Client Success:
The road to digitising the Coventry University estate
Coventry University is known for the world-leading calibre of its engineering and design graduates – particularly in the automotive field – and is rapidly expanding with multiple locations across the UK, including Coventry, London and Scarborough.
Following a pilot for the new AIM CDE, the University is now rolling out gliderbim® across all of its location to support its digital transformation.
gliderbim® is providing Coventry University with a central information management platform. It has allowed them to generate an automated and templated approach to obtaining, validating and verifying asset data.
The requirement
The University had a requirement to host their digital estates information and over the past year Glider has worked alongside the University to provide a data hosting solution and support its digital transformation.
This dynamic University is continually evolving to give its students the best opportunities and experiences. The innovative Estates Team commissioned Glider to implement the gliderbim® common data environment (CDE) software to manage information for all future capital delivery projects and its existing built estate.
Digital information management
gliderbim® is a digital information management platform for the entire lifecycle of built assets. This intelligent online platform allows users to create their own unique CDE for project data, models and documentation. It provides asset owners with the tools needed to manage the production, approval, delivery and maintenance of all asset information.
Hadeel Saadoon, BIM Manager for Coventry University Estates Digital Services Team, responsible for managing and operating the University’s estate’s building data, and chair of BIM4Estates, a communication and knowledge exchange platform for Estates professionals working in BIM, commented: “Coventry University is an enormous estate with 140+ buildings, including accommodation. We first started working with Glider to discuss the best approach for onboarding estate asset data. However, this quickly transitioned into a wider project to implement the use of gliderbim® across the entire estate.”
Supporting an active University campus
This was an ambitious project, with the need for accurate data capture, information alignment and analysis programming. In addition, it required the delivery of live projects, as well as supporting an active University campus.
Coventry University began work by looking for a central location for information. This work was led by the Estates Digital Services team who conducted a major clean up, scan of the existing physical archive, update of the existing university building drawings, and creation of BIM models retrospectively – all of which is still ongoing.
The solution
gliderbim® was the solution chosen to provide a central information management platform. It also allowed Coventry University estates to generate an automated and templated approach to obtaining, validating and verifying asset data. This project involved a considerable amount of built-in consultancy from Glider to align the CDE set-up with existing workflows and systems.
The University is currently moving from a Windows shared drive solution in order to adopt a number of ISO 19650 processes.
As such, there was a need for gliderbim® to provide training, guidance and support to the Estates Team when it came to configuring the international standards within the CDE.
A stand-out project
This project was stand-out for Glider, in that the University started using Glider PowerShell, our beta data transfer and project configuration toolkit, to onboard masses of data from shared drives.
Implementing BIM in the core functions of the whole estate is essential for managing information, and saves time in checking and onboarding data. BIM protocols helped the University to establish a new way of working that ensures the graphical and information output is consistently structured.
Following a pilot for the new AIM CDE, the University is now rolling out gliderbim® across all of its locations. In the next stages, gliderbim® will be integrating the University’s new CDE with its existing CAFM and BMS platforms on its pathway to a digital twin of their built estate.