Agile Collaboration in Finland with Suomen Aluerakennuttaja And Arttuasunnot

Suomen Aluerakennuttaja (SARA) are experts in providing living space solutions and a pioneer in the construction industry process development in Finland. Working in partnership across the construction supply chain is something they specialise in and often with Arttuasunnot – an experienced and innovative partner for municipalities in project planning, financing, construction, and administrative services. By adopting Autodesk Build and BIM Collaborate Pro within Autodesk Construction Cloud™, the partner teams can consistently document, track, and share data to drive successful project outcomes.

Lean Methodology

As two innovative services businesses, SARA and Arttuasunnot are constantly looking for ways to improve outcomes for their stakeholders. Both companies have established working practices based on lean methodologies. They adopt an agile approach working in ‘sprints’ – an approach they learned from the IT industry. Mauno Lounakoski, VDC Manager for SARA reflects: “On projects, we deliver designs and hold meetings on a weekly rotation over the traditional monthly schedule.”

Connecting a Fragmented Supply Chain

For SARA, working as a client representative means they must bring together many project players from a fragmented construction eco-system to collaborate in real-time. They recognised that to collaborate effectively, data needed to be reclaimed and shared. The company’s previous processes of managing data manually across spreadsheets, local network drives and physical folders was no longer scalable for their business needs and hindered true collaboration with partners like Arttuasunnot. Without a central repository for project information, key data like photos and documents were stored on individual computers, making it difficult for collaborators to easily share and access information. By developing an efficient, digital operating model using Autodesk Construction Cloud software, SARA rehauled their practices in favour of digital workflows. Connecting Autodesk’s end-to-end construction offering, the team invested and connected a variety of integrations. From Revit for architectural drawings, BIM Collaborate Pro for pre-engineering to Autodesk Build for construction and asset management, the partner companies soon realised that while technology offers the tool, it is people who really are the most important to the success of using these solutions.

An End-To-End Solution

Both teams recognised that Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a key enabler and facilitator to deliver projects more efficiently, but it is not the technology that holds value, it is how people use it.
 

“Autodesk has the best software ecosystem for the project lifecycle in the marketplace by a mile, their tools are scalable and interoperable compared to any other product out there. But we still had to bring our project stakeholders along the same journey we had been through so that they too, can understand our vision.”

Tino Nurmi
CEO

Autodesk’s Construction Cloud was an intuitive and easy to use solution for the construction field teams. Architect, Juri Pelkonen says: “For Arttuasunnot, in our construction management role, this oversight is invaluable. Enabling broad access to information and yet setting permission levels on certain documents means we can optimise access to project data,” says Juri.

“The flexibility of the Autodesk Construction Cloud platform allows us to adopt our own processes and manage every project with the same principles and governance across the board. This helps us diversify our offering.”

Mauno Lounakoski
VDC Manager

Both SARA and Arttuasunnot can create alignment across their supply chain teams and connect construction processes. “Being able to work from the latest revision of drawings and information means everybody is on the same page. It makes things a lot more streamlined,” reflects Mauno. And, for Tino, ensuring his workforce has diversity in their roles and the opportunity to learn is key. “Autodesk’s Construction Cloud has opened data for our people – tools traditionally used by designers like BIM Collaborate Pro are now accessible to our project management team. They’re easy to understand and we co-locate our project team members so not only can they collaborate on projects more seamlessly, but they can learn from each other across disciplines with technology,” shares Tino.

The Future of Finland Construction is Rooted in Tech

Autodesk’s Construction Cloud has immensely simplified collaboration between stakeholders. And when it comes to business forecasting, having a simple environment to create and amend bids is critical given the current economic client. “The price of materials has grown sharply over the last year and we’re finding now that bids we estimated as little as six months ago have increased significantly, “ says Tino.

“The solution continually gives us the chance to improve our processes through ever-evolving functionality. Time consuming tasks are now more efficient– design mark-ups, for example, are so much easier. We add comments straight onto the design via the platform. There are so many efficiency gains in working this way and so far, we’re only using a fraction of the functionality available.”

Juri Pelkonen
Architect

Unifying data on smaller projects and scaling out is a focus area for the future. SARA and Arttuasunnot both have their sights set on better design management processes. “I want to make sure that everyone has access to the documents they need when they get to site. Autodesk’s Construction Cloud helps us better coordinate all that information with the many consultants involved, and drives more proficient teamwork on our projects,” says Mauno.

“Attracting the right talent into the industry and our company is crucial if we are to ensure BIM is here to stay.”

Tino Nurmi
CEO
 

And for Tino, ensuring both companies are staying aligned to the latest industry advancements means they can attract the best calibre of talent.