AEC AB: “Partnership with AGACAD was key for implementing BIM fully at Trivselhus.”

AGACAD’s Wood Framing Suite proved to be the perfect fit for a prominent producer of timber frame homes based in Sweden. That, and AGACAD’s custom development expertise, enabled its Nordic business partner AEC AB to win and successfully complete a major BIM implementation project.

Client Profile

Trivselhus AB is a prominent Swedish producer of timber frame buildings known for design excellence and energy-efficiency. Besides Scandinavia, it’s also active in the UK and Åland.

Partner

AEC AB is Sweden’s leading supplier of IT software and services for the building industry. It’s an agent and business partner of AGACAD in the Nordic region.

Business Need

Amid rapid growth in the number of orders, Trivselhus needed to double its production capacity – from one to two custom timber frame houses per day. That meant speeding up design and other processes while maintaining top quality. It was clearly time for a move to BIM. So Trivselhus began using Autodesk Revit® for architecture work. But it continued doing 2D design and production drawings with AutoCAD® since it couldn’t find good BIM framing software. In early 2016 Trivselhus sought BIM experts to help it implement BIM at full scale. AEC won the contract, largely due to its partnership with AGACAD.

Solution

What attracted Trivselhus was the AGACAD Wood Framing Suite – a dynamic set of productivity solutions for Revit professionals. AEC added this and other innovative BIM tools to its portfolio when it partnered with AGACAD in 2015.

“Wood Framing was the tool we’d been searching for. It offers us many time-saving synergies. It’s flexible and built to automate everything, but the designer can easily make changes manually,” says Peter Bjornfors, Business Improvement Manager at Trivselhus.

The clincher, though, was AGACAD’s programming services. The team was ready to further enhance its BIM solutions with specific new functionality and integrate Trivselhus’ existing resources. Nobody else could offer that.

“AGACAD has many years of experience developing professional BIM solutions which effectively increase productivity. The team’s flexibility in applying that programming expertise to new real-life situations means we can offer Scandinavian designers solutions that perfectly meet their needs,” says Anders Jacobsson, Managing Director of AEC AB.

So AEC oversaw and advised on the full-scale BIM implementation at Trivselhus while AGACAD assisted and did client-specific development. Some of the many enhancements made at the client’s request included:

• new technology for a special composite king (trimmer) and header system for joined windows and doors;
• framing technology for dormer side walls;
• a V-connection framing engine (V-L and V-B outer and inner corners);
• and an exporter add-on for output to Randek CNC machines.

Results

Trivselhus rolled out its new BIM system in late summer 2016 after the AGACAD Wood Framing Suite satisfied the company’s high expectations and specific needs during a pilot project.

“It’s easy to learn and saves time in many places,” Peter Bjornfors says. “We can continue working in the same model where the building permit drawings were prepared and just add further information. Staying in the same program and model simplifies life and makes revisions easier – you don’t have to jump back and forth between applications.”

“Plus there are no limitations on the number of layers in a wall,” the Trivselhus manager explains. “And you win time not just when you’re drawing in Revit, but also by getting auto-generated documentation for the later manufacturing and construction phases.”

AEC, for its part, says that by working together with AGACAD, it’s advancing its own BIM strategy as a reseller and creating added value for its customers. “We know what the construction industry in our market needs, and we’re pleased that in cooperation with AGACAD we can offer our clients BIM tools and solutions that really do significantly boost productivity. To start, we’re focused on selling AGACAD’s products for framed building designers and engineers because that’s what’s most relevant in our market,” AEC’s Anders Jacobsson says.

Finally, other users of AGACAD Wood Framing solutions also benefited because, during the project, new general functionality was developed for the software. That fits right in with AGACAD’s style of sharing insights and approaches and automating best practices in a spirit of ‘Building BIM Together’.

AGACAD is the developer of the world’s widest range of true BIM software for Revit® professionals, with 10,000+ users in 130 countries. The company is now celebrating 25 YEARS DELIVERING TOMORROW’S AEC.

For more information, contact us at info@agacad.com or +370 618 55 671.