New ProjectWise and AssetWise Innovations Empower High-Performing Project Teams and Asset Operations

AMSTERDAM — (BUSINESS WIRE) — October 20, 2010 — Be Inspired: Thought Leadership in Infrastructure -- Yesterday morning, before a select audience of senior infrastructure professionals from leading architectural, engineering, construction, and owner-operator organizations, Bentley Systems CEO Greg Bentley and SVP Bhupinder Singh presented the company’s progress and plans for leveraging information modeling, both for increasingly integrated projects, and for operations of high-performing, intelligent infrastructure assets. Bentley Systems is the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world. The infrastructure executives in attendance gathered from 35 countries to participate in Bentley’s Be Inspired: Thought Leadership in Infrastructure event being held this week in Amsterdam. Following the morning keynotes, the 400 executives at this invitation-only event attended thought leadership presentations by finalists in the 2010 Be Inspired Awards program – choosing from among the more than 50 given throughout the remainder of the day.

The morning conference keynotes offered insights on innovations driving the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of software for infrastructure design, construction, and operations. Included were highlights of the V8i (SELECTseries 3) release of Bentley’s industry-leading project team collaboration platform, ProjectWise, and its newly announced AssetWise platform for infrastructure asset operations information modeling. Each innovation presented was underscored by examples from among the extraordinary projects of Be Inspired Awards nominees.

“Our commitment to leveraging information modeling across the infrastructure lifecycle empowers architects, engineers, and constructors to deliver integrated projects to owners,” said Greg Bentley. “And information modeling enables owners to operate intelligent infrastructure assets, which are safer, cleaner, and more efficient, for superior returns on investment.”

He emphasized that returns to owners and their constituents during infrastructure asset lifecycles are the ultimate benchmark for infrastructure professionals. He then described Bentley Systems’ plans to further extend its well-received approach to information modeling and dynamic collaboration in design and construction projects, towards dynamic handover – fully exploiting owners’ investments in information modeling for improved asset performance.

“We continue to progress towards the goals of our AssetWise initiative, which was first announced last February,” said Bentley. “We are increasingly enabling owners to benefit from intelligent and continuous handover from their project teams, and thus to leverage information modeling throughout the operations lifecycle. Uniquely, our AssetWise platform will manage AEC deliverables as structured data so that all dependencies are maintained and understood, assuring information integrity and operational compliance. Unlike ‘asset management’ systems limited to unstructured documents and their associated metadata, AssetWise comprehends the network of information relationships connecting the engineered and as-built asset to the operational asset. Through the combined and shared services of ProjectWise and AssetWise, information modeling can finally reach its potential for higher-performing, intelligent infrastructure.”

In the course of his keynote, Greg Bentley reported on:

• resilience in the company’s business during 2010 sufficient to achieve sequential and year-over-year organic growth, an expected return to record GAAP revenue runrate, and continued market-share gains;
• notable and diverse new opportunities for Bentley across the infrastructure lifecycle, including:
  • Among engineering applications, the company’s newly released OpenPlant Modeler V8i offering, the first to fulfill iRING international standards requirements, is garnering a great deal of market interest – and evaluation downloads – from users of UNIX-legacy competitors.
  • In construction, information modeling is being embraced at an unprecedented pace, with leading firms, especially for design-build, increasingly adopting Bentley’s Navigator V8i, and then ProjectWise V8i, for dynamic collaboration.
  • Among infrastructure owners, major municipalities are expressing strong interest in Bentley’s distinctively comprehensive 3D City solution, with record attendance at the company’s ongoing 3D City eSeminars, and with this subject attracting the highest registration of any roundtable at Be Inspired. Characteristically, Bentley’s 3D City solution goes beyond location and visualization, to support and simulate infrastructure performance.
• the inaugural release of the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, a unique global compendium of the largest public- and private-sector owners, in 46 countries, with infrastructure value representing cumulative net investment of over $13 trillion – available at www.bentley.com/500;
• the growing breadth of Bentley Passport Subscriptions, to enable individual infrastructure practitioners to affordably advance to an information-modeling level of practice by combining annual named-user licenses for multiple pertinent Bentley applications with Bentley LEARN subscriptions and applicable catalog content; the recent availability of the Civil Engineer for Wastewater Collection Passport Subscription brings the number of professional roles supported to 23;
• Bentley’s entry into the market for geotechnical engineering tools, by way of the forthcoming Civil Engineer for Geotechnical Analysis Passport Subscription, uniquely comprising the full spectrum of 18 established software modules developed in Europe by FINE Software for geotechnical requirements (from settlement and stability analyses to sheeting and foundation design), and the Civil Engineering for Advanced Geotechnical Analysis Passport Subscription, which adds specialized modules for finite-element modeling, ground loss, and tunneling. Bentley subscribers who have previewed the FINE Software modules, including their localization for American requirements, are enthusiastic about their comprehensive scope and superior quality by comparison to their existing assorted tools from fragmented suppliers. In conjunction with Bentley’s market-leading gINT geotechnical data management products, the new offerings mean Bentley Systems can now enable the under-served geotechnical engineering profession to finally take advantage of both technical and commercial software integration;
• the continuous expansion of Bentley’s online software services, from:
  • ProjectWise ONLINE, and
  • Exor Managed Services, to
  • the company’s public-private partnership for New Jersey DOT’s oversize/overweight vehicle permitting, to
  • Be Communities networking,
  • the Bentley Institute’s live training via virtual classrooms through Bentley’s LEARN Server, and
  • the Be Careers Network’s new STUDENTserver, to
  • the upcoming launch of a new website for Bentley iWare – software available from Bentley at no cost to promote interoperability and information reuse; examples to date include Bentley View, Structural Synchronizer V8i, Structural Dashboard V8i, i-model plug-ins for Revit, and, coming soon, a new i-model Previewer for Microsoft Outlook.
• Bentley’s investment to become the largest shareholder in BLUERIDGE Analytics, whose breakthrough SITEOPS site design optimization technology is delivered through cloud computing. A research project has been initiated to incorporate Bentley’s industry-leading hydrology and hydraulic modeling within the SITEOPS service, for yet more sophisticated drainage optimization.

