Wendy Lim
AEC Community Manager Wendy Lim recently met with Deepak Maini, Cadgroup Australia’s National Technical Manager – Named Accounts and Community Expert Elite, to talk about his career in AEC, the possibilities of BIM, and the value of sharing knowledge in the Autodesk Community.
What attracted you to a career in BIM?
I started my professional career as a mechanical engineer working with AutoCAD, Mechanical Desktop, and Inventor. But when the global financial crisis struck during the late 2000s, the manufacturing industry started seeing lean patches. So, I needed something more challenging to do. BIM was one of the buzzwords during that time and my company allowed me to venture into that field. Once I started looking at the AEC workflows and the potential of what BIM could do to improve the project delivery, I knew this is the field that I wanted to get into. It allowed me to work closely with some of the top AEC companies in Australia, which I continue to do to date.
What advancement in BIM are you most excited about and why?
Although BIM revolves around collaboration, the AEC industry was struggling with collaboration and coordination workflows. But in the last five to seven years, there have been some huge enhancements in these workflows, and with cloud technology making inroads into the AEC industry, all stakeholders are now able to work together as a team and sort out issues before they become a headache on a project. If you look at the performance of the AEC industry during the last two years of the global pandemic, you will notice that most of the industry continued working without too many dramas. A huge credit of this goes to the cloud-based collaborative BIM workflows. So, although buzzwords such as AI, big data, and machine learning are cool, for me it is the ground root functionality of seamless collaboration and coordination on the cloud that excites me the most about BIM.
What’s an interesting trend you’ve observed in AEC industry and what does AEC industry look like a year from now? five years? ten?
One of the most interesting trends that I have started to see is the industry’s desire to have standards that are easy to understand, follow, and implement. And most importantly, these are standards that the industry can easily replicate on small to large projects. A good example is the industry trying to make more and more projects ISO 19650 compliant. Not that ISO 19650 does not have room for improvement, but it is definitely a great start. So, from my perspective, short term (one to three years), these standards and their usage will expand to most projects worldwide. For a mid-term vision of three to five years, I reckon the innovation in greener ways of construction and energy-efficient materials and solutions will become prevalent in the industry. For a more long-term vision of five to ten years, I reckon automation is going to be the key. This automation could be AI-based or machine learning-based, but it will help free up considerable time for project members that could then be utilized on innovation.
So much knowledge in the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry is experience-based. What do you think are the best ways to share knowledge?
I personally think the best way to share knowledge is through community forums and conversations. I must give credit to various Autodesk Community Managers who do a phenomenal job in bringing more and more experienced professionals to contribute to various forums. I have also seen an increase in Facebook live interactions as well. If anything, I would also be keen on running some in-person Community User Group events to have some live interactions in person too.
Now that you using Architecture, Engineering & Construction Industry Solutions, what’s the #1 thing you’re able to do that you weren’t before?
I have to say connected workflows. Till the recent past, there was a huge disconnect between various key contributors during the design and pre-construction phase. However, with the AEC industry solutions evolving, it is a lot easier to implement connected workflows, and even take it to the next step and utilize the solutions available today further up and down the stream for pre-construction and construction workflows.
What does being an Autodesk Expert Elite mean to you?
I am glad you asked this question. The Expert Elite program is one of a kind program that brings a diverse group of people from around the world who have a desire to share their knowledge with the rest of the community and want to help others grow in their field. Being an Autodesk Expert Elite is an absolute honor and this program is very close to my heart. Helping the community is my passion and the fact that Autodesk acknowledges that passion means they care for the community and the contributors to the community. I would like to congratulate both Katinka and Maureen for creating a program so good that the EEs compete among themselves with the sole aim of who can help more people. And mind you, most people do it in addition to their full-time jobs. So for me, it means the world to be a part of this exclusive group of amazing people. 😊
Visit Deepak’s Autodesk Community profile
If you’d like to share your story, get in touch at aec.community@autodesk.com