BAM, Ballast Nedam and Heijmans digitizing together

Construction companies BAM Infra Nederland, Ballast Nedam and Heijmans have joined forces to develop applications. Applications that digitize the design and construction process, increasing speed and efficiency and reducing error margins. The first application has already been launched within three months. In it, the design process of soil bodies is automated. This is just the beginning. If it is up to the builders, many more applications will follow, in cooperation with even more parties.

Jos van Rijen, Manager of Design Operations at BAM: "This step in collective automation shows that together you can achieve groundbreaking speed, learn a lot from each other and the trajectories are manageable."

Open collaboration

The construction companies have chosen an open collaboration in which they collectively automate on the platform VIKTOR. This platform allows the builders to build their own online applications collectively. After delivering the application, each builder can use the developed application independently. The more parties join the collective, the more powerful the cooperation is. This is why the first application was presented to the entire construction industry. Through this form of cooperation, budgets remain realistic and strength is many times greater.

Leo van der Geest, Digital Construction Program Manager at Dura Vermeer: "The market can take an example from this initiative. Within many organizations, the wheel is being reinvented. We need to change this to instead inventing the wheel together and then sharing it."

Digital design process

With the first application, construction companies are focusing on the design process of ground bodies. In the application, different data sources and software packages are linked together.And by using powerful algorithms, builders get many more design solutions at once. Because of this centralization, everyone always has the right information and arrives at better choices faster.

"Beyond expectations, the application was created quickly. With a completely new team, some with limited programming experience, it was delivered on schedule. Development processes have proven manageable as a result." said Leon Tiggelman, formerly Tractor Digitalization Design at Heijmans. Now Manager of Parametric Design at Dura Vermeer.