CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
5 April 2011
Implementation Investments
United States Air Force Takes Flight with Autodesk Software
Autodesk, Inc. announced the United States Air Force (USAF), Office of the Civil Engineer, has signed a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) with DLT Solutions for access to the Autodesk complete portfolio of software products and Autodesk-related services and training. DLT Solutions is Autodesk’s master U.S. government reseller. The contract value under the BPA against which future task orders are expected to be issued is $26 million over a five-year period and includes access to the following Autodesk products: AutoCAD Map 3D, AutoCAD Civil 3D, Autodesk Revit Architecture, Autodesk Navisworks, Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, and AutoCAD LT, among others.
“We are extremely pleased to extend our long-standing relationship with the United States Air Force through this strategic sourcing agreement,” said Jay Bhatt, senior vice president, AEC solutions, at Autodesk. “Autodesk is pleased to play a key partnership role in helping Air Force Civil Engineering to provide, operate, maintain, and protect a mission critical portfolio of sustainable installation assets around the world. This agreement ensures Air Force Civil Engineering has access to the latest innovative design, geospatial, modeling, and visualization software tools and professional services to support its national defense mission.”
With 20 years serving the public sector, DLT Solutions holds a GSA schedule contract that includes Autodesk products and services and supports contracting vehicles for federal, state and local governments. As Master Government Reseller for Autodesk, DLT Solutions works with Autodesk and its government Value Added Reseller community to provide federal, state and local agencies with a wide range of solutions for 2D and 3D design, energy analysis, visualization, collaboration, and documentation.
“DLT naturally looks for ways to bring more value to government agencies through our deep subject matter expertise both in solutions and government procurement,” said Jim Helou, senior vice president, Autodesk Solutions at DLT Solutions. “In this instance, our sales and contracts team worked closely with the USAF procurement team to deliver a GSA-based BPA that gives great value to the Air Force on the products they have chosen to use to accomplish their objectives, and ensure access to all the value-added resources afforded by Autodesk and DLT.”
Autodesk Software Products: Mission Critical Solutions for USAF
One of the feature products in the BPA is AutoCAD Map 3D software, which contains the complete AutoCAD toolset and provides direct access to data needed for design drafting, construction surveying, and installation mapping activities. AutoCAD Map 3D is a standard software tool for creating and maintaining CAD and geospatial data in the 3E5X1, Engineering, career field and in the Prime Base Engineer Emergency Force (Prime BEEF) units. USAF engineers are able to aggregate cadastral, utility, topographic, environmental, image, LIDAR, and asset data; visualize and evaluate existing conditions; perform corridor, network, and site analysis; and exchange information in both CAD and GIS data formats.
Another feature product in the BPA is AutoCAD Civil 3D which provides a surveying, design, analysis, and documentation solution for civil engineering, including land development, transportation, and environmental projects. It contains the complete AutoCAD and AutoCAD Map 3D toolsets. Using a model-centric approach that automatically updates documentation as design changes are made, AutoCAD Civil 3D enables Air Force civil engineers, designers, drafters, and surveyors to significantly boost productivity and deliver higher-quality designs and construction documentation faster.
Today, nearly every civil engineering squadron in the USAF, including the Prime BEEF and the Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineer (RED HORSE) units, is using some combination of Autodesk products, including AutoCAD Map 3D and AutoCAD Civil 3D, to accomplish their missions. The products are also a standard for engineering design across the Architectural and Engineering contractor community that supports Air Force Civil Engineering worldwide.
As BIM-based designs are required by the General Services Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the USAF is now requiring a BIM-based design approach for all vertical military construction (MILCON) projects in fiscal year 2011 and beyond. With the BPA, the USAF will now have complete access to Autodesk’s BIM family of products, including Autodesk Revit Architecture and Navisworks. By having access to the BIM products, USAF personnel--who deal with managing building construction, operations and maintenance--will have the software tools and training necessary to take advantage of the 3D building models being delivered by design contractors. Using the 3D BIM models, the Air Force will be able to leverage design and engineering data more easily as approximately 100-150 unique MILCON projects are undertaken annually across a physical plant valued at more than $250 billion.
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