WajdiMereb, became the first UAE winner of the prestigious Innovator of the Year category in the AEC Excellence Awards 2020 after overcoming 34 other nominees from around the world.He impressed judges withhis work at Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to establish a more data driven approach to transport solutions with technologies such as BIM (Building Information Modelling).
The AEC (Architecture, Engineering, Construction) Excellence Awards is an international program co-sponsored by Autodesk, Inc an American multinational software corporation that makes products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries.
Each year the AEC Excellence Awards celebrate the people, projects, and technologies behind the world’s best in architecture, engineering, and construction.
Mr Merebled a digital transformation at Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) and is driving the organization to become a fully intelligent, integrated data-driven asset owner and building an ecosystem to deliver smart and agile transportation solutions.Five years ago, when he joined the governmental Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), Dubai’s transportation projects were still being designed in two dimensions.
The move to three-dimensional modelling in BIM was imperative. After studying architecture, earning his master’s degree with a thesis on BIM implementation quality assurance/quality control in construction, and working as a BIM manager on large projects for an infrastructure team, Mr Mereb proved to be an ideal champion for the strategy.
“The idea of using BIM isn’t always an easy decision when it’s a large, government entity,” he said. “RTA set out a strategic road map to see how BIM technology could help us. During the implementation we set certain KPIs to check if we were receiving the benefits. From there, we could begin to standardize more and more.”
Today, he is the Chief Specialist for the assets department at RTA. He’s responsible for objectives that led to the first BIM Level 2 compliance protocol in the Middle East, and enabled RTA to become the first organization to achieve the BSI kitemark certifications “PAS 1192-2,3,5” & ISO 19650 worldwide. The RTA team has also set up the first “BIM Center” for training and collaboration in the region.
He has made exceptional efforts to facilitate change within RTA toward a full commitment to digital transformation and adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution concepts. Driving support for the digital twin ecosystem and maturity has also enabled structured asset optimization for complete and reliable oversight and transparency in an accessible, traceable, modifiable, and configurable style.
Over the past five years, his BIM leadership and vision have truly been on display through the Route 2020 project. The new, multi-billion railway extension connects to the world exhibition event Expo 2021 and will serve hundreds of thousands of commuters every day.
This massive project provided the opportunity to take full advantage of BIM and real-time collaboration and coordination processes as well as support the implementation of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. This included digital site inspections performed with AI and scan-to-BIM; federated 3D models supporting successful VR/AR integration with CDE and CMMS; and accessing reliable data via BIM-GIS interoperability and integration into workflows with ArcGIS.
And the results are definitely in the numbers:
18% ROI (Return on Investment)
30% reduction in data exchange efforts
95% clash-free, multi-disciplinary models
30% reduction in decision-making time
40% less time of generating material take-offs
30% decrease in shop drawing submission time
20% reduction in risk and mitigation process
25% improvement in productivity and efficiency during construction sequence
“RTA is a regional benchmark for other entities. It has led to a market and culture change as far as digital transformation phenomena is concerned because we are looking at the full picture of the asset—not just the design, construction, or handover. It’s all about the full lifecycle. At the end of the day, we are the asset owner who will manage it from concept to operations and even disposal. With BIM, we have all the data we will need,” said Mr Mereb.
Over his 15-year career, he has seen the transformative possibilities of BIM as the AEC industry embraces technology. He sees more and more people inquiring about how to use it and take advantage of the success RTA is finding. Looking forward, he anticipates this happening even more quickly during the pandemic.
“COVID is devastating, but it has accelerated digital transformation in AEC,” he stated. “Our team could still work from home and we didn’t have any setbacks. I think many people in the industry were afraid before of using some solutions such as the cloud-based platforms. But, because of the pandemic, many organizations know there isn’t any other choice but to move forward and keep doing their jobs.
“I think in five years we will see more and more adaptation of Fourth Industrial Revolution solutions,” he continued. “We will also see more integration and collaboration between different stakeholders. And I know we can all move toward delivering smarter and more agile transport solutions,” he added.
