Member Article

Leeds Engineering Firm Rewarded For Digital Capabilities

A Leeds-based engineering firm has been recognised for its digital capabilities winning a coveted award for Digital Construction at this year’s Constructing Excellence Yorkshire & Humber Awards. Adept Civil and Structural Consulting Engineers was also highly commended in the SME of the Year category.

Constructing Excellence Awards celebrate the very best of the UK’s built environment and winners are selected at the regional awards programme, before going through to the national finals, which will be held in autumn. Run by Constructing Excellence, which was formed in 2003 bringing several industry bodies together, the awards recognise the best and inspire the rest.

Adept triumphed in the Digital Construction category due to its wholehearted adoption of collaborative digital processes, which have dramatically improved the planning, design, fabrication, construction and operation of buildings and infrastructures. The award recognises firms that have embraced Building Information Modelling (BIM), Geographic Information System (GIS), Big Data and other evolving technological advancements.

Erol Erturan, managing director at Adept, said: “When we founded the business in 2007, we were acutely aware of the potential issues with 2D analogue workflows, which were the industry norm, despite the fact that BIM, which was still in its infancy in our industry, had the potential to take things to a whole new level. As an early adopter of BIM we recognised its benefits, but it was a steep learning curve as very few people in the industry had experience of it. Despite this, we fully embraced BIM and committed to innovative BIM working methods in order to improve processes and service delivery – and what a great decision that was!

“We wanted to create an inclusive and engaging environment, where our team would be continually encouraged to explore and experiment, so we introduced the company’s BIM policy in 2011, and appointed industry experts to create a consistent support structure to help facilitate a smooth transition to the BIM processes.

“In 2015 we applied for the BRE BIM Level 2 accreditation and became the very first civil and structural consultancy in the country to achieve it. Team members started attending the annual BIM Show Live and other digital innovation events and we have never looked back.

“Regular innovation, training and trials followed, and in addition to BIM, we also actively pursue continuous improvement measures and embrace new ideologies and technologies investing approximately £80,000 a year in software, hardware, laser scanners and high performance servers.

“We always pass on our knowledge to clients, design partners and suppliers who are open to new and innovative ways of working, and welcome everyone to engage with our digital assets at our head office in Leeds, where they can see our designs in Virtual Reality (VR). Now BIM is integral and fundamental to the delivery of all our projects. There are no exceptions to this, and in practice we go beyond what is traditionally seen as BIM for Civil and Structural Engineers, routinely deploying our Laser Scanner, UAV and VR equipment. Our quest for ever better solutions is continuous, and we are always learning and pushing boundaries, something that has been recognised by Construction Excellence with this award win.”

The Constructing Excellence Yorkshire & Humber Awards judged commented that ‘Adept has based its entire business philosophy on BIM and digital construction, and have gone from strength to strength as a result.’

Construction Excellence also highly commended Adept in the SME of the Year Award category. Erol added: “Our turnover, profit, overall growth and client diversification have been very positive over the past few years. In 2018, our turnover increased 25.5% in comparison to 2017. We also secured our largest contract to date and won a prestigious award from the Institute of Structural Engineers for our work at Rudding Park Spa in Harrogate.

“This year we have a key role in the development of Future Park, one of the UK’s most significant cultural and energy-efficient attractions of the 21st Century, which recently won the ‘Best Futura Mega Project 2019’ at the MIPIM awards, and continue to be instrumental in the design of several large-scale projects for retail giant Next.”

Adept was founded in 2007 by business partners, Erol Erturan, Matthew Ramsden and Richard Parker. It has an annual turnover of more than £2 million. Clients include a wide range of regional and national construction and development firms such as Strategic Team Group, McCarthy & Stone, ISG, Simons Construction, Interserve, Asda, Next PLC, Debenhams, CBRE and Town Centre Securities.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Steven Wright .