Case study

The Challenge 

Quantity surveying is an important part of monitoring a project’s progress and budget. Bringing cutting-edge technology to the construction industry has presented significant challenges. The typical way of communicating project changes involves making new architectural drawings, and requiring repetitive, manual tasks increasing the risk of costly errors and delays in project timelines.   

This challenge can extend to engagement with clients on a project’s technical details. Extensive cost modelling reports are often provided to clients. As this content is highly technical, clients may look to the headline cost figure and not fully engage with the detailed pricing rationale or the impact of requested changes. This results in ‘bill shock’, which can erode trust. 

Similarly, clients are looking for reports to be delivered faster and cheaper than ever before.  For quantity surveyors this has highlighted the need for efficient, digital solutions.  

Digital twin tools have the potential to solve these problems. But the technology has remained difficult for non-experts to use, and with few experts available.  

Our Response

Terria launched the Digital Twin Early Adopter Program (EAP) to lower the barrier for organisations to adopt spatial digital twin technology. The EAP was designed to enable organisations to co-develop a proof of concept of a digital transformation use case critical to their own organisational needs. The EAP enables participants to trial Terria’s pre-market advanced spatial digital twin technology for their operations. 

The proof-of-concept shows how a building changes through the design stage pre-construction. The system is based on a structural building information model (BIM) that incorporates geometry, time, and cost data, as well as WT proprietary metadata. A rich 3D context of the city connecting to the development site was also added leveraging the Terria Spatial Digital Twin managed catalogue. It included open datasets federated from the City of Melbourne, Victorian Government, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as commercial 3D data providers. 

To foster collaboration and knowledge exchange between the teams during the project implementation, an iterative approach to design, development and user testing was taken, connecting WT with Terria’s technical team in addition to user experience design and product management. The resulting proof of concept was demonstrated and shared with stakeholders across the organisation and clients. 

The Results

The WT proof of concept showcased the Terria platform’s robust capabilities in integrating diverse geospatial datasets and BIM models, demonstrating the software’s capability as a powerful, accessible web-based tool for urban planning and development. Terria’s user-friendly story mode helped WT craft narratives around their data to guide their clients through the digital twin from any angle including as a pedestrian. The Terria team successfully created a detailed spatial digital twin proof of concept that enhanced client understanding through simplified data visualisation in a web browser. The team also provided comprehensive technical support, setting a strong foundation for future integrations of WT’s cost analytics tools. Through their involvement in the EAP, WT has positioned themselves as a pioneer in the industry.