Nemetschek Group drives Efficiency in the Construction Industry by Investing in Innovative Start-Ups

• Danish customer of Imerso AS increases on-site/construction quality control efficiency by 400 percent
• Excellent fit with solutions from Nemetschek brand Solibri to accurately monitor progress and quality of work on site
  

Munich / Olso, January 26, 2022 – The construction industry has been suffering from inefficient processes and a very low increase in productivity over the last several decades. The Nemetschek Group, one of the leading software providers for the AEC/O and media & entertainment industries, is set to change that. Investing in highly innovative startups in addition to its own portfolio is proving to be the right strategy. A customer case study by Imerso AS, a Norwegian deep tech company – whose financing round the Nemetschek Group led at the end of last year – showcases efficiency increases of 400 percent in quality control.

E. Klink – a Danish heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) contractor and part of the Aarsleff Group – is a pioneer in the field of building and maintaining energy-optimized ventilation systems. The company is working on a broad range of projects, from hospitals and laboratories to banks and museums. E. Klink turned to digital design with 3D BIM technology in 2019 to ensure high quality during the project design phase. Amongst other software solutions, they have been using Solibri Office and Solibri Site for BIM quality checking and collaboration since 2017. However, the quality control of piping systems and air terminals throughout the actual construction phase was still done by spot checks. This covered only a small percentage of the entire project and bore the risk of issues being overlooked.

In September 2021, E. Klink decided to work with Imerso to support the quality control throughout the production phase. In two projects spanning over 110,000m², Imerso’s platform analyzed laser scans taken by E. Klink’s own employees. The platform then verified that ducts and air terminals are located correctly by comparing them to corresponding BIM models and highlighting possible deviations.

After the second month, the results are already impressive. E. Klink’s team, led by construction engineers Patrick Frydenlund and Chris Gordner, can now verify 100 percent of the ducts and air terminals within the same time that it took to verify just 15-20 percent in the past – a productivity increase of over 400 percent. Besides the productivity gain throughout the production process, E. Klink now avoids unforeseen delays during the production phase. This new method also reduces the risk for warranty claims after the project is finished while having millimeter-precise documentation of its work. For more details on the project, please check the Imerso website.

“Working with Imerso is a great example of how we help accelerate efficiencies in the construction industry,” says Tanja Kufner, Head of Startup and Venture Investments and part of the board of Imerso. “The solutions of Imerso and Solibri are a great fit for customers. They help them to accurately monitor a project’s progress and efficiently improve the results,” she says.

Last December, the Nemetschek Group announced they had led a financing round for Imerso. The Norway-based deep tech company is offering a next-generation platform to automate construction quality monitoring through a combination of advanced artificial intelligence (AI), reality capture, and BIM technologies. The solution enables easy, everyday use of industry grade 3D scanners on site. By connecting the BIM model directly to the as-built snapshot on site, Imerso delivers an efficient roadmap for accurate, as-built digital twins, with great benefits across the entire building life cycle.

About Imerso AS

In 2014, Imerso AS was established as a deep tech software company conducting R&D in collaboration with leading Norwegian research institutes and with sponsorship from the Norwegian Research Council and the European Commission. The company developed a platform to track work quality and progress by combining BIM and 3D laser scanning technology, which Imerso makes as simple as taking a photo. Manual inspections that can take days or even weeks are replaced by Imerso’s platform finding and highlighting deviations within a short time and with millimeter accuracy.

Imerso’s system uses the BIM models as inspection targets and analyzes the as-built reality captured in the 3D scans to detect deviations. A digital twin evolves in parallel with the construction activities and gives early alerts of potential problems before they happen. In this way, projects can avoid unnecessary costs, delays and disputes, and warranty claims. Besides proactively rectifying issues in the BIM or on site, users can obtain measurements, take screenshots from any perspective, prepare upcoming work packages, and append comments directly to virtual objects. Imerso delivers all data in open international formats to ensure compatibility with other industry tools and works closely with solutions from the Nemetschek Group, one of its investors.