Five hundred eighty hectares of land, two long runways surrounded by endless fencing, countless kilometers of underground networks, 160 buildings that cover 530,000 square meters, and a terminal where more than seven million passengers and 6,200 staff members travel daily. The stats for EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg are dizzying.
In addition, managing the operational maintenance program of a facility of such size and scale is challenging. Using Autodesk Build, an Autodesk Construction Cloud solution, the French-Swiss airport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg has improved coordination between team members, leading to significant time savings.
(c) EuroAirport
Size and scale
In the face of this enormity, the professionals using the technology to input building and infrastructure-related data no longer speak about Building Information Modelling (BIM) but rather City Information Modelling (CIM). Like an airport, the city has to ensure the upkeep of its facilities at both the airside and the cityside, and, as far as security and quality procedures are concerned, there’s no room for ambiguity.
One central repository
EuroAirport has adopted Autodesk Build as its Common Data Environment (CDE) to better categorize its employees’ needs and to unify and centralize the data. As a long-time customer of the software in the Autodesk AEC collection for the design phase, EuroAirport adopted Autodesk Build to enhance the management of the project process, reduce communication issues, and give teams authentic and current data.
“In the airports, maintenance work for runways is done in the evening hours. In a secure environment as ours, it’s essential that the experts who are in charge of the movements of planes are aware of exactly where work is being carried out and that risk-limitation processes are adhered to throughout the day. Prior to this, the information was mostly circulated on paper with all the risk that comes with” the words of Gregory Zatka.
Reduce risks
The team is currently making use of the check-list feature in order to make sure that they are able to access the site in a safe manner and also record important information regarding maintenance updates. With their phones the team members are able to input the information directly on the website. In the past, they had to fill out manually documents on paper that might be destroyed by rainfall or adverse weather conditions. Moreover, after every maintenance event, documents needed to be digitised before being filed or then sent via email.
“The time required to upload this data to our systems is reduced considerably by using Autodesk Build, as the information is instantly available” Gregory explains Gregory. By creating standardsised digital control sheets for return to service after the work has been completed and the transfer of data between the day and night teams, prior to transmission into the tower is more reliable.
How do you feel about the use of these tools that change the work environment in a radical way?
“The most positive feedback we’ve received comes from those who aren’t digital natives. We were thinking they’d need longer, however the program is easy to use, which makes the process easier, ” recalls Gregory.
Collaboration to achieve success
In collaboration together with the Autodesk group, EuroAirport set up online training. By using Autodesk Construction Cloud Learn ACC, the Autodesk Construction Cloud Learn ACC platform, training is offered in the form of videos lasting between two and three minutes.
“We provide all the necessary links to individuals whom we train. It is simple to begin because we typically receive one question after we have explained the process. It’s usually an issue with technical nature. It’s usually an issue of a team member who needs to be assured about the flow of work” Explains Stephane Jean-Francois, draughtsman and BIM project coordinator at EuroAirport.
“For any more in-depth questions, the other advantage is the ability to work with our dedicated Autodesk Customer Success Manager who understands our specific issues, and with our RMR Industries partner who supports us in our BIM deployment and implementation” Adds Gregory.
(c) EuroAirport
Savings in time
EuroAirport has begun using the issues function in Autodesk Build as part of an experiment that involved the regular maintenance of 80 sanitary blocks at the airport, in order to enhance the services for passengers. Each area is made up of a number of sinks and toilets units. Before the EuroAirport team was able to inspect each property in pairs: one team member utilized paper forms to document the inspection, while another team member recorded the inspection in photographs.
The old method of on-site inspections of toilet blocks required team members to be present for about a day then a second day of manual entry into the office. This procedure was vital for linking photos and maps as well as for the development of intervention requests within the maintenance program. This also included uploading photos from devices to servers and then exchanging emails to coordinate actions and follow-up steps with maintenance personnel. Don’t forget that data re-entry errors resulted in longer processing times to complete this task.