Autodesk BIM360 embracing 5D

Cost management is being added to Autodesk’s BIM 360 platform, the company announced at AU2018 in Las Vegas last week. The 5D BIM addition will help it compete with the growing cost management capabilities of rival CDE products.

BIM360 logoAutodesk is adding cost management capability, sometimes called 5D BIM, to its BIM 360 software ecosystem, the company announced last week at Autodesk University in Las Vegas.

The BIM 360 platform was launched at AU2017 following a revamp intended to connect workflows across all its BIM 360 products (which include the BIM 360 Docs document, drawing and model management toolset). The ecosystem, based on Autodesk Forge, is also intended as an environment in which partner companies can create accessory software applications, and around 100 partners have now provided software integrations.

At the AU2018 Connect and Construct Keynote, Jim Lynch, vice-president and general manager of Autodesk’s Construction Business Unit, announced it had added cost management capabilities to its BIM 360 platform, providing real-time visibility of the financial health of a project, and reducing decision-making risk. Lynch said: “Together, we’re delivering technology that supports key construction workflows by centralizing project information for all stakeholders and opening the door for innovation through greater access and analysis of project data.”

Little is currently known about the new application (reports Engineering.com); Autodesk said it will be offered as a limited availability pre-release in December 2018.

5D competition hots up

However, the addition of cost management to the BIM 360 portfolio is surely intended to help it compete with the growing cost management capabilities of rival common data environment products.

Oracle Aconex logoOracle Aconex has a long history of incorporating cost control functionality into its platform. One of its acquisitions, Conject (previously BIW Technologies) developed a cost control module as part of its document management platform in the early 2000s, winning sales to major UK contractors who valued the immediacy of up-to-date reports of the financial consequences of project changes. More recently, Aconex’s July 2015 Worksite acquisition boosted the Australian collaboration vendor’s project cost functionality, expanded still further by the deal to acquire Anglo-German rival Conject in March 2016. Meanwhile, Oracle had acquired SaaS construction payment management platform Textura in April 2016, and, just seven months after Aconex had launched Connected Cost in April 2017, Oracle announced it was acquiring the Australian-based business for US$1.2bn.

Other businesses which will be watching Autodesk’s development with interest include:

  • Bentley logo 2017Bentley Systems – Bentley’s ProjectWise platform has been gradually extended to include more construction change management capabilities, following the 2015 acquisition of EADOC, ProcureWare in 2017, and Synchro in June 2018. At last month’s Year in Infrastructure conference, Bentley executive Steve Jolley told me the company aimed to expand its support for construction managers beyond BIM – “Their primary concerns are time, money, risk”.
  • Trimble logoTrimble  – As another US-based construction technology giant, Trimble has a long history of collaboration buys dating back to Meridian Systems in 2006, and since then including Sketchup in 2012, GTeam in 2014, and in 2018 the major buys of e-Builder and of Viewpoint. The latter deal, in particular, will focus Trimble on cost management; before it acquired the UK-based 4Projects SaaS collaboration business in 2013 and a mobile collaboration developer in December 2014, Viewpoint’s core US business related to ERP systems (and I have been hearing industry rumours that Viewpoint’s new masters want to build on this legacy rather than boosting SaaS collaboration functionality – which may explain some recent UK company staff departures).
  • RIB software logoRIB – Stuttgart, Germany-based RIB Software has described itself as “the world’s leading provider of 5D BIM Big Data technology for the construction industry” though its pure SaaS capability, iTWOcx, was mainly based on acquisitions.

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    • Avinash Dorle on 8 January 2019 at 6:27 am

    I would like to know if there are any 5D BIM solutions available for a Road Project; using CDE.

    We are considering it for one of our upcoming project.

    Thanks and Best Regards

    1. Hi Avinash
      BIM is a collaborative, data-rich process supported by various technologies and solutions, including CDEs. For example, a road project might involve designers using highway design solutions such as Bentley’s Open Roads, a 5D sequencing tool such as Synchro and then a CDE such as ProjectWise – this was something I wrote about in October after attending Bentley’s Year In Infrastructure 2018 event.

        • Avinash on 16 January 2019 at 5:35 am

        Hello Paul!
        Thanks for a very informative article on latest developments on 5D. This was regarding Bentley and yes Synchro takeover will certainly be of great help to Bentley; however I am not aware how they are going to build up analysis part of data especially after 5D for making smart decisions / business decisions. Also may I know about other players in 5D race?
        Any views from you….
        Thanks and Best Regards

        1. The Bentley ecosystem includes integration with Microsoft products including PowerBI (I saw how one consultancy was using this for analysis/business insights at the 2018 Year in Infrastructure conference in London). Other firms working in 5D include Germany’s RIB (see my 23 November 2018 post), London-based Kreo Plan (24 August post) and Trimble’s Vico.

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