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Bela calls Agacad metal framing and CNC solutions the “lifeblood” of its building design business

A cost-focused and energy-conscious Australian building design firm intent to extract all possible value from BIM considers Agacad a key ally for the uniquely powerful and flexible functionality of its tools and solutions for Revit®.

Challenges

“BIM is worth its weight in gold” for 3D modelling power, documentation quality and reliable cost estimation, says Stephen Mezes, the Managing Director at Bela Design Building. But even if the Australian design firm is a huge fan of BIM, it came to realize that even the leading platform for BIM, Autodesk® Revit®, has limitations.

 

That’s especially true with industry-specific work like designing steel-frame buildings and feeding data to CNC machines for cost-effective offsite manufacturing of components and modules. So Bela was looking for more productivity and functionality in a solution that had to work well with the other systems it was already using.

Bela Design Building

Bela Design of Australia offers building design and modelling, engineering expertise, and CNC services for prefabrication and modular construction. Founded in 2003, it specializes in mechanised light steel construction with masonry concrete tilt-ups. Cost- and energy-conscious, the firm administers projects online, thus extending its reach to clients well beyond its home in Palmers Island, New South Wales.

“We required easy-to-use, multi-functional and dynamic framing software that could link into Space Gass [the most popular structural analysis and design package in Australia],” Mezes specifies. Besides automating complex framing work, the solution also had “to allow manual editing of individual components and be able to produce CNC output for manufacturing.”
Impact

With Agacad’s software, Bela gained competitive advantages. Mezes says, “It’s the lifeblood of our off-site prefabrication and module-building practices, reducing labour costs while increasing accuracy.”

 

What has the company found most useful?

 

“Combining the advantages of synchronicity and technology for performing multiple tasks throughout a model all at once, with at the same time also being able to control the individual components, sections, properties,” the managing director says. “Also, not being limited to detail for just one type of CNC production roll former.”

Mezes has only praise for Agacad's support and training services: “I have found Agacad to be considerate, helpful, responsive, respectful – in a way unlike any other business that I have worked with. All our dealings with the Agacad team have exceeded expectations and renewed my faith that there are still people out there with great business attitudes.”
Products used
After Bela began using Agacad’s Metal Framing Suite, CNC Exporter, and the Tools4Revit Suite, “We could immediately detail and CNC-produce buildings from a local supplier with much more efficiency.” Exporting to CNC for production and going back and forth between Revit and Bela’s preferred structural engineering package were seamless, too, as promised.
True BIM software for faster, better light steel framing in Autodesk® Revit®

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