How KEO International Improved Design and Structural Value with Cloud-based Collaboration

KEO International (KEO) is a leader in planning, design, engineering, and project management solutions. Their design excellence, high standards, and delivery quality have led to their involvement in many of the world’s most ambitious and iconic projects over the past 50 years. With BIM 360 within Autodesk Construction Cloud™ as their common data environment (CDE), KEO can connect stakeholders across the project lifecycle for successful design coordination and collaboration.

Using Cloud-based Collaboration Tools to Drive Innovation

KEO’s projects include the four-million-square-foot Aykon City Towers complex at the heart of Dubai, and Kuwait’s Business Town Tower in the center of Kuwait City’s Financial District. Their teams are responsible for designing and implementing cutting-edge projects in major cities and involve intensely complex logistics.

Without a CDE and cloud-based collaboration tools, these logistics would be extremely labor-intensive and costly. This includes working across a spectrum of highly varied environments, each requiring unique structural and aesthetic solutions. It also involves an enormous number of stakeholders, each with individual interests, needs, and demands.

“Over the last few years, KEO’s IT Digital Strategy pivoted towards a simple goal – empower our digital worker to be able to securely and effectively collaborate and communicate anytime, anywhere, on any device, within or outside the KEO organisational boundaries. The seamless integration of BIM 360 across multiple tools saves time and enables better communication, accuracy, and efficiency.”

–Damir Jaksic, Chief Information Officer

Connected Construction Workflows Enable Communication Across Projects

BIM 360 provides a CDE, enabling consistent communication around complex design and constructability issues to deliver consistent products. The platform is the thread that holds all contributions together, helping all stakeholders speak a common language within a CDE. On projects the size of KEO’s, the amount of data and files is enormous. Despite that, with BIM 360, users can quickly find the latest version of any design model or drawing.

BIM 360 also improves construction productivity by automating mundane tasks and providing a platform for collaboration. Its AI-driven mitigation and other productivity functions help the KEO team to apply their creativity with greater impact.

“BIM 360 has been especially important in providing a unified platform that promotes integrated, collaborative, connected workflows between architecture, engineering, and construction teams. BIM 360 has allowed us to better collaborate and securely share data with external stakeholders, saving us more than 90% of the time it would normally take to do so in other disconnected platforms.”

–Damir Jaksic, Chief Information Officer

The Next Generation in Cloud-based Collaboration

KEO’s commitment to intelligent innovation means it is continually looking forward to the next project and the next generation of technology and processes to support its projects.

Autodesk’s portfolio of products will continue to form a core part of KEO’s strategy and approach, to connect, convey, and simplify the way they approach design collaboration and coordination, as well as connected construction workflows, as they take on new projects with massive logistical challenges.

For companies that want to embrace forward-thinking technology and improve their ability to deliver on complex projects, Jaksic offers some advice:

“Focus on a task that can provide significant outcomes in a year. Then, in turn, focus on the one process that matters the most, the one most essential to delivery of your customer value proposition. Do it right, and then repeat it.”