Our annual 2011 Managers Day and User Workshop once again proved to be a huge success with more than 100 people attending over the two days with people travelling from all corners of the UK and Ireland as well as Austria, Belgium and Barbados.
Yes Barbados, so a special mention to Nigel Reece from Preconco who travelled more than 7000km just to attend the two day event.
The Managers Day started with an introduction to the day by Andrew Bellerby followed by the launch of the Tekla UK Model Competition by Emily Brown and an overview of Tekla BIMsight by Michael Evans. The keynote speech was delivered by David Philp, Director of Technical Services at Balfour Beatty and also responsible for the Group’s BIM (Building Information Modelling) strategy which they started developing 6 years ago, interestingly enough there was only a couple of other companies in the room that had their own BIM strategy, something that I’m sure will start to change in the near future as the Government starts to mandate the use of BIM on public projects. David’s talk was an informative overview of a main contractor’s view of BIM and their expectations from the supply chain and gave an indication of what they will be doing in the coming years and was extremely well received by a captivated audience. Complimenting David’s presentation David Evans and Steve Jackson of Tekla demonstrated how Tekla Structures can be used to model the process and also manage the process. Following the theme our second guest speaker, Kris Bogaerts of Trimble introduced the new Trimble Fieldlink solution and explained the benefits as well as integration with Tekla software. Dave Mitchell of DM-BIM Consulting then explained how he had been able to develop his business by offering bespoke services to companies implementing BIM using Tekla Structures as the development tool for a diverse range of companies supplying decking, transmission towers, formwork and metal framing solutions.
After lunch the focus was more on Tekla and some of the current hot topics, Michael Evans from Tekla HQ explained Interoperability and OpenBIM and how models can be transferred successfully as long as there is an understanding how different software’s work and interact and that there is rarely a solution where one button press will successfully transfer all information, but there are tools to help manage the process. He gave two examples referring to interoperability with Revit and with CSC Fastrak. Roger Butterworth our Customer Support Manager then explained the new training initiatives we have implemented and also gave a live demonstration of the ongoing work we have been doing with drawing presentations, both topics were well received on the day and were covered in more detail the following day. The audience were reminded that training and upskilling should be seen as an investment, not a cost and the fact that you will get a return on that investment when utilising the development work done. Paul Bettany then ran through the significant development work done in Tekla Structures 17 and also discussed the long term developments and investment in the software architecture to ensure we take advantage of new and emerging technologies.
Later in the afternoon there was a fun Quiz hosted by Julie Maw and Jill Willoughby focusing on the day’s presentations. First and Second Proze went to Paul Riley and Alan Pottage of Severfield Reeve who both received training vouchers. This year we introduced a “Speed Dating” event with our six Partner companies present with all participants spending 10 minutes at each Partner table. We would like to thank Asta, Cereno, CSC, Fabtrol, Ficep, Korec, Survey Solutions and Trimble for their contributions.
The day finished with time for networking, always a popular part of the day and later a buffet and drinks for those staying overnight.
The following day was for Users of the software and was far more technical going into depth for a number of topics. We have recognised for a number of years that many customers to do not adopt new development, or stick with what they know. They don’t use the information sources available to them and often don’t read important communication and so are missing out on many productivity increases, something no company can afford to do in today’s market. So the focus of the User Day was about educating people about the work done development wise from Tekla HQ and also by Tekla UK and what is available on the Tekla Extranet and the topics covered in our regular monthly webinars. The whole of Rogers team were involved in the day with Roger covering the drawing developments, Steve W. Jones and Nick Collinson covering BIM and Interoperability and Matthew Ayrton discussing Tekla Structures 17 and how to get the most from the Tekla Extranet. Roger finished the day with reminding everybody about the importance of continual learning and how we try to help you with that .... an important topic which is too often ignored!
Overall a fantastic two days, well received by everybody and we look forward to next year’s event which will be held on 23rd and 24th May. I’d like to thank the team for all the hard work and effort that goes into planning, organising and hosting this event as well as the speakers and partner companies. We’ve told you in plenty of time the dates for 2012 so that you can add to your diaries now and so there will be no problems with planning your workload around that time, and with people travelling from all around the globe to attend this year there is really no excuse not to attend because of the distance you have to travel. Can you afford not to attend?
Register your interest in future Tekla events and we'll keep you posted!