Our ambition is to multiply your potential

In addition to ongoing product development, the last two years have been busy at Tekla due to intense brand crystallization.

“We want to better serve the potential that we know underlies our customer industries. For this we need to crystallize the Tekla brand in a manner that is understood and communicated consistently throughout the whole organization,” says Risto Räty, executive vice president of Tekla and one of the management representatives behind the initiative (back row, second from right). “In this way it will be easier for our customers and other audiences too, to understand what we really offer with our software.”

“I think we should emphasize more the connection between the Tekla brand and everything we do,” noted a member of Tekla Sweden staff during an internal brand event.

“We’ve studied the market criteria, and Teklans from all over the world have gathered together to think about what we really mean to our customers, the industry, and eventually, to the world,” says marketing director Päivi Puntila of Tekla (above photo, back row, first on the right) . “What is clear to everybody at Tekla is that our customers are the real heroes in this business, and we are proud to develop the kind of software that enables them to reach their full potential in efficiently building and managing the kind of incredible buildings and infrastructure that makes our living environment so much better every day.”

At the moment the most visible result of Tekla’s brand crystallization is the new corporate tagline, Potential³ (read: potential cubed or potential to the power of three), that captures the promise above. You will soon see it with some renewed images in all of our communication. Read more about Tekla brand crystallization

Time to step out of the dark ages, says Charlie

Tekla India Seminar Series 2010 "Structural BIM Application - Upstream to Downstream Process"

Tekla develops software solutions, products and services for customers’ core business processes in building & construction. The company’s model-based software products are used in nearly 100 countries.

          

Tekla India Pvt Ltd organized a seminar series from 24th Sept to 30th Sept, in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore & Chennai. The seminar was titled “Structural BIM Application – Upstream to Downstream Process”. The seminars witnessed participation of more than 400 industry delegates covering EPC houses, Architects, Structural engineers, Project Owners & Contractors

Addressing the Participants Andre Corniere – Director, Tekla India Pvt. Ltd. Presented an overview of the business in India and globally. He welcomed technical speakers from Tekla Headquarters, Mr. Michael Evans – Technical Manager – BIM solution, & Mr. Mick Hodgson, Technical Manager – Steel Solutions. Both of them gather appreciation for their live presentation on Tekla structure utility in any engineering project. Read More about Tekla India Seminar Series 2010

Hot BIM revelations at Shanghai World Expo

As Tekla hosted an international delegation of AEC industry and education representatives to a special experience in the Finland Pavilion, Ken Shawler, Asia Pacific sales manager of Trimble Building and Construction, an important partner of Tekla in bringing BIM to the field, visited the Shanghai World Expo on August 18.

“It was a chore to keep cool in the Shanghai steam; it was pretty hot there!” Ken noted. “However, it’s always exciting to see the realization of a unique and sustainable building design become reality. This type of design, its construction, and the people involved will influence the shape of our industry for years to come. It was a pleasure to participate in this event and meet these industry professionals.”
      
And speaking of hot, and BIM, Pekka Haanpää from Finland Pavilion’s construction company Lemminkäinen and Tekla representative Stacy Scopano explained enthusiastically how the Finland Pavilion Kirnu was bimfully ‘designed to deconstruct’ from the very beginning.
 
“The result of the model-based collaboration between construction disciplines was that the project was delivered on time with minimum inventory, materials and site storage, all this despite the late start due to the unanticipated complexity of design selection and design changes due to fabrication limitations” summed up Stacy.
               
”This audience was one of the most interested I’ve seen come through during the Expo,” marveled pavilion director Annikka Alanko, who represented project owner Finpro.

Read more about Tekla VIP event at Shanghai Expo 

Hurry up to Shanghai to see as many as 13 Tekla reference structures still up before the Expo closes at the end of October!

Autodesk and Tekla collaborate to enable better BIM workflow

Autodesk and Tekla work together to deliver a smoother exchange of building information across the disciplines in the building and construction industry by providing data compatibility across their respective products.

