Digital transformation of the design processes from using physical maps and manual
calculation to fully digital, fully automated operations!

Challenge

Legal norms governing road and construction work indicate physical maps and printed value charts that need to be used in the design and calculation process. These standards lead to design work and calculation spanning hours or days, while being subjected to incorrect interpretation and human error that can lead to considerable financial losses.

Solution

The transformation of all maps and value charts into digital assets as well as translating calculations rules and restriction into business logic handled by the application, optimised the work time from days to minutes, while ensuring automated, real-time and precise calculations.

General Features

Digital Maps

Transforming physical maps for climate and freezing depths into digital assets.

Digital Value Graphs

Transforming value graphs used in the structure calculations into digital assets.

Map Representation

Use of maps to represent road segments that are being design in a manually or automatic manner (using GPS coordinates).

Automated Calculations

Automated calculation for road structure layers, composition, coefficients and road design verifications.

Materials Sellers

Material sellers with map location and transport route selection options relative to project location.

Cost and Emissions Estimations

Perform material and transport costs and emissions estimation calculations for each designed road segment.

Reporting

Export reports as PDF or Excel files for project structure, design verifications calculations and estimations.

Digital Transformation

Design work is a high-responsibility, precision work that can require days of calculation and measurements in order to produce correct and usable results. In the context of Romanian law, the legal norms governing road design indicate physical maps and printed value charts that need to be used in the process of designing road structures and performing the necessary calculations related to structure dynamic elasticity and resistance to freezing temperatures.

Our client, a significant company in the field of road design and construction, wanted to improve the process, reducing the required time and ensuring high-precision calculations for the dynamic elasticity of all used materials as well as all the necessary validation calculation for the design road structure.

This process required transforming 5 maps (climate areas, and 4 maps related to freezing temperatures) and 7 values charts into digital assets, as well as mapping the materials indicated by the legal norm to market existing construction materials in order to automate material and transport costs and CO2 emissions for the proposed road design.

Solution

  • The solution provides designers with the functionality to trace the roads they are working on directly on the map, either by selecting points on the map, specifying the coordinates of each point or by simply importing a list of geographic coordinates that represent the entity of the road project (that is usually obtained by GPS while doing measurements in the field).

    Having access to the exact position of the road on a map, allows for the automated identification of the climate zone the project is situated in and the exact length of the road, while the initial configuration of the project simplifies the selection of other design specific elements (soil type, rain frequency in the area). These attributes are used by the application to determine or calculate, in real-time and with high-precision, the dynamic elasticity and the Poisson coefficient for each layer in the road structure design.

    Road Design

  • The geographic position of the road is also used to determine the freezing temperatures in the area. Based on this attribute and the road design calculations we are able to validate, in real-time if the proposed road design with it's comprising layers would remain functional, without deterioration in relation to the specific meteorological conditions of the area in which the road will be built or rehabilitated.

    Based on the proposed road design different freezing values need to be taken into account: the average of the last 30 years, the average of the lowest temperatures in the 3 (three) harshest winters of the last 30 years or the average of the lowest temperatures in the 5 (five) harshest winters in the last 30 years. The solution is able to automatically select the corresponding values and make the necessary freeze verification calculations automatically.

    Freeze Depths Map

  • After the required calculations are done and the road design has been validated, the solution enables designers to map the legal norm materials (used according to the law for the design process) to real materials that exist in the market, select the location of seller or distributor from the map and then specify the route the transport should take, considering that some roads used for transport may contain bridges or tunnels with various weight or height restrictions.

    The mapping of the materials and the selection of the seller and transportation route, allows for real-time calculation for: material costs, transport costs, work force costs, CO2 emission from material preparation or production, CO2 emissions from execution and CO2 emissions from transportation. These provide a very accurate estimation of the costs and emission of the project.

    Route Selection

Results

Digital Transformation

Transformation of 5 maps, 7 value charts and several value tables into digital assets, that can be used to automatically make real-time, high precision calculations required by the road design process.

Improved work time

The automation of the work process, of most of the measurements and all the required calculations (dynamic elasticity, thickness, Poisson coefficients, deformations, freeze depth verifications) reduced design time from several hours to less than 15 minutes.

High precision calculations

The use of digital assets and automated calculations completely eliminated the need for human intervention (input, interpretation, measurements, calculations) leading to high precision calculation results.

Alternative designs

The solution ensures projects or parts of the projects can be duplicated, allowing designer try out various design alternatives in minutes. Trying out various material options, thicknesses and design, with only a few clicks ensure that designer can find the most suitable solution (best price, shortest transport, least CO2 emissions) for the project.

Price and emissions

Mapping the legal norm materials to existing materials in the market and the ability to choose these material from existing seller (including their precise location) allows for accurate cost estimations for material, transportation, workforce and CO2 emissions.

Reporting

All produced documents (project design, design verification, estimations costs, CO2 estimations, workforce estimations) are exportable in PDF and Excel formats.

Let's build something amazing together!

Do you want to transform your business, but you are not sure where to start? Do you have an amazing idea you want brought to life? Do you want to enhance your control over internal processes, workflows, or data? Or maybe you just want to learn more about what we do?

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