Digital transformation across the RIBA: Plan of Work
For many businesses in the AEC industry, technology will play a bigger role in the way construction projects are designed, constructed, and operated digitally.
This is well versed by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in their Plan of Work. To reflect this change, Claranet have created a series of articles about how digital technologies can be used to transform the way firms in the AEC space complete work and collaborate with the wider supply chain.
Firstly, you may ask, as many customers do, what does AEC stand for? So, for clarity it means Architecture, Engineering and Construction and is the industry term used by all Public Hyperscale Cloud providers. However, having worked in the "property industry" for over 15 years, for me this definition doesn't go far enough.
According to RIBA's project plan's 2020 update, imagining, designing, building, repurposing or running a space takes eight stages over what could be ten years. These stages require works from a wide range of teams including architects, designers, technology consultants, mechanical and electrical specialists, construction organisations, and facilities management. The list is endless, but AEC does give us an insight into what it takes to be in the built environment.
To try to really understand and 'live' this plan of work led us to undertake an internal 'hackathon'. We immersed ourselves into a scenario-based project of our own, picking out the tasks and outcomes that could benefit from a cloud digital touchpoint. This included mapping expertise, solutions and services from Claranet's own portfolio whilst augmenting them with Microsoft Azure cloud solutions; and bringing a laser focus on understanding how cloud and technologies can help drive real change and innovation throughout these RIBA stages.
Our end goal was to highlight insights through a digital lens - identify innovation opportunities to drive efficiencies in both cost and time; to help mitigate risks and accidents in construction projects; and to create solutions that would help lessen the impact of energy and carbon emissions in real estate.
So, we'd like to share with you what we found and over the next few weeks. Claranet will be releasing a series of insight articles based on our case study that will take you through the eight stages of the RIBA Plan or Work. By the end of the series, you'll understand how digital tools building out a solid IT foundation and infrastructure can have a serious impact on every stage of the RIBA project plan, and how these technologies can be used to transform the way firms in the AEC space complete work and collaborate with the wider supply chain.
My primary role here at Claranet is to lead the customer face of Claranet in all organisations who are focused on AEC or the built environment. My team work solely with organisations and business whose role it is to build a new era of the digital built environment.
Click below to read the first article in our series: Blog 1 in RIBA Plan of Work Series.
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