Background

Russian general contracting company Step has been operating in the civil and industrial construction market since 1993. Possessing modern construction, management and planning technologies, Step has completed over 200 projects in 16 Russian regions. The company has unique experience in construction in harsh climatic conditions – in permafrost areas, in taiga and swamps, in hard-to-reach places. Step also carried out construction work in historic buildings.

Every year Step takes care of extremely complex engineering projects. The number of commissioned objects and their complexity are increasing every year. This obliges the company to use non-standard approaches and the most innovative design solutions. The day-to-day activities of Step specialists are inextricably linked with the use of Autodesk products, which were chosen as the main working tool, since they meet all the company's requirements for software and perfectly cope with all engineering tasks.

Until recently, Step bought perpetual licenses for Autodesk products. Since licenses were purchased at different times, this did not allow to update the software at the same time. Often, specialists used different versions of the software, which made it difficult to collaborate.

Solution

Autodesk's new subscription-based licensing model provided regular software updates as part of a subscription, thereby unifying and simplifying the experience of using software products. All Step experts are now working with the latest software. It also made it easier to plan the company's financial costs for the purchased software.

Constantly expanding cooperation with Softline and replenishing its portfolio of software products for BIM and CAD, the customer is improving the process of design and construction of facilities. This allows the company to minimize errors in the work of design teams, reduce costs, monitor the condition of facilities throughout the life cycle, and improve the quality of construction.

Results

Now Step actively uses in its work the software package from Autodesk – Architecture, Engineering & Construction Collection. The collection includes a range of cutting-edge BIM and CAD tools for designers, engineers and contractors to help professionals complete any task in early design and construction. The company's specialists use the collection for conceptual modeling and analysis of TEP, preparation of design and working documentation for industrial and civil construction facilities, analysis of design solutions and verification of spatial collisions, design of infrastructure and infrastructure lines, analysis of load-bearing structures, and other applied problems. In particular, Revit, Civil 3D, AutoCAD, InfraWorks, Navisworks are used for effective coordination, analysis and management of the projects, and performing all work tasks. The data exchange functionality and full compatibility of the products in the collection allow for quickly transfer of the necessary information between them, helping to optimize the workflows. In addition, with the use of BIM products of AEC Collection, the company managed to automate routine processes and solve some non-trivial tasks. According to the estimates of Step engineers, when considering a tender proposal from a customer for a model and PD, the time for estimating volumes using Navisworks Manage was reduced from two weeks to one business day.

“Cooperating with Softline on all issues related to the use and maintenance of Autodesk products, we are implementing large-scale projects that we can rightfully be proud of. Among them are construction of a plant for production of non-concentrated nitric acid in Kemerovo, construction of Belaya Gora gold mining plant in Khabarovsk Territory, and construction of a magnetite concentrate drying shop as part of the Bystrinsky Ore Mining and Processing Plant in Trans-Baikal Territory.

The geography of construction often covers the most remote regions of the country with a harsh climate. Recently, more and more large customers have come to us with special requirements for the systems with which we work. Therefore, it is impossible to effectively fulfill the complex tasks that our clients set for us without achieving a high technological level and the ability to quickly transform our infrastructure to meet growing needs. More and more often, working with models requires serious resources and an increase in the bandwidth of communication channels.

Thus, the rapid growth of our company has determined the change in the infrastructure used and the very principles of work. We purchased equipment ahead of our growing needs. And Softline, our long-time partner, helped us to acquire Autodesk licenses in the required volume. An indicative moment was the fact that the transition to remote work during the pandemic happened for us absolutely painlessly, without impacting the effectiveness of collaboration. I will sum up that in many respects this became possible due to sufficient software and hardware equipment.

Despite the fact that Step is at the very beginning of the path toward using BIM, over the past two years our specialists have been increasingly using 3D modeling, including the Autodesk Revit, in design for industrial construction. Autodesk's innovative BIM software products facilitate collaboration and help us plan, design, build and operate a variety of facilities more efficiently,” said Dmitry Titov, CIO at Step.