Boustead Projects cuts rework by 20% and saves months on handovers with Autodesk Forma
Boustead Projects has spent the last four years evolving its project delivery through a deep partnership with Autodesk, which has created a significant competitive edge for the business. The company moved to Autodesk Forma when it saw that collaboration and data continuity would be key to scaling its industrial and commercial projects, with the move delivering massive productivity gains. Boustead Projects has demonstrated how cloud technology can transform even the most complex builds, reducing clashes by 60%; cutting rework by 20%; saving months on handovers; and improving overall project efficiency by 30%.
Boustead Projects is a Singapore-based real-estate developer with branches across Asia-Pacific. Delivering engineering expertise in the creation of smart and sustainable business parks and industrial developments, the firm has built more than 3.7 million square metres of real estate in countries like Singapore, China, Malaysia, and Vietnam over the past 20 years. Known for its progressive and open approach, Boustead Projects makes sure all its developments are anchored to robust quality, environmental, health, and safety management systems.
The evolution of a successful collaboration
Boustead Projects began exploring Autodesk Construction Cloud (Now known as Autodesk Forma) in 2021 when a large semiconductor facility in eastern Singapore came to them asking for a more transparent way to manage reviews and approvals.
“Our move to Autodesk Forma was never about adopting technology for its own sake. It was about solving real-world problems, accelerating approvals, reducing rework and giving our teams and clients a single source of truth,” explains Muhammad Khalil Shaiful Bahari, Senior Vice President in Boustead Projects’ Group Technology Office. “The results speak for themselves, and they have fundamentally changed how we deliver projects.”
The project team had been using design products like Revit for years, but the complexity of the semiconductor project demanded cloud-based collaboration and a single source of truth. Within months of starting to use Autodesk Forma, Boustead Projects’ signed a multi-year enterprise agreement, bringing Autodesk Forma to its design, build, and handover workflows.
Working with clients at the semiconductor facility, the Boustead Projects’ team saw positive impact across all stakeholders, most notably through Autodesk Forma’s request for information (RFI) and issue-management features, which sped up some approvals from five to one day or even just a few hours. The platform’s Bridge tool allowed information to move seamlessly from design to construction and operations, meaning the facility’s team could validate equipment data and maintenance manuals in near real-time.
“Digital delivery is not just about deploying technology; it is about the trust we cultivate,” notes Sri Rahayu, Digital Delivery Manager in Boustead Projects’ Group Technology Office. “When we connect people, data, and purpose across projects, we don't simply build faster or smarter, we build confidence, resilience, and a legacy that lasts long after the concrete has set.”
Democratising technology for better project outcomes
The semiconductor facility project demonstrated that cloud collaboration succeeds when it prioritizes the needs of the team as much as the effectiveness of the technology.
To simplify 3D model navigation for field teams, Pavithra Muthu, Senior Digital Delivery Specialist in Boustead Projects’ Group Technology Office, ran on-site workshops using the BIM (building information modelling) model to walk workers through complex assemblies and installation sequences. “As a Digital Delivery Specialist, Autodesk Forma lets me turn complex coordination challenges into clear, actionable workflows,” says Pavithra. “Instead of chasing files and fragmented information, our models, data, and teams come together in one connected environment to make decisions faster and improve collaboration across disciplines.”
To complement this, Rahayu leveraged Autodesk Forma templates to enable standardisation in data input across the project, so data was captured in a consistent, structured manner. By setting up these templates, Rahayu reduced variability, improved data quality and created a reliable single source of truth within the platform. This standardised data also allowed the team to take advantage of dashboards to provide quick overviews of key project statistics that help them make faster, more confident, data-driven decisions, directly impacting the performance of the project.
Khalil adds that democratising technology was a deliberate priority for Boustead Projects and their client. “We emphasized that Autodesk Forma wasn’t just for the BIM team, it was for the whole team,” he says. The Group Technology Office ran workshops, shared technical know-how, and integrated Autodesk Forma with third-party tools so project managers, subcontractors, and the client team could participate. The technology’s ability to visualize insights and flag bottlenecks allowed the team to see who was holding up approvals or not uploading files as well as provide additional support to maintain project velocity.
