The background
General contracting company Step has been working in the civil and industrial construction market since 1993. Possessing modern construction, management and planning technologies, Step has completed over 200 projects. The company has unique experience in construction in harsh climatic conditions – in permafrost areas, in taiga and swamps, and in hard-to-reach places. Step has also carried out construction work in historic buildings.
Every year Step takes on extremely complex engineering projects, and the number of commissioned projects and their complexity are increasing every year. This means the company has to use non-standard approaches and innovative design solutions. The day-to-day activities of Step specialists are inextricably linked with the use of Autodesk products, which were chosen as the main working tool, since they meet all the company's requirements for software and can handle all engineering tasks.
Until recently, Step bought perpetual licences for Autodesk products. Since licences were purchased at different times, users were unable to update the software at the same time. Often, specialists used different versions of the software, which made it difficult to collaborate.
The solution
Autodesk's new subscription-based licensing model provided regular software updates as part of a subscription, unifying and simplifying the experience of using software products. All Step experts are now working with the latest software. This also made it easier to plan the company's financial costs for the purchased software.
Step by step, the customer is improving the process of design and construction of facilities. This allows the company to minimise errors in the work of design teams, reduce costs, monitor the condition of facilities throughout the life cycle, and improve the quality of construction.
The results
Now Step uses the software package from Autodesk for architecture, engineering, and construction. The collection includes a range of cutting-edge BIM and CAD tools for designers, engineers and contractors to help complete any task in early design and construction. The company's specialists use the tools for conceptual modelling and analysis of TEP, preparation of design and working documentation for industrial and civil construction facilities, analysis of design solutions and verification of spatial collisions, design of infrastructure and infrastructure lines, analysis of load-bearing structures, and other applied problems. In particular, Revit, Civil 3D, AutoCAD, InfraWorks, Navisworks are used for effective coordination, analysis and management of the projects, and performing all work tasks. The data exchange functionality and full compatibility of the products in the collection allow for information to be moved quickly between them, helping to optimise the workflows. In addition, with the use of BIM products of AEC Collection, the company managed to automate routine processes and solve tasks. According to the estimates of Step engineers, when considering a tender proposal from a customer for a model and PD, the time for estimating volumes using Navisworks Manage was reduced from two weeks to one business day.
“With Autodesk, we are implementing large-scale projects that we can be proud of. Among them are construction of a plant for production of non-concentrated nitric acid, the construction of a gold mining plant, and the construction of a magnetite concentrate drying shop.
Recently, more and more large customers have come to us with special requirements for the systems with which we work. So, it is impossible to effectively fulfil the complex tasks that our clients set for us without achieving a high technological level and the ability to quickly transform our infrastructure to meet growing needs. More and more often, working with models requires serious resources and an increase in the bandwidth of communication channels.
The rapid growth of our company has called for a change in the infrastructure we use and the principles we work to. A critical moment was the transition to remote work during the pandemic, which happened for us absolutely painlessly, without impacting the effectiveness of collaboration. In many respects, this was possible only due to us having the right software and hardware equipment.
Despite the fact that Step is at the very beginning of the path toward using BIM, over the past two years our specialists have been increasingly using 3D modelling, including the Autodesk Revit, in design for industrial construction. Autodesk's innovative BIM software products facilitate collaboration and help us plan, design, build and operate a variety of facilities more efficiently,” said Dmitry Titov, CIO at Step.