Bhupinder Singh began his presentation by discussing the software development strategies that set Bentley apart from other vendors. Said Singh, “With our V8i SELECTseries, we deliver to our users continuous innovation without the disruption normally associated with software upgrades and enhancements. V8i innovations include improved collaborative workflows, by way of Bentley Navigator V8i for iterative project review and advances in information modeling such as model documentation. Together, these provide users better coordination during design and construction, earlier identification of conflicts and integrated clash resolution with Bentley design applications, improved civil visualization, and point cloud referencing and manipulation – to help them deliver lower-cost and better-performing infrastructure.”

In announcing the release of a new Navigator web part, Singh explained that users can publish key formats, including DGN, DWG, Revit, PDS, or PDMS, into i-models (containers for open infrastructure information exchange) and view their 3D models or 2D drawings in a web browser. This capability empowers even casual project participants to easily explore and manipulate models. The wider communication reduces project risk and improves project quality.

Singh also described or demonstrated many of the innovations included in the V8i (SELECTseries 3) versions of Bentley Navigator and ProjectWise, which are scheduled for release by the end of 2010. The innovations include improvements in interoperability, work-sharing for international teams, and mobile design review tools – each of which makes design and construction data more accessible to all members of extended project teams.

Specific enhancements to Bentley Navigator V8i (SELECTseries 3) include:

• support for Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), enabling IFC files to be opened natively. Bentley users can also publish IFC files into i-models. In both cases, the geometry and intelligence in Building Information Models delivered in IFC format can be reused in design review workflows without the cost and risk of error-prone translations;
• clash result groupings. By easily grouping clashes together based on user-defined criteria, Navigator now helps project teams focus on the set of clashes being reviewed, speeding project review sessions and improving team communications;
• bidirectional dynamic scheduling that automatically synchronizes schedule changes between Navigator and scheduling software such as Microsoft Project and Oracle’s Primavera. This new upgrade saves time and reduces the chances of teams working with out-of-date scheduling information;
• improvements in workflows and reporting for constructors who need to not only detect conflicts, but also to resolve them, through dynamic collaboration. This enables them to more quickly prepare a model for construction;
• new markup templates. The ability to customize markup reports using organizational or client standards facilitates the production of consistent project documentation;
• the ability to export clash result reports in GPX format. This innovative feature enables field workers using GPS devices to download clash reports to easily find the actual location of clashes. This is particularly valuable when doing field inspections on large geographically distributed projects like highway designs.

New innovations in ProjectWise V8i (SELECTseries 3) include:

• the Navigator web part, which enables 2D and 3D i-models to be viewed and explored through a browser or Microsoft SharePoint 2010 portal. This thin-client model review tool provides easy access for users, simple administration for IT departments, and secure access to drawings and models for distributed design review teams;
• support for AutoCAD and Revit 2011, including 64-bit versions. This increasingly empowers projects and firms using Revit to benefit from ProjectWise to manage design and construction information, and to streamline information sharing throughout integrated project teams;
• dramatic performance enhancements for work-sharing across high latency networks typically found in construction projects and with international teams. The improvements complement and enhance the accelerated file access delivered with ProjectWise delta file transfer in V8i by minimizing network delays and maximizing network bandwidth. Accelerated access to project information lets organizations employ their best talent on projects, regardless of geographic location, reducing travel costs, maximizing employee utilization, and speeding the exchange of project information;
• new tools that speed the process of setting up projects and defining user permissions. Time can be saved commissioning new projects through improved ease of use and the ability to delegate certain administrative tasks for approved team members.

