Customer Story: How GMB Uses Cintoo to Identify As-Built Conditions

GMB - A Netherlands-based general contracting company overseeing the maintenance and restoration of civil service facilities such as dikes, port sites, sewers, pumping stations, water purification plants and sludge processing plants.

"We could never compare what's modelled to what's actually there until we started using Cintoo - Lars Hesselink, Innovation Engineer at GMB."

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Lars Hesselink

Innovation Engineer at GMB

How GMB Determines What’s What in an Industrial Environment Using Cinto

More and more, professionals in the industrial construction space are realizing that very complicated ecosystems and industry workflows require an increased attention to equipment and operations maintenance. These projects include environments that need highly controlled processes to ensure that all areas of assessments and risks are handled effectively, and it starts with an increased need to perform more laser scanning from a project’s very beginning.

GMB has a big task on their hands, especially because to really know what’s what in the current project domain means acquiring the right scans and then consolidating them to get the latest sense for what’s actually there. Lars Hesselink, an Innovation Engineer at GMB, explains how new scanning is needed to assess the current situation. “We find that often a major part of miscommunication is based on not seeing the actual situation,” he says. “New scans are made to provide insight into the project and current situation.” GMB uses drone and terrestrial scanners to scan the area. Next, the scans are processed using Autodesk Recap and then uploaded into GMB MiX, which relies on Cintoo’s Visual Twin platform to view and create 3D models based on point clouds.

The problem GMB encountered initially was that, with such highly detailed and complex environments, many scans are needed and there was no way initially for GMB to overlay point cloud data with as-built conditions, as well as make those views accessible to clients. Cintoo became the foremost solution that GMB relied on for storing and viewing such massive sets of point cloud data. More specifically, because Cintoo can consolidate such massive sets of data into scalable and viewable digital twins and 3D models, the point cloud data became accessible to all of GMB’s important stakeholders, including both clients and the project team. The ability to see the work zone processes and conditions and take measurements and tag equipment through the Cintoo platform became vital for GMB’s project development. “We could never compare what’s modelled to what’s actually there until we started using Cintoo,” Hesselink says.

Hesselink explains how one client that GMB was head contractor for had a production facility entirely based around old 2D CAD models. GMB was tasked with doing a total renovation of the current installations, so they needed to convert all existing models into 3D ones. Moreover, GMB merged point clouds populated by scan data with 3D models in Cintoo, giving the client the ability to compare the as-built conditions with the new plans for renovation. This not only led to significant cost savings and timeliness but also to increased data sharing that was fast, reliable, and efficient, thanks to the unlimited capacity for storage and visualization that Cintoo provides. The client in charge of the production facility was included in the project needs, constraints, and conditions so that total oversight and inclusion was maintained.

GMB continues to innovate using Cintoo to store, view, and share massive sets of point cloud data. By leveraging Cintoo, GMB is able to offer new and extended services to clients that include increased visibility, sharing capacity, and integration.