a solution.

First, the fundamental problem is that building designs decisions are made in a vacuum without any information about what can actually be made. The workaround is to capture intents to successively add detail and to regularly review with all stakeholders. This is manual, slow, and reactive. The processes used by the industry are disconnected so data cannot be acted on automatically and cannot scaled.

We think those three main statements could be solved, not entirely, but we would highly contribute to lower their impact. And it would be just applying manufacturing techniques. Look at a project with configurable products to assemble. And lastly, rethink the design approach to reuse manufacturing techniques and to assemble the products.

But we cannot transform construction without a clear view as well on what is the easiest process. As shown in this schema, this is a traditional building workflow, very project-based with the common personas from architecting design to operate phase with owners or designated operator. If we want to bring industrialization and productization, there is a transversal new phase throughout the project life cycle. And it would be common to every industrialized construction project. That would be called productize phase.

This is not a new phase. If we look at existing building products, such as elevators, for instance, the idea of productization is to extend the range of building products to the traditional in-situ fabricated elements. It requires to extend the catalog of configurable products that would fit the design phase.

That catalog should ensure that those new products would be predefined to ensure constructability and efficiency. Bringing that new phase is also bringing new personas with a different scope than the traditional ones. We are not sure yet if this denomination will stay or another fancy name could be defined by industry, but we are convinced that this role will mix skills from manufacturing and AC to bring to the marketplace a product that is enough configurable to fit market and design needs, as well as enough precise to ensure reliability of costs, fabrication constraints, and final delivery and assembly. We think Autodesk should help bring this productization effort to a larger scale by delivering tools for product engineers that are integrated to the workflow of existing personas like architects or general contractor.

So when we looked at the current Autodesk portfolio and specifically on the manufacturing side, we have in fact a strong base of capabilities already available to ensure the productization modeling, productization drafting, data, life cycle management, but all in the silo of the manufacturing workflows. That is why we launched last year a new incubation team or innovation team, if you want, called MID, Manufactured Informed Design. And the MID mission statement is all about connecting manufacturing to the AC silos with a clear aim to improve productivity and sustainability.

An industrialized approach that could be in a sense a risk control or a certainty control to achieve those goals. Certainty of manufacturing and assembly that would ensure certainty of costs and time to install. Certainty of material used to reduce waste and guarantee carbon impact.

And for that, we don't need to start from scratch. Tools are already available and custom made for two of the personas mentioned earlier. In fact, if you look at the designers and architects use tools like Revit, but don't capture fabrication level of detail, which forces subcontractors to define those details for every project. There is a missing tool here, probably AutoCAD for detailing in the traditional process. But subcontractors could define these details and would benefit from using Autodesk Inventor for these new processes.

We don't say that subcontractors should change from AutoCAD to Inventor as productization will change also the way execution details will be sent to subs. In fact, productization for construction is the bridge between our building designs and what we make to include in those buildings. The detailing will be under a fabricator scope, as they will need to prepare engineering models for the assemblies they make throughout a lot of different projects. To attend many different projects needs, they will define what is standard and what varies and capture as rules to include in these models.

Don't get me wrong. Standardization doesn't mean building always the same project. And this library content that will be available on Revit is dynamic and not static. In fact, designers can interact with this content and customize it for fitness in their projects.

Here is how MID makes that possible. First, a product engineer captures their manufacturing knowledge as building products. Using Inventor, they define and publish reusable and configurable building products. Second, a designer using Revit customizes building products to meet their needs and places them in their projects.

Third, one of these products need to be produced. A production engineer will automatically create all the information required to make them. Each of these actions are connected to the MID service running on the Autodesk platform. Within that and the underlying platform, you can state several benefits. Productization means you can deliver the right information to the right people right away. Even non-CAD users can access models and generic detailing information.

When using a dynamic product template, an architect specifies the desired outputs to meet their needs for customization. So a bidding element will be considered as a product template. And these templates are used to generate all the needed information and output required for downstream processes, such as LOD 100 or 200 models, bill of materials, renderings for quoting, material ordering, shop drawings and more.

Let's deep dive on the platform main interactions and see a potential workflow. First, as a maker of product brick, the product engineer will define templates with inputs rules constraints to define these construction products. And publish those templates into a catalog so it is discoverable. Then an architect, for instance building a stadium, will need to incorporate an item from a catalog and search a template just like they do today, except that she or he will find a customizable one in the cloud.

Then they will create on-the-fly their custom products from the template and place them in their projects. And lastly, as a fabricator, they will detect the templates and specific configurations incorporated in that project data. And have all the information they need to create quotes, fabrication, and documentation. That productized workflow creates certainty for all parties-- certainty of fabricability, material need, costs, assembly on site. And this complements Bertrand's presentation on the digital workflows required to address different personas, responsibilities, and interactions between those personas. This require to go beyond BIM.

Let's look now about how this productization effort will drive change beyond BIM to the AC industry, starting again by [INAUDIBLE] vision with Bertrand.

BERTRAND DE PEUFEILHOUX: Thank you, Romeo. Our transformation project is linked to a strategic vision of [INAUDIBLE] the industry, a vision in which construction site is no more a place to transform materials, but much more a place to assemble products. These products could have been prefabricated or pre-assembled in micro factories near to the site. All along the project phases, a digital twin made of bricks of productization is put in place to detail what is to build to simulate methods of construction, to support dynamic of the construction site and this build. Every stakeholders of the project will be connected to this digital twin through a digital platform. As a result, a digital twin, this digital twin, will be the unique referential of the project.

