AECOM Saves $850,000 Using ProjectWise for Work Sharing and Engineering Content Management

Selects Online Deployment for $416 Million Texas State Highway Project

EXTON, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure, today announced that AECOM Technology Corporation, a global provider of professional technical and management support services for government and commercial clients, has selected Bentley’s ProjectWise for the cloud-based engineering content management of its Texas State Highway (SH) 161 Phase 4 project. The ProjectWise system of collaboration servers and services provides industry-proven work sharing, content reuse, and dynamic review capabilities that are essential to leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for high-performing, intelligent infrastructure. The $416 million design/build project completes a 6.5-mile link in the loop around Dallas-Fort Worth, managed by the North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA). AECOM was challenged to complete the major design elements within 15 months. With the project office in Grand Prairie, Texas, and team members distributed across 22 locations in seven U.S. states, AECOM implemented ProjectWise Online to provide project team members, regardless of their location, with a single, secure environment to create high-quality design documents. ProjectWise enabled AECOM to increase quality, create documents that were 95 percent compliant with its client’s CAD standards, and reduce risk, saving NTTA $850,000 in costs associated with information, workspaces, and standards management as well as quality-control review.

“But for this project, the firm needed to reduce costs and implementation time, so we were glad to offer this as an online service, eliminating the administrative costs of hosting and managing files.”

AECOM Chief Technology Officer Jim Walsh said, “The tremendous success of this project could not have been accomplished without the use of ProjectWise. This secure work-sharing environment reduces our business risk by ensuring the right people have access to the right information at the right time. This means decisions aren’t being made based on the wrong data, resulting in fewer change orders and their associated costs in time and money.”

To deliver the SH 161 Phase 4 project on time, AECOM created a team of 12 sub-consultants and 300 colleagues located throughout the United States. Fostering communication and collaborative workflows was the key to successful project completion, but AECOM also needed an integrated design approach with one quality control system to coordinate so many firms, project team members, and offices. AECOM recommended that a cloud-based solution be implemented and selected ProjectWise Online based on the firm’s broad experience with this software on other projects.

ProjectWise Online provided the team with a reliable and secure environment accessible by team members whether they were working from a home, sub-consultant, or main project office. The ProjectWise servers and services managed by Bentley allowed users to easily find, update, and share engineering content, including CAD documents, project data, PDF files, spreadsheets, and other office documents, without being slowed down by firewall, network, or FTP issues. The core component of the system was the ProjectWise Integration Server, which federates all project data regardless of storage location. Caching servers distributed files locally for fast access.

“The ability of the contractor to request a change in the field, have our project office staff upload comments to ProjectWise, and have anyone, anywhere update information as needed has really helped accomplish quick turnarounds on items for the contractor,” said Brian Dodson, P.E., AECOM’s design manager for the project. “Moreover, the ProjectWise customized workspace eliminated the need for multiple CAD managers to manage separate CAD standards in each office. As a result, staff members from all offices were able to focus on the final deliverable rather than on whether it had the latest CAD standards in place. This capability alone saved the project $250,000.”

In addition, based on the results from the 10 early milestone packages conducted in the project office, AECOM found that the decision to employ ProjectWise and eliminate travel for design review meetings saved the project approximately $600,000. The techniques implemented on this project will allow this crucial piece of infrastructure to be ready for the Dallas-Fort Worth area on time.

“As a longtime user of ProjectWise on many of its projects, AECOM has benefited from the advantages this system provides in work sharing, content reuse, and dynamic review in a secure, trusted environment,” said Huw Roberts, Bentley vice president, core marketing. “But for this project, the firm needed to reduce costs and implementation time, so we were glad to offer this as an online service, eliminating the administrative costs of hosting and managing files.”

About ProjectWise

ProjectWise is a system of collaboration servers and services for AECO information for the design and construction of infrastructure projects while the work is in progress. The system provides secure and managed work sharing, content reuse, and dynamic feedback capabilities including review, mark-up, clash resolution, visualization, automated publishing, and more. Deployed in 92 countries, ProjectWise is the system of choice for 72 of the ENR Top 100 Global Design Firms, 29 of the ENR Top 50 Design-Build Firms, 234 of the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners, and more than half of the U.S. state departments of transportation. For additional information about ProjectWise, visit www.Bentley.com/ProjectWise.

About AECOM

AECOM is a global provider of professional technical and management support services to a broad range of markets, including transportation, facilities, environmental, energy, water, and government. With approximately 45,000 employees around the world, AECOM is a leader in all of the key markets that it serves. AECOM provides a blend of global reach, local knowledge, innovation and technical excellence in delivering solutions that create, enhance and sustain the world’s built, natural, and social environments. A Fortune 500 company, AECOM serves clients in more than 130 countries and had revenue of $8.3 billion during the 12 months ended June 30, 2012. More information on AECOM and its services can be found at www.aecom.com.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, geospatial professionals, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Bentley Systems applies information mobility to improve asset performance by leveraging information modeling through integrated projects for intelligent infrastructure. Its solutions encompass the MicroStation platform for infrastructure design and modeling, the ProjectWise platform for infrastructure project team collaboration and work sharing, and the AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations – all supporting a broad portfolio of interoperable applications and complemented by worldwide professional services. Founded in 1984, Bentley has more than 3,000 colleagues in 50 countries, more than $500 million in annual revenues, and since 2003 has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

Additional information about Bentley is available at www.bentley.com and in Bentley’s annual report. For Bentley news as it happens, subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, access Bentley’s Year in Infrastructure publications. To access a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit Be Communities.

To download the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the top public- and private-sector owners of infrastructure based on the value of their cumulative infrastructure investments, visit www.bentley.com/500.

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