Dear reader,
 The second year of Tekla Structures News will soon be concluded. We’d like to express our warmest thanks for your attention and cooperation this year and wish you the best of success during the next. There’ll be four more issues sent to you in 2009:
one for each season in March, June, October and December.


President and CEO of Tekla CorporationThank you for working with Tekla for another productive year. At Tekla we believe the longer-term outlook in the industry to be good, despite the general economic uncertainty that prevails. With the continuous development of Tekla Structures software we hope to provide you with the competitive advantage that will allow you to enhance your business.

To us it is clear that BIM is still gaining momentum around the world and that the demand for modeling systems is increasing. The move from traditional 2D ways of working to model-based 3D processes will continue, while the building industry keeps looking for tools to make their operations more efficient, which is exactly what Tekla software does. Product modeling is strengthening its foothold in structural design and other stages of the building process, such as construction. One of our main achievements this year was the launch of Tekla Structures for construction management in early November.

There are Tekla Structures users on all continents. In fact, we have clients in more than 80 countries and our sales this year have developed favorably in most of them. Despite the more challenging economic environment, at Tekla we are fully committed to continuing to deliver new features and functionality to our clients every year.

I am happy to conclude this year by thanking you for the terrific Tekla Structures references worldwide and wishing you every success in 2009.

Ari Kohonen
President and CEO, Tekla Corporation
Dubai constructionTekla attended this year’s Big 5 show from 23 November to 27 November. The Big 5 represents the most important and comprehensive five days for the construction industry in the Middle East. It is a unique event featuring 3,200 companies from 53 countries.
Despite the downturn in the world economic situation, construction in Dubai is going strong. The Big 5 was attended by a record number of visitors and exhibitors: more than 50,000 key buyers and decision-makers from the public and private sectors, including architects, engineers, contractors and distributors throughout the GCC countries.

Tekla at Big 5 2008Tekla’s 21-square-meter stand introduced the Elite solution for precasters by Tekla and Elematic. Big 5 is a must for all companies who want to compete for the multi-billion-dollar contracts that are being built on the Persian Gulf. The latest Tekla references include shield-like metro stations.

For the first time in the Gulf region, this year’s main theme was sustainable development with green building principles. Before the show, 27 companies received a Gaia environmental commendation and one company was awarded a gold medal. Another green focus during the show was the Technical Conference, where regional and international experts presented practical project case studies on energy-efficient green building solutions and environmentally friendly technologies as well as UAE green building compliance requirements and rating schemes.

In 2002, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, a company known for its experience and achievements in many plant construction projects both in Japan and abroad, introduced Tekla Structures software to achieve a higher level of efficiency in work processes from design to fabrication.The Telenor Arena in Fornebu, Norway, represents one of Contiga's most recent successes. 
 Power plant structural model
Particularly with plant construction projects in Japan, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has been striving to improve the efficiency of the design and fabrication processes in cooperation with steel frame fabricators. In 2006, MHI concluded a contract on participating in a coal-fired power plant construction project in the Republic of Chile, South America, in which EDYCE, the largest steel frame fabricator in Chile, was to supply the steel frames. The two companies are successfully conducting this cross-national plant construction project by making use of Tekla Structures. Read more

Telenor Arena structural modelNorway-based Contiga, one of the leading suppliers of prefabricated concrete and steel solutions in Scandinavia is, in their own words, “a girder in the construction industry”. The company has used Tekla Structures software since 1999 in order to offer their customers efficient design and detailing of both precast concrete and steel structures. Telenor Arena in Fornebu, Norway, represents one of their most recent successes. Read more

Last summer we published an interactive tutorial package for those who are self-studying on how to use Tekla Structures. The First Steps with Tekla Structures tutorials have turned out to be very popular indeed and are thus now available in eight new languages: Finnish, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Chinese.

The First Steps interactive tutorials are demonstrations on basic topics only. Their objective is to get new and infrequent users easily started with Tekla Structures. The first tutorial is an overall look at the software. It is followed by more modular topics, such as creating and modifying a grid. Click to see the tutorials in different languages at Tekla website
According to a survey conducted last year, Tekla customers want the extranet to offer a better organized discussion forum, more material to download, a good knowledge database, and a better and faster way to search for information. Well you may rest assured; the new and improved Tekla extranet is well on the way and scheduled for launch during the first quarter of 2009.

 New Tekla extranet structureAt Tekla, we consider our extranet to be the primary and most efficient distribution and communication channel for Web-based support and added value for our customers. The new extranet will be easier to manage with user access centralized into a CRM system.

We are currently in the process of developing a deeper integration with our public website to introduce My Tekla account login at Tekla home page in January 2009. If you are a maintenance customer, by creating a My Tekla account, you will obtain a user ID and password that you can later use for logging in to the new extranet too.

The new extranet contents will be structured in a more logical way than before. An improved Discussion forum is being implemented, and there will be more updated links to industry news, events, and expert blogs. The lists of downloadable documents will be more illustrative than before. In addition to English, the new extranet will be available in French, German, Japanese and Chinese. All customers have access to content on every language.
Cad has realized what fun 3D modeling is and how much more productive he can be by using the most advanced solutions. Through accurate estimation and visualization, he has won lots of new projects and is now hooked on finding out how his detailed models can benefit integration with fabrication, site management and project follow-up. Will he ever be able to stop modeling?

Cad and Bim hooked on modeling