Tekla and Autodesk work together to enable better compatibility between Tekla and Autodesk's respective building information modeling (BIM) software platforms. As a first step, the companies have collaborated to introduce new features that allow for the exchange of structural data between Revit and Tekla software. These features ensure that the integrity of structural BIM data is maintained from design to fabrication. The benefit will be a more consistent flow of information and BIM being easier to implement across the AEC industry.

"There is an increasing demand for interoperability between our software," says Tekla Executive Vice President Risto Räty. "BIM is penetrating the industry more and more widely. Tekla and Autodesk both provide powerful applications for BIM; Tekla's strength lies in providing BIM solutions for detailing, fabrication and construction. By enhancing interoperability between these products we can create more value for our AEC customers throughout the process, improve their way of working, and thus ultimately improve the overall quality and efficiency of design and construction."

"This collaboration with Tekla is part of Autodesk's commitment to provide technology that improves productivity and efficiency across the AEC industry," said Nicolas Mangon, Director of Building Industry at Autodesk. "We look forward to improving interoperability between Autodesk design and analysis solutions with Tekla and together help customers more easily design and build the world's built environment." Read More About Autodesk and Tekla collaboration

Local winners line up for the Global BIM Awards

Yes, it’s that time of the year again: most of the local Tekla model competitions have been held and the local winners are being lined up and reviewed for the Tekla Global BIM Awards 2010. Stay tuned for more information and a public vote on the Tekla Website in November!

“Tekla users are able to manage details of design, fabrication, and construction in a way that shows the whole field of building and construction what is possible to achieve by BIM," said member of the jury Professor Chuck Eastman last year. He has promised to act as a judge for Tekla again this year. Other members of the jury will include Bjørn K. Stangeland, the vice-CEO of buildingSMART organization, and Viktor Várkonyi, CEO of Graphisoft.

The Tekla Global BIM Awards competition was first held at the end of 2009. Entries to the competition are the winners of the regional competitions held by Tekla area offices and resellers during the year. The competition is a way to express Tekla's appreciation to our customers by sharing their success stories worldwide. Showcasing their models celebrates the versatility of Tekla Structures software and demonstrates how its use affects the landscapes around the world. Stay tuned for more information and a public vote on the Tekla Website in November!

See 2010 winners of:
. Tekla India Model Competition
• Tekla North America BIM Awards
• Tekla UK Model Competition
• Tekla Finland Model Competition
• Tekla Germany Model Competition
• Cadex SA BIM Competition
• Tekla Structures Australasian Model Competition

See 2009 Tekla Global BIM Award winners in a flash book

Customer survey: using Tekla Structures increases quality of work

The Tekla Building & Construction customer satisfaction survey was conducted in June 2010 – many thanks to those of you who participated and gave feedback! The results are based on the responses of 1,902 respondents evaluating Tekla B&C’s product and services. The response rate was 11%.

“Compared to previous years, we wanted to make this year’s survey lighter and easier to answer, and to include more focused questions that will better help us develop our services,” explains product program manager at Tekla, Kati Huhtala. “We asked from both Tekla Structures users and customer companies' decision makers about their satisfaction with Tekla: communication with Tekla, business benefits gained from the use of Tekla software, and functionality of our communication channels, among other things.”

“We were pleased to find that the overall satisfaction with Tekla is good: 60.2% of the respondents are somewhat satisfied and 29.5% are very satisfied,” Kati continues. “When evaluating satisfaction towards communication channels, face-to-face meetings and consultations get the highest ratings. The second highest rating goes to events and the third to training. The most used channel, technical support, is fourth in order with the rating.”

“The business benefit that the respondents are most satisfied with is the increase of the quality of work. They also feel that Tekla Structures helps to save time and improve company processes. Customers on maintenance are clearly more satisfied with Tekla than customers not on maintenance in all aspects of customer satisfaction,” Kati points out.