Effective change management
Boustead Projects’ leadership credits much of the success to Autodesk’s ongoing support of the team. Khalil meets monthly with a dedicated customer success manager to help him and his team stay on top of adoption, user behaviour, and feature optimisation. “Change management isn’t glamorous, but it’s critical,” Khalil admits. “Autodesk’s close partnership including monthly reviews, tailored onboarding, and continuous upskilling has helped us drive adoption in a meaningful way and ensured our investment translates into real, lasting value.”
Early in the project, forms and inspection workflows felt like one-way processes, but Autodesk worked with Boustead Projects to customize and align these with the firm’s own internal ways of working.
Autodesk also invested in upskilling Boustead Projects’ workforce to ensure the company’s investment in Autodesk Forma delivers lasting and meaningful returns. Rahayu highlights LearnACC, an on-demand self-learning digital course that lets users pick modules relevant to their role, as a highlight of the partnership with Autodesk, saying that the teams “appreciate that Autodesk has gamified and incentivized learning”. Collectively, these resources have turned Autodesk’s learning centre into one of Boustead Projects’ own learning and development hubs.
The partnership has also led to industry recognition for Boustead Projects and its team. Khalil and Rahayu have both been named in Autodesk’s 40 Under 40 Champions of Construction in 2022 and 2025 respectively, and the business received Autodesk’s Digital Construction Award in 2025. Rahayu and Pavithra have both represented Boustead Projects at Autodesk University, sharing a fresh perspective about how they used Autodesk Forma, not as a contractor’s delivery tool, but instead as a developer’s strategic platform, showing how this familiar technology can unlock new value when viewed through a different lens.
Khalil also sits on Autodesk’s Construction Executive Council, ensuring Boustead Projects’ feedback influences the product roadmap.
Measurable productivity gains with a big impact
The switch to Autodesk Forma has brought a range of tangible benefits beyond faster approvals and smoother handovers. Specifically on the semiconductor facility project, using 4D BIM, LiDAR scanning, and photogrammetry in Autodesk Forma helped to reduce clashes by 60%, cut rework by 20%, and improve overall efficiency by 30%.
By streamlining operations and approval processes, Boustead Projects’ has often been able to eliminate manual handover phases, saving months on each project. Improved collaboration in real-time means issues are more likely to be caught early, reducing down-time and rework. Additionally, cloud-based collaboration helps Boustead Projects’ manage subcontractors more effectively, bringing greater visibility into who is responsible for each task, especially on complex projects with many contributors.
An unexpected outcome of Boustead Projects’ success has been the influence on its clients. “Once the client saw value on this project, they bought the licence for Autodesk Forma for themselves,” Khalil recounts. For example, a pharmaceutical client initially reluctant to adopt Autodesk Forma later purchased licences for its other facilities after seeing the benefits on Boustead Projects’ projects. This ripple effect demonstrates how Boustead Projects’ digital maturity has become a selling point and a catalyst for change across its ecosystem.
Autodesk Forma brings together everything from design coordination to operations handover for Boustead's projects, helping the business break down silos, improve approval timelines, and set a new benchmark for digital transformation in the construction industry across Asia-Pacific.
Building on a successful partnership
Despite the rapid and substantial progress, Boustead Projects isn’t standing still. The company has a technology roadmap that includes integrating Autodesk Forma into additional solution partners, bringing 360o photos, robotics, and automation into the workflow, as well as exploring AI-powered use cases for future projects.
Khalil says that, regardless of the integration or project, data protection and privacy are of paramount importance and Boustead Projects aligns with Autodesk’s governance standards to ensure responsible AI adoption.
By transforming project delivery with Autodesk Forma, Boustead Projects is proving digital maturity goes beyond just using the newest technology: it’s about empowering teams, building trust with clients, and delivering improvements across all aspects of the workflow.
“Digital maturity isn’t about more software,” explains Khalil, “it’s about empowering every person on the project, whether a digital specialist, project manager or specialist contractor, to make better decisions faster. Autodesk Forma helped us democratise technology and that has been the real unlock.”