b'36 Partner News Summer 2023CorporateThe future of construction is digital: how digital innovation is proving transformative for NG BaileyBy Anna Hunter, Technical Director at NG BaileyIn a world that has embraced digitalflow of critical information being automatedSince implementing this software, we have transformation, construction can sometimeswithin the system. This ultimately helps usreduced the administrative time spent be seen as an industry that is stuck into deliver exceptional buildings that workon each drawing from six hours to two, the 20th century; the actual reality of ourefficiently both now and for years to come.saving between 8,000 and 12,000 hours industry is a lot more nuanced than that.on an average project. However, just as However, statistics do suggest constructionTransforming the approvals processimportantly, it provides a golden thread has some catching up to do when it comesthrough Issue Plotof information for all the design decisions to digital transformation, with researchAs one of the largest specialist MEPtaken on a project and establishes the conducted in 2020 by the World Builtcontractors in the UK, every day we workperson accountable for each of these Environment Forum finding that only 3% ofon complex projects made up of thousandsdecisions. This is transformative for firms are using digital construction on atof individual drawings which go throughgathering information for auditing purposes least half of their projects.multiple iterations before being approvedand will be an essential tool as legislation for use in a project. In the past, the processsuch as the Building Safety Act comes into A lot has changed since that research wasof approving a drawing was managedplay in 2024. conducted. New government mandatesthrough traditional forms of communication, and changing legislation have thankfullysuch as email, and the status of individualCreating digital engineering solutionsaccelerated the implementation of newdrawings logged on spreadsheets, whichAs well as streamlining our administrative digital solutions and the benefits theyled to a lack of consistency and many hoursprocesses, our teams have looked at bring. At NG Bailey we have gone further byspent chasing up the status of them. other areas of our business that can be implementing digital construction solutionsstandardised using our Issue Plot software. across the majority of our projects, thisWe decided to digitise this process byNG Bailey is already a pioneer in the use of includes putting in place our own bespokecreating our own bespoke software thatoffsite manufacturing, with our specialist software that ensures better integrationcould manage and track project designoffsite manufacture facility in Yorkshire one across our teams, as well as standardisingand installation drawings. Our Issue Plotof the largest of its kind in the UK. a selection of our offsite solutions tosoftware syncs directly with our authoring streamline the DfMA, assembly andsystems such as Revit, reducing the timeWith many common products used across all installation processes.spent cross uploading drawings to differentof our projects, including distribution boards, platforms. We are able to instantly view realvalve arrangements and module frames, The result has been improvedtime progress statistics relating to all designour teams have identified which of these communication and collaboration. Efficiencyand BIM deliverables, making traditionallyproducts can be standardised to create a and productivity have increased due toclosed off workflows totally transparentseries of off the shelf products which are a significant reduction in the traditionaland acting as a single point of truth for allpre-designed, engineered and modelled workflow, with reviews, approvals and theproject team members.centrally for use within our BIM models.'