American software development company Bentley Systems is providing important advice to its clients by collating and analysing data.

The firm, whose software solutions serves building, plant, civil, and geospatial markets in the areas of AEC and operations, says it can mine data repositories on behalf of its clients, and can offer critical analysis that is based on real-world data.

Speaking to Middle East Consultant, Santanu Das, senior vice president of design modeling at Bentley Systems said that BIM software is creating vast amounts of data, which can be used to glean useful information.

“Clients don’t know how to mine this data but we do, and we’re going back to them with useful information. We can go back to clients and say ‘sir, your last 10 projects took you 77 hours, we think it should take you 45 hours because that’s the average industry standard’. We can help our users improve their workflow purely by digesting their data, we call it our Connected Project Analysis,” explained Das.

The company is working towards connecting its global users, along with all their projects, workflows and data, using the cloud. In doing so the company will be able to compile and analyse massive amounts of data, which could mean better and more accurate analytics.

Bentley Systems is convinced that its vision of a connected future is doable, however Das notes that there may be challenges with regards to the adoption of BIM software. Das notes, “Everyone has been doing engineering design for so long using existing tools and processes that we might have to wait for people to retire, so the new guys can take advantage of the modern solutions and processes. It’s a massive change in process, and as the newer guys take more leadership roles, they’re going to look for these efficiencies.”