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SENER thus becomes Spain’s first engineering company to be certified by LRQA in BIM according to this standard.
SENER, with the help of the prestigious leading risk management and control entity LRQA, has successfully completed the process of assessing the certification of its Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology according to the standard UNE-EN ISO 19650. The certificate was delivered at SENER’s offices in Tres Cantos, Madrid, in the presence of the General Manager of SENER Engineering, Gabriel Alarcón, and the Managing Director of LRQA Inspection Services, José Rivero.
Thus, SENER has become Spain’s first engineering company to certify its BIM methodology with LRQA, being certified as a Lead Appointed Party profile. This is a milestone within SENER’s digitalization strategy; after completing its own digital transformation, with the implementation of the BIM methodology and other digital tools, the company is specializing in customer solutions that combine data processing technologies, artificial intelligence, machine learning and virtual reality applications, including RESPIRA®, ACROT and ORUGA®.
According to SENER Engineering’s General Manager, Gabriel Alarcón: “With the certification in BIM methodology we meet one of the objectives set in 2017 when we created the SENER BIM Office. This milestone demonstrates that SENER’s firm commitment to technology and innovation is enhanced by the digitalization strategy of our solutions. SENER is a trailblazer in the use and application of virtual design tools for construction and, specifically, the implementation of BIM methodology in SENER’s construction projects dates back to 2006. SENER is internationally recognized for being at the forefront of technology. This is possible thanks to our transversality and the talent of our people, integrated in highly qualified professional teams, whose passion for their work enables us to be the first to discover and apply best practices and offer to the market highly innovative and quality solutions.”
In the words of the Managing Director of LRQA Inspection Services, José Rivero: “Our strong determination and service vocation to ensure the success of our clients’ present and future business, thanks to our technical knowledge, our industry experience and our innovative approach in the field of certification, verification and inspection, enables us to be today a leading entity in risk management and control of recognized prestige worldwide. It is a pleasure and a source of pride to have worked side by side once again with SENER, to obtain in this case its BIM-ISO 19650 certification, with which it continues to demonstrate day after day its commitment to quality and innovation, reaching the highest levels of excellence in each discipline it develops.”
Building Information Modeling (BIM) is the process of generating and managing data of a project during its life cycle through the digitization of the project and through integrated management in a collaborative technology platform, obtaining a virtual recreation of the project in a database with 3D visual representation. BIM allows to communicate, reuse and share information effectively and manage projects and assets comprehensively. It is a methodology that advances efficiency, by having an extremely reliable basis for decision-making, and a fundamental element in planning: the real-time management and integration of data. As a result, this leads to better specifications, quotations, compliance, construction simulations and risk reduction, including an increase in project sustainability (in terms of reducing consumption, materials used, predictive maintenance, etc.), present from the early stages of design and construction.
Over the last fifteen years, the BIM methodology has been established as a key tool in urban and infrastructure. However, certification in this methodology is recent, and few Spanish companies, including SENER, have thus far obtained the UNE-EN ISO 19650 certification, which guarantees their correct handling of information under the BIM methodology.
The use of this type of technology has been written in SENER’s DNA, a trailblazer company in the use of digital applications in the field of design and construction, some of them developed internally. In 2006, SENER began working with BIM software applied to buildings and infrastructure projects, becoming one of Spain’s trailblazers in the use of this methodology and developing an internal work team, SENER BIM Office, which promotes ongoing improvement in the implementation of this methodology. SENER’s projects that apply BIM methodology include innovative systems such as the retractable pitch of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, metros and trams, such as Panama Line 3, Guadalajara metro, Cairo monorail, Doha Red Line, workshops and depots of the Doha metro, Ontario Line, the Edinburgh tram, the Sidney–Melbourne metro, high-speed projects such as the High Speed 2 line (HS2) in the United Kingdom and buildings such as the BBVA bank headquarters in Madrid. Similarly, in the energy sector, the solar thermal power plants Noor I in Morocco, Bokpoort in South Africa and Termosol I & II in Spain have implemented BIM in their execution.
SENER’s experience with BIM has enabled it to become a benchmark company in the application of BIM technology and processes both in its own projects and in corporate implementation for other companies.