Tekla (UK) Ltd. recently held their annual Managers Day at the Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield, attended by Managers and Directors from our customer base all around the UK and Ireland. The theme 'preparing for the upturn', gave an insight into Tekla's ongoing development and a fascinating mix of case studies from customers and demonstrations of interoperability with software and hardware from partner companies.
An introduction by Andrew Bellerby, Managing Director at Tekla (UK) Ltd. provided an overview of Tekla’s financial performance during 2009, a reminder of Tekla’s strategy and positioning with Tekla Structures. Emphasis was placed on the presenters and theme for the day, suggesting that our customers should make full use of the powerful tool they have invested in and how we would help to demonstrate this.
Jonathan Lock and Duncan Sharpe from Arup gave an overview of the Qatar Museum project and the complexities of what is surely one of the most challenging projects they have ever worked on. The project is akin to a series of discs colliding at different angles, resulting in an excess of 1000 General Arrangement drawings. Jonathan emphasised the effort Arup have put in to setting up the drawings and settings within Tekla Structures to match their company CAD standards, enabling all output to come directly from the model. Duncan discussed how the Structural and MEP teams share information and collaborate between Tekla Structures and CADduct to ensure the benefits of design co-ordination are 
maximised at the modelling stage.
Jonathan concluded, "I don’t believe the Qatar Museum could be handled by any other software as well as it has by Tekla Structures. At Arup we have started to involve the manufacturing supply chain into the design much earlier in the process with a view to creating constructible models that can be passed on to the steelwork contractor", an initiative that was welcomed by the audience.
Kevin Lea, BIM Business Development Manager from CSC gave an overview of their portfolio of complimentary products and explained how CSC and Tekla have been working closely together to develop a bi-directional link between CSC Fastrak and Tekla Structures. This was followed by a live demonstration of the link showing two different workflows, firstly when the engineer builds his model in Fastrak and then passes it to Tekla Structures and secondly where the model is started in Tekla Structures, passed to Fastrak for analysis and design and then the results passed back to update the Tekla model and associated drawings. Kevin also talked about future collaboration opportunities and how the two companies intend to improve links further.
Tim Burton, Sales & Marketing Manager at SH Structures a company renowned for specialised and complex structures, spoke about a number of current and past projects. We learnt how SH Structures gets involved early in the project to advise the design team of materials, connection details and fabrication methods and often build part models of different scenario’s to help the design team better understand and visualise the project. An example of innovative use of Tekla Structures by SH Structures uses the model to give precise lifting data for large and awkward assemblies, where the drawing office team will often model crane positions and even exact chain lengths to ensure safe lifting first time on site.
Andy Toal, North Europe Business Manager for Motion Computing talked about their range of equipment and the evolution of tablet PC’s explaining how they are becoming a common piece of equipment on construction sites, especially in the USA and Scandinavia. "They enable data capture from the field to be fed back into the Building Information Model for visualisation and progress monitoring."
Read a case study demonstrating the technology in action on the Motion Computing website
Charles Wilby gave an overview of the range of products offered by Nemetschek SCIA and the development work done utilising Tekla’s API (Application Programming Interface) and Tekla Structures. This was followed by a live demonstration by Stefan Belmans who had flown in from Belgium that morning to show the link. Again two different workflows were shown with the model being started in both SCIA Engineer and in Tekla Structures.
Paul Bettany gave an overview of Tekla UK’s market for steel and engineering and also introduced the members of the sales team looking after those business segments. He was assisted by Simon Hobson who gave a live demonstration of some of the recent developments in Tekla Structures by partner companies and by Tekla. Simon showed the links for Light Metal Framing between Tekla Structures and the Howick machinery and also the link to the FrameMaster machines via the FrameCad software. He also gave an update on the links to Leigh’s Paints FIRETEX software which we are now actively training our user base on and a demonstration of the BeamClamp products available in Version 16.
Mark Jones, Managing Director at Ficep (UK) Ltd. showcased their latest equipment, the new Gemini range which will be on show at their new premises at Wakefield Europort. Mark also talked about other new equipment for lifting and turning steelwork and Ficep’s solution for shotblasting and material handling. This was followed up by a case study by Mark and Mick Hodgson, Technical Manager from Tekla HQ about the fantastic “Exposure” statue being manufactured and constructed by Had-Fab Ltd. and the integration between the Tekla model, the Steel Projects software and Ficep machinery.
Read more about the Had-Fab, Exposure project
Andrew Bellerby covered the issue of software piracy, a matter taken very seriously by Tekla. The responsibility was pointed out to all of our existing customers to ensure all projects they work on are completed using legal licences and the consequences should they not. Tekla often rely on our customers to provide us with names of illegal users. This was backed up by a customer who has seen his business affected by the use of illegal software in his locality and the fact that people are competing for his work with an unfair advantage.
David Evans and Steve Jackson of Tekla UK discussed how Tekla’s growing precast market is looking to work closer with the steelwork contractors they participate in projects with and the benefits that can bring in terms of ensuring the precast parts fit on the steel frame first time. They also showed how the precast models can feed to machinery in much the same way that steelwork models do.
Robert Hicks of Lutrijem talked about his new venture as a BIM Consultant to the construction industry and his experiences as BIM has evolved with many lessons learned from the manufacturing industry. Rob explained that many of the BIM processes had been discussed many years ago and that the industry is moving much slower towards BIM than had been expected. He then showed a few of the models he has been working on and how he has been applying 4D information to his models and the benefits that can bring.
Dave Evans and Steve Jackson gave a second presentation discussing how Main Contractors can benefit from using the Tekla model on site and some of the tools that are available to them in Tekla's Construction Management module. A demonstration of the software showed how the Tekla model can become a repository for data collected from various different sources and used as a tool for visually interrogating that information and the status of parts. Dave also showcased some case studies from overseas where BIM use in the field appears to be ahead of the UK construction industry.
The final presentation of the day was by Kris Bogaerts. Kris gave an interesting insight into Trimble’s layout and surveying equipment as well as new solutions for cloud surveys. He also spoke about the benefits of linking the construction site back to the office so they are also working with real information from the field. Tekla and Trimble have developed an application that takes information from the Tekla model into Trimble’s robotic stations.
Andrew Bellerby thanked the customers and partners for attending on what had been an informative and interesting day all round and hoped to have given the audience food for thought. Unfortunately those that could not attend missed the opportunity to see how they can improve their processes and make the most of their investment. Next year we aim to consolidate both the Managers Day and the Technical User Workshop into an event which is beneficial to all, to be held on the 11th and 12th May 2011.