To stimulate the economic development of Kunming City and the surrounding region, Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation (YYECC) was charged to create a rapid transportation system in the city’s southeastern section. Part of a larger urban revitalization project worth RMB 90 billion, this RMB 9.914 billion project included a total construction mileage of 65.48 kilometers, consisting of roads, bridges, tunnels, and urban underground pipe corridors. As the BIM management organization, YYECC was responsible for coordinating industrialized and automated processes for data transfer and sharing through a connected data environment leveraging Bentley’s ProjectWise.

Leveraging a CDE based on the collaboration and management capabilities of ProjectWise, combined with the engineering and design capabilities of other Bentley applications, YYECC developed a comprehensive and owner-supported BIM methodology. The process was designed to ensure that information was shared, but it also established the digital DNA required for future decision making by the owner-operator. Because this project will run for 20 years, and include more than 25 different participating organizations, a robust BIM process that is supported by enabling technology is paramount to success.

Kunming City 3D model Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation’s digital twin of Kunming City covers 90 percent of a 20-square-kilometer project region, Image courtesy of Yunnan Yunling Engineering

• Industry: Digital Cities
• Product: ProjectWise, LumenRT, MicroStation, Navigator, OpenBuildings Designer, OpenBridge Modeler, OpenRoads, ProjectWise, ProStructures
• User: Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation Co., Ltd. 
• Country: China

LumenRT’s visualization capabilities enhanced the appearance of the model and allowed the team to share simulations with the executors and directors of the project so that they could better understand the progress of construction. The process improved visualization efficiency by 70 percent.

Additionally, YYECC organized and supported the creation of a sophisticated digital twin model of the project, covering the entire 20-square-kilometer project area. This process resulted in a 90 percent coverage of the entire project area, with 3,650 design and test drawings, plus management of process standards, cost information, and project supervision data numbering in the hundreds of copies. 

Kunming City Interchange Virtual Model Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation leverages BIM methodologies to improve information quality by 30 percent, Image courtesy of Yunnan Yunling Engineering

Through its robust use of BIM methodologies to industrialize the project execution and delivery, YYECC has achieved significant ROI. Where in previous projects, four full-time employees were required for managing approvals of cost submittals, only one person is now required to accomplish the same scope. Additional benefits included reducing the review and approval process from one week to one hour, lowering the deficiency of acquired early-stage materials by 40 percent, improving information quality on site by over 30 percent, enhancing design efficiency by 25 percent, and reducing design drawing errors by 60 percent. These tremendous benefits were recognized by the government as well, which has issued numerous citations to the project and has introduced a new directive to other projects in the region to adopt similar BIM methodology and technologies.

Evaluation of Kunming City Virtual Model w/note: Digital Twins enable evaluating impact on citizens and environments to optimize planning, materials, and construction impact, Image courtesy of Yunnan Yunling Engineering

YYECC already sees benefits of their industrialized project delivery. By creating a robust CDE, YYECC says that the digital twin model will serve as the basis for not only better construction projects, but also a key factor for improving digital urban management for future generations in Kunming City.

Chao Li, deputy director, Yunnan Yunling Engineering Cost Consultation, said, “Bentley’s ProjectWise decreased the time it took to approve materials used on the project by 40 percent, and giving the project team the ability to access information in the field improved information integrity by 30 percent.”