“Generally the respondents thought that the pace of receiving information from or about Tekla is appropriate; however, the content could be more detailed. Many respondents said they would like to get more information about product updates and hints and tips about software usage. Also our Extranet as a service channel did not get as high a rate as we would have hoped. These are some of the things Tekla B&C will pay more attention to during next year.”

“We are happy to have received so many open comments; the results of the survey will be distributed to Tekla HQ, area offices and resellers during October so that they can start local result analysis, action planning, and customer contacts based on this valuable feedback,” Kati concludes.

Betatester James looks forward to the steel and concrete potential in Tekla Structures 17

Tekla Structures in Practice: Solaris, Pinnacle, Flexicore, Strängbetong, and Sorbonne UAE

Tekla Structures users have again excelled in numerous ways around the world. You can always find the latest success stories of our customers under References on the Tekla Websites.

“The fact that SCI, the structural engineer, and Dowco, the steel detailer, both used Tekla Structures allowed for solutions to come later in the process than ever before while still allowing for an extremely aggressive shop drawing production, review, and fabrication schedule," says Brian J. Patty, of Davis Partnership Architects about the Solaris redevelopment project in Vail, Colorado. "Standard 2D drawings couldn’t have produced the same building in the same time frame without much rework based on in-field realizations. Personally I wouldn’t hesitate to work with a structural engineer using Tekla, as I saw great benefit from its use.” Read about satisfying both architect and construction team in Colorado

“One of the most satisfying aspects of Tekla Structures is the usability and the speed with which our technicians go from basic understanding to proficient user within a couple of weeks,” says Jon Lock from Arup’s Building Engineering London Group 4. “Within months they are excelling with the software and really starting to push the boundaries of what we thought was possible with BIM solutions.” Read about the Pinnacle of structural design in London

“There’s no room for mistakes as profit margins are small and competition is stiff in today’s environment. It just makes sense to adopt tools and techniques that can improve the way we communicate, collaborate, and construct. With BIM, we can dramatically reduce any chance of mistake or confusion and build more clarity into the entire process,” says Karen Laptas, chief engineer with Pittsburgh Flexicore. “New technologies such as BIM are reshaping and redefining our industry. Adopted correctly, these technologies have the ability to help us complete tasks faster, for less money, and with greater quality.” Read how concrete manufacturer realizes immediate value by transition to BIM in Pittsburgh

”At first we struggled with easy projects, now we excel in really difficult ones,” says Tobias Svenberg, development engineer at Strängbetong, Sweden. ”Companies often have unrealistic expectations in how to adapt BIM into their processes. Many designers are experts in using AutoCAD and expect to work at the same pace with Tekla Structures from the first time they use it. However, they need to realize that implementing building information modeling as a process – it does not mean just creating models – will take time and dedication. We had two development resources working full time for two entire years in order to get where we are today. There is plenty of work in integrating company standards, design guidelines, connections, drawings and materials to the software environment, and plenty of company-specific software development is needed – still, the end result truly compensates for all the hard work!” Read more about implementing BIM to precast concrete fabrication in Sweden

“Coordination between us, the main contractor, and the steel and façade subcontractors was a challenge that we overcame with the help of Tekla software,” says Ron Brinkman, technical manager at Murray and Roberts Contractors. “Changes to the as-built models from the design were communicated to the subcontractors to accommodate them into the steel and GRC fabrication process. By doing this we avoided further conflicts and potential delays on site and sped up the installation process. We used Trimble surveying devices to get the as-built coordinates, which were superimposed on the Tekla model to validate them against the theoretical exact locations of the components as per the design.” Read more about managing by modeling in the Sorbonne University project in UAE

Visualize and follow steel fabrication in color 4D!

Along with the latest integration of Tekla Structures and ConstruSteel ERP software, the whole fabrication process of a steel structure can be managed more efficiently than before. The 3D model can now be used to visualize the status information of, for example, stock, orders, production, transport, and quality checks in different colors. Read more about how Tekla and ConstruSteel integration helps manage steel fabrication process