Singh also announced the release of ProjectWise Dynamic Plot V8i (SELECTseries 2), which creates an intelligent link between paper plots and digital models, shrinking the time required to synchronize written comments and digital data from days to seconds. With paper plots and digital models always in sync, markup and review workflows become error-free, mitigating project risk. With this new release, dynamic plots can be created from any PDF file, as well as from design files, extending the value of this dynamic workflow to virtually all project documents. Support has also been added for dynamic plots to be published to PDFs, so they can be easily shared with remote offices for local hard-copy production, reducing shipping charges and saving time.

Commenting on his firm’s use of ProjectWise Dynamic Plot, Mo Harmon, vice president, Design Support Manager, HNTB Corporation, an employee-owned infrastructure firm serving federal, state, municipal, military and private clients, said, “ProjectWise Dynamic Plot is playing a key role in seamlessly integrating HNTB’s QA/QC process with design and production workflows without any disruptive learning curves. Our senior staff that are not necessarily CADD-savvy, can easily perform design reviews and have their input immediately integrated into our ProjectWise production environment, enabling faster, more accurate design review, with reduced risk of miscommunications, and cost savings on shipping.”

Singh next provided an update on the growing adoption of i-models within the infrastructure community. He reported that i-models are already being used in hundreds of projects, enabling highly interactive bidirectional (dynamic) collaboration among distributed, multidisciplinary project teams. “Using i-models enables feedback to flow in both directions so that any project participant can add value during reviews, for truly integrated projects,” said Singh. “Through dynamic collaboration, firms and teams can achieve maximum virtualization of talent.”

Singh concluded by previewing the scope of AssetWise and its services. These services, many of which are shared with ProjectWise, are to uniquely support handover and operational workflows that are both dynamic and continuous over the asset lifecycle.

For additional information about dynamic collaboration, Bentley Navigator V8i, ProjectWise V8i, and i-models, visit www.Bentley.com/DynamicCollaboration. For additional information about AssetWise, visit www.bentley.com/assetwise. For additional information about the other products in Bentley’s comprehensive portfolio, visit www.bentley.com. For additional information about the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners ranking, visit www.bentley.com/500.

Throughout the keynotes, numerous examples were provided of the substantial improvements in workflows, project quality, and productivity being realized by users taking advantage of Bentley Navigator V8i and ProjectWise V8i. Adoption of each is broad and growing.

Bentley Navigator has to date been adopted by 51 of the 100 largest of the ENR Top 500 Design Firms, 34 of the ENR Top 100 Design-Build Firms, and 40 of the 100 largest of the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners. Recent testimonials include the following:

Doug Luscombe, VP and general manager, SNC-Lavalin Australia, one of the leading engineering and construction groups in the world, said, “Bentley Navigator V8i gives our engineering teams and clients high-performance access to intelligent and detailed models. Its ease of use enables them to participate in 3D design reviews to provide immediate feedback and markups. Our engineers now provide direct 3D input into the design process, which improves communication and leads to faster, smarter designs. And because clash detection results are simple to review, issues are highlighted earlier, managed better via a formalized review process, and resolved earlier. This results in faster design and earlier project delivery.”

Laura Handler, director of Virtual Design and Construction, Tocci Building Corporation, a leader in virtual design and construction, and integrated project delivery, said, “We are so impressed with the capability and potential of Bentley Navigator V8i (SELECTseries 2) that we compare its value-add to sophisticated model authoring tools, rather than other reviewing tools. It is the collaborative software we need to push our next generation of BIM and integrated project delivery projects.”

Jordan Hand, BIM coordinator, M.J. Harris, Inc., an innovative leader in healthcare construction, said, “Navigator provides a really slick interface for reviewing models from any source. It has enough depth and flexibility for power users, but is simple enough for me to train anyone in our company to use it. Bentley is always adding features, and I can’t wait for my SELECTseries updates, because I know I’ll get great new tools. Navigator will continue to be a key component of our ongoing BIM transformation.”