Concerning the bricks, here it is what could be a theoretical workflow for projects. At the center, you will find our common data environment platform in which are developed and stored our bricks within libraries. At the beginning of the design phase, the right bricks for the project are chosen and configurated through web configurators. And then exported in IFC format to partners.

Configurated bricks are imported and taken into account in BIM models without any imposition on BIM software. And then, when we retrieve the BIM models from the Project Management, we can use them as specifications to instantiate the bricks in the execution phase within the digital twin. [INAUDIBLE] the instantiated bricks produce automatically detailed deliverables for the project, such as bill of quantities, show drawings.

And as I mentioned before, our tactical option is to begin with residential sector. On that base, we began to cut the building into multi trades bricks, each distributed in seven families corresponding to the different physical parts of a building, for instance, structure, covering, ground adaptation, partitioning, MEP distribution, and so on for a global amount of 45 bricks. At the end, we aim to integrate 80% of these bricks in a building. In short, to take advantage of industrialization on 80% of a project.

This leads us to how brick construction developed its industrialized brick. First, a scoping is done to build a framework of the study. Then a double approach is put in place. On one hand, a top-down theoretical analysis-- product system engineering, variability analysis, business rules, carbon footprint, return on investment, and so on and on. And on another hand, a bottom-up collaboration with a worksite to get practical feedbacks, trouble and needs, industrialization opportunities.

And this double approach is validated in a dedicated meeting with the top management. And then developers begin to program the algorithm determined by the previous study. After that, the brick is tested first in proof of concept on worksite but not for production. And then in another worksite in a run for production. And the process of continuous improvement starts there, and the brick is regularly updated.

And we are convinced that this beyond BIM productization image will tend to transform the global ecosystem in the next decades. This will lead to the emergence of new players, such as virtual makers, who will develop their own bricks. These multi-threaded bricks made of prefab or not prefab components, new or reused materials will be able to be pre-assembled in micro factories near to the site.

General contractors on their own will tend to evolve and become, I think, bricks integrators or bricks resellers through marketplaces. In brief, a deep transformation of our industry to meet the strategic challenges of the coming years I detailed you at the beginning of the session. And what about Autodesk vision, Romeo?

ROMEO SANCHES: Thanks, Bertrand. Now, let's back to the digital workflows and how Autodesk envisioned the technology and data flow in this productized approach. As previously presented in industry last construction mission, we want to enable the connection between silos bringing certainty, risk control between phases, and personas. The vision is to launch verification services that validates the constructability. Fabrication accuracy and assembly clearing directly from a design authoring tool like Revit.

This vision are started with the product's template approach, which are dynamic components. It will not end with the launch of verification service, as we will have some plans to go beyond modeling placing dynamic components to scan an existing project and map where some elements could be replaced by dynamic components, and even push the automation further with computational design based on dynamic components. And let's start with what is now available.

As we described before in the introduction of Autodesk point of view on productization, our solution has three components. There is an add-in for Inventor for authoring and publishing building products templates. There is an add-in for Revit allowing architects to customize and place building products in their projects. And there is a web application for automatically creating project outputs. Each of these components connects to Autodesk Docs for their storage needs. And a single entitlement will make all three components available to Inventor and the Product Design Collection, as well as to Revit and the AEC Collection.

Autodesk verification will be an Autodesk Platform Services, but provides in-product experience. In Inventor, Revit and how web app, the add-in Revit will be referred as to Verification for Revit. The one in Inventor will be referred as Verification for Inventor. And the web app will be referred as Verification for Output Automation. That is what has just been released.

Let's now look at the future. Let's say we have a catalog of a dynamic component. But the designer has not used them. The productization approach will then be starting on step two-- selecting elements that could be matched with a dynamic component available in the catalog.

The MID platform would then validate which elements could be mapped with a dynamic component. And then in step four, propose some changes, correct values, or choose the best fit approach. For a full project, like in step five, we could then review all elements that could be productized and build a product implement plan for that project.

Let's look now even further in time and even sooner in the project life cycle and preliminary phase with Forma, Autodesk Forma. Instead of just space configuration, some entire models could be fitted or proposed to the designer based on existing catalog of modules. With this approach, it could be a quicker way to generate detailed solutions to accelerate design processes and to enable data-driven decisions with detailed analysis based on manufacturable components. This would allow optioneering based on multiple suppliers of components and some earlier visualization of solution results.

Here is a mock-up video showing what it could bring if we have a fully modular building approach with a catalog of defined models, specific constraints in connecting them, and using generative computing to explore solutions and configurations. Quite a cool approach for modular suppliers. Up to you.

BERTRAND DE PEUFEILHOUX: Let's go back to our main goals with this class. We hope we help you to understand the why of productization and how convergence of construction and manufacturing is changing the process and personas. And also, somehow felt inspired by the trailblazing approach of will.

ROMEO SANCHES: As you saw, Autodesk shares the same vision of convergence and has started this bridge creation between tools to enable productization for each personas. To sum up, productization is about bringing certainty in construction methods and planning. A true transformation that goes beyond BIM and impacts job site in their assembly approach, but also beyond actual BIM design with more computational possibilities. Many Thanks for your attention during this class. Goodbye.