Grip and control of the precast production process

All production data digitally accessible

Construction is industrializing. Production takes place more and more under conditioned conditions in the factory. With BIM4Production planning and in particular the new Elements App, you keep a grip and control on that production process at all times. All production data is digitally accessible per unique element. And in view of the Quality Assurance Act, it is also possible to register quality questions per element and keep a Wkb quality logbook per unique element.

Driven by the tight labor market, meeting climate goals and obtaining a more efficient flow in the prefabrication process, the construction chain is scaling up considerably in automation and robotization. "We are capitalizing on this with the BIM4Production platform," says Henk Jan Nieuwenhuis of BIM4Production. Companies can use the platform to efficiently manage their planning, production and logistics from 3D BIM models. "With the Elements App, we are going one step further. With it, we make the data from the platform visible and tangible for each unique element."

Quality Assurance Act

By an element, Nieuwenhuis means anything that is uniquely made for a project and you can "grip," so to speak. "And that across the board," he says. "Ranging from precast concrete elements, elements made of steel or aluminum and HSB elements to even pluggable electrical elements or a window frame. In many cases, these elements are still produced using paper working drawings. It suffices, but still too often causes problems in practice. Drawings are not always up-to-date or information is not easy to read. With the Elements App, this is a thing of the past. It shows all the information and details you need in the factory of each individual element and is then provided with a quality log in production, during transport and during assembly via quality questions. At the same time, it is possible to add photos and notes for each unique element via the app. With this, we are already anticipating the Quality Assurance Act (Wkb). Because upon completion, this information can be exported via the BIM4Production platform as a Wkb quality log in PDF."

First step

According to Nieuwenhuis, the Elements App is the first step in a much bigger dream. "The app is the first exponent of a range of products on our BIM4Production platform. The next step is to create a flow in factories but also especially across factories (production sites), where an element is built in as an article in another element. Planning-wise, this is a very volatile process that we are going to structure and streamline with a next-generation platform-level planning system," Nieuwenhuis reveals in advance.