ProjectWise V8i is the global leader in software for project team collaboration, supporting 71 of the 100 largest of the ENR Top 500 Design Firms, 34 of the ENR Top 100 Design-Build Firms, and 61 of the largest 100 of the Bentley Infrastructure 500 Top Owners. Recent testimonials include the following:

Bruce Strupp/ATL, CPE-design technology director, CH2M HILL, a global full-service consulting, design, construction, and operations firm, said, “We’ve made ProjectWise our global work-sharing platform to streamline team collaboration on projects of all sizes and complexities. We’re really happy with the way it allows widely distributed project teams to confidently share and manage project data. In addition, our strategic partnership with Bentley enables us to develop and implement world-class solutions that meet the needs of our integrated project teams around the globe.”

Trevor Lewis, technical director – Computer Aided Design, Europe-Africa, MWH, the global wet infrastructure sector leader and provider of environmental engineering, construction and strategic consulting services, said, “ProjectWise is MWH’s Electronic Drawing Management System. It provides teams with a platform to share projects and expertise across the globe, which in turn supports our needs to improve quality, reduce rework, and meet project deadlines. ProjectWise is supported internally by a dedicated global team with a clear focus on delivering a powerful yet flexible and easy-to-use system, guided by a set of global standards.”

Ciro Julio Schmitt, IT director of Engevix, a leading Brazilian EPC that provides services for engineering studies, project management, procurement, and construction, said, “We attest that deploying engineering talent around the globe continues to be a major and very costly challenge, but resources simply aren’t always where you need them when you need them. With ProjectWise, we’ve been able to create an enterprise-level project team collaboration environment to connect people and information across our many offices. These virtual teams can dynamically share information as if co-located, enabling us to maximize our utilization of talent, accelerating project lead times, and reducing operational costs by 15 percent. Plus, having this capability opens the door to project opportunities we might otherwise lose because of resource issues.”

Mike Clarke, group CAD/BIM manager, URS/Scott Wilson, a global integrated design and engineering consultancy for the built and natural environments, said, “Because of Scott Wilson’s long-standing relationship with Bentley Systems, we fully understood its commitment to supporting its users with software that’s interoperable. This knowledge gave us the confidence to deploy its technologies on the East London Line Project and adopt ProjectWise as our primary collaboration tool. Our use of ProjectWise on this project allowed us to connect our global teams quickly and in a simple and effective way. It provided our engineers with confidence to do their job, knowing the engineering data they were working with was current and valid, irrespective of their location.”

Craig Hancock, director of Engineering Technology Services, Utah Department of Transportation, which is committed to meeting the challenges of Utah’s growing transportation needs, said, “After several successful projects using ProjectWise, we did a comparison of ProjectWise with our existing document management system used to manage and control documents inside and outside of the engineering division. We finally decided on ProjectWise as our enterprise standard for work-sharing because it would best enable us to handle both the needs of the engineering teams and the wider enterprise. In addition, because of our need to involve external consultants and contractors on projects, we see great value in using ProjectWise to create a centralized repository that all of our project participants can reference as well.”

About Be Inspired: Thought Leadership in Infrastructure

The world’s leading infrastructure professionals have gathered this week at Be Inspired, Bentley’s premier thought leadership and networking event in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They will share the best practices behind the successful realization of their current projects and explore new ways to respond to the challenges driving today’s business. Also in attendance are more than 60 journalists from around the world.

This intimate, invitation-only event features presentations by the Be Inspired Awards finalists, as well as executive roundtables focusing on critical issues in business, technology, and practice facing infrastructure professionals around the world. It culminates with an awards ceremony recognizing outstanding and innovative project achievements in infrastructure design, construction, and operations selected from 55 finalists in 21 countries by an independent panel of judges. In total, 320 nominations from 249 organizations in 45 countries were submitted in this year’s awards program. The winners of this year’s Be Inspired Awards will be announced this evening during a special ceremony.

This annual event provides a unique forum for senior-level executives to learn about the innovations driving the development and operations of the world’s top infrastructure projects. It also enables them to engage industry leaders in interactive discussions on topics of utmost importance to the business of sustaining infrastructure. For additional information about the Be Inspired: Thought Leadership in Infrastructure event, visit www.bentley.com/BeInspired.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Founded in 1984, Bentley has nearly 3,000 colleagues in more than 45 countries, $500 million in annual revenues, and, since 1999, has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

For additional information about Bentley, visit www.bentley.com. To view Bentley’s May 2010 Annual Report, visit www.bentley.com/annualreport. To subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts, visit www.bentley.com/rss/news. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, visit www.bentley.com/yearininfrastructure. For information about Be Communities, a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit http://communities.bentley.com.

Bentley, the “B” Bentley logo, Be, Bentley SELECT, SELECT, Bentley Infrastructure 500, Dynamic Plot, AutoPLANT, ProjectWise, Bentley LEARN, and Be Communities are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

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