Armed with Tekla software, the engineers at thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions in Vietnam now design cement plants for the world instead of just Vietnam.
In Vietnam, thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions had focused on designing and making cement plants around the country and used traditional CAD/CAM software for civil and structural designs. However, in 2009 they received a request from the headquarters in Germany to produce 3D models for some structures to ease co-operation. As a result, the company began looking for 3D modeling solutions. This would turn it into a player in the global market.
After evaluation, thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions Vietnam chose Tekla Structures because of its advantages over competing Building Information Modeling solutions, such as the ability to combine both concrete and steel structures in one model and its compatibility with PDMS, a 3D software solution for plant engineering.
The team in Vietnam purchased its first Tekla license and began training staff. They practiced by modeling buildings and structures of cement plants that the company had previously built. It was only after they became more familiar with the software that the company realized the potential of Tekla to be a game changer for them.
Armed with Tekla, the company can now take on new jobs that were previously too complex for them. This means that the company can find new business opportunities around the globe.
Thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions Vietnam had a good timing. In November 2011, the Tabuk Cement Company in Saudi Arabia ordered a complete cement grinding plant from their parent company. The order covered all equipment from the clinker feeding system to the cement bag packing plant and bulk loading facility.
The team in Vietnam was assigned to design six of the plant buildings including the main one, the gypsum crusher. The company decided to use Tekla's BIM software for civil and structural engineering work. The plant is scheduled for completion in 2013.
The team included the excavation pit of the factory to the Tekla model because this allowed them to easily achieve the excavation quantity. As the terrain was quite simple, it could be easily modeled.
thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions modeled the rebar with Tekla and utilized the information in the model: they issued the detailing drawings and bar bending schedule from the model, but as novice rebar modelers they needed some time for it. However, they already saw that benefits were quite clear.
The team was able to foresee and avoid difficulties in rebar installation, and spot clashes between rebar and rebar and cast-in items. They could check if the rebar arrangement was practical and reasonable. The contractor just cut the rebar following thyssenkrupp's drawings and installed the rebar on site, without having to ask major questions from the team. "We felt that, with 3D modeling of the rebar in our office, we don't leave any problem for the site people as we normally did in the past, when the conventional 2D design was applied," says Mr. Nguyen Dinh Quan, Head of the Engineering Department of thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions Vietnam.
Even though the complicated Tabuk Cement plant was the first project thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions Vietnam designed from scratch with Tekla, they succeeded in completing the work in just five months, thanks to the software. Using Tekla saved time for thyssenkrupp as they estimate that with traditional 2D method they would have needed 7-8 months.
According to Mr. Quan, Tekla excelled especially at three things: producing civil and structural steel design drawings, producing correct bills of quantity and most importantly, minimizing the time and manpower needed for the design work.
In addition, Tekla was good in handling changes, which is important in general as every thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions project involves requests for modifications from customers. With Tekla Structures, the drawings and bills of quantities were updated accordingly as soon as the model was revised.
Apart from using Tekla for structural design, the team in Vietnam has also found it useful for doing quantity take-offs. Now the company can prepare bids quickly and competitively.
According to Mr. Quan, Tekla allows the company to generate bills of quantity accurately, even on very complicated structures that traditional estimation methods struggle to handle. The software is also useful for controlling budget overruns from project modifications, and Tekla allows fast, easy review of architectural and structural concepts.
In Tabuk, the team used Tekla for material quantity takeoffs and sent the bills of quantities to the contractor on site who used it for ordering the concrete.
Tekla opened new possibilities for us, enabling us to design and build complete, complicated buildings or structures for cement factories.
We could only have done this job with Tekla. If we had to use a regular CAD-CAM software, we would not have been able to design this within the required time frame and at similar quality at all.
Tekla reduces the time and manpower required to do the quantity take-off and allows us to come up with bids quickly, accurately and competitively.