Building Digital Competency: Why and How

Setting up standards, modeling guidelines, templates, creating families, and many more things were the first step in this journey. And these were built considering the design and construction practices in India. We had to adopt some BIM processes to suite the client’s way of working, some processes evolved through the project cycle. What helped to see the path ahead was to see parallels in how other industries especially in the mechanical & engineering industry had used 3D to enhance capabilities in areas like visualization, design and production, bring efficiencies through integration of supply chains & logistics. This investment towards building competency then has helped us achieve what we have today.

How did we start building competency?

architecture and technical institutes locally and setup training for students there. They were trained to use the BIM tools and also got an opportunity to see work done on actual projects we were working on. Once these students graduated, they had the option of being a part of our team by taking up employment at Excelize. The training provided was free and was our way of contributing to the society.

The Excelize Story

Excelize was an early entrant into the BIM & 3D Modeling services segment. Having worked for many years in supporting our architectural clients in design development and CAD, we had a good understanding of the challenges faced in 2D and could see that the incoming use of 3D for design and construction would become the norm soon. As an early adopter of BIM in India, our biggest challenge was not acquiring a client, but having a team to execute the work. Finding a team that was open to using new tools, adopting new processes and to some extent unlearn was critical. Just training the team in use of 3D tools was not enough, but they needed to start thinking of 3D modeling as a natural way of working on construction projects. At the same time, we had to hand hold our clients through the adoption, so they understood the process and contributed towards realizing the BIM benefits.

Why was it important for us to build competency?

The benefits that BIM adoption offered were known to all but realized by few. So, there was reluctance to BIM adoption. For us it was importance to demonstrate to the end user/client that this is the future, and we would walk this part with them till the end. We had to have a team that understood not just how to build models, but how to build them to be constructable.

We setup multiple approaches to building competency. Starting with identifying the gaps and then building a training program for team members with different educational background, years of experience, etc. based on this a skill matrix was developed and training plan setup.

Training was provided by in person instruction and online training options, which is a blended approach. This helped with upskilling the team and increasing competency.

Another approach was an internship program. We collaborated with engineering,

As part of our continuous effort to improve efficiency and deliver quality, we have ongoing training that our team has to do and is a part of their KRA.

There is definite value to learning, training and upskilling. This is measured in terms of happy clients, repeat clients, error free deliveries, increase in efficiency and more people wanting to work with you. The duration a team member works with you is proof of his/her personal growth and the satisfaction his/her work brings to them. The value is immediate and keeps growing over a period of time as the technology gets better.