Trimble and the Nemetschek Group announced today that they have formed a strategic alliance to expand the deployment of Building Information Modeling (BIM) across the entire Design-Build-Operate (DBO) lifecycle of buildings. The alliance will emphasize collaborative approaches to design modeling and 5D construction management through data integration between a variety of the companies' products.
The announcement was made today at the Lake Constance 5D-Conference 2015held this week in Constance, Germany.
Trimble and Nemetschek will share their extensive global market and technology expertise and collaborate on initiatives to drive a paradigm change in the development and adoption of technologies for the AEC industry and building owners.
The companies intend to:
- Transparently share data formats to support new solutions and promote workflow interoperability between selected products across the DBO lifecycle;
- Tighten the connection of Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) solutions to real data from the field and real objects in the physical world;
- Support interoperability and the longevity of project data for the entire project lifecycle;
- Maintain their respective deep commitments to open standards and workflows for the benefit of the entire industry—rather than for any individual vendor.
Open, Connected and Interoperable via Trimble Connect
Trimble and Nemetschek plan to leverage the Trimble® Connect collaboration platform to integrate workflows and create close interoperability between selected Trimble solutions—including SketchUp, Tekla Structures, Vico Office, Trimble Prolog®, Trimble Field Link and MEPdesigner for SketchUp—and solutions in the Nemetschek portfolio, such as Allplan, ArchiCAD, DDS, SCIA Engineering, Vectorworks and Nevaris.
Both companies are committed to open standards and workflows—a rapidly emerging approach to the collaborative design, construction and operation of buildings. With Nemetschek solutions supporting the Trimble Connect platform—a cloud-based collaboration environment that features an open environment for BIM-based AEC workflows—Trimble and Nemetschek are coordinating their efforts to offer best-of-breed solutions for customers.
"Across the DBO spectrum, customers want the freedom to choose the best tools for the job and the security of knowing those tools will work together. But too often they find that the data they need is not interoperable across their different software workflows," said Bryn Fosburgh, vice president responsible for Trimble's Construction Technology Divisions. "Our companies' shared vision is to give users a choice, rather than dictate what they use. We're pleased to partner with Nemetschek on these important initiatives."
"Our customers already enjoy the benefits of workflow integration between most of our products. This collaboration allows us to provide an overarching strategic layer on top of everything we do," said Patrik Heider, spokesman and Chief Financial & Operations Officer (CFOO) of the Nemetschek Group. "This will better enable us to provide our customers with end-to-end workflow solutions that cover the entire AEC life cycle in a fully transparent and 'open' way."
Trimble and Nemetschek will provide updates on specific collaborative initiatives as the relationship progresses.
