Cidon's promises are delivered with Tekla

UK-based reinforced concrete contractor, Cidon Construction, has adopted Tekla’s Building Information Modelling (BIM) software to bring effiencies throughout the business to deliver projects quickly, competently and reliably for clients.

This successful implementation has led to significantly more profitable work being won, estimating costs have halved and the software has paid for itself in just six months.

Cidon Construction’s strategy is very clear: to deliver an excellent customer service, to innovate and offer technical expertise to deliver real productivity and quality improvements for both Cidon Construction and its customers’ benefit.

Driven by its bottom line, Cidon Construction wanted to bring efficiency throughout the whole process to ultimately win more work. By choosing to invest and adopt Tekla Structures 3D modeling software and BIM processes into its operations, a more intelligent way of working has successfully been achieved that delivers real benefits and value across all aspects of its business.

Ciaran Donnelly, Managing Director at Cidon Construction comments: “We are completely accountable to our customers; promises have to be delivered and in order to do that, we have to work smarter and bring efficiencies to all areas of the business.”

“The consequences of not performing efficiently are too great as they can result in significant time and cost delays to the project. Adopting Tekla enables us to take a much simpler and leaner approach to our business, ensuring that we are always offering a high quality, dedicated service.”

Value at every stage

Tekla’s solutions for concrete construction add value at every stage of the design to the construction process, with tools to easily model accurate concrete structures - meaning that what is in the model is correct to what must be executed on site.

Ciaran explains further: “We required a simple to use software model that could be accessible to everyone within Cidon Construction and the wider chain of rebar detailers and framework suppliers. Tekla’s 3D software ticked the box for us, it’s incredibly user-friendly and we were up and running very quickly within two weeks of purchasing and attending training! Having not ever used Tekla before, the training provided was invaluable and completely tailored to our needs so it was well worth the investment.”

The importance of interoperability

The open interoperability of a software solution was an important part of the decision process for Cidon Construction. In particular, how this would lead to a more collaborative working relationship with all parties participating in the concrete construction workflow, throughout engineering offices, rebar detailers and fabricators, to the contractors who plan to pour the concrete.

For concrete contractors, having an accurate 3D modeling solution delivers benefits at every stage of the construction process and this is where Tekla software leads the way as it serves the whole concrete construction workflow. From initially creating accurate 3D models, which are used to organize, plan, estimate and for preparation, to taking the model on site to pour the concrete, contractors can have complete confidence in all stages.

With Tekla, the entire process is significantly improved with substantial benefits resulting from the speed of estimating; Cidon Construction was able to reduce their quantity take off and estimating timescales by 50% compared to traditional 2D take off.

Estimating benefits

Additionally, the software can handle large amounts of data and so is capable of producing the schedules and drawings essential to construction. Due to the fact that each model contains a high level of construction detail, the benefit of being able to visualize this in 3D – as opposed to a conceptualized 2D drawing – provides a greater understanding of the task in hand, as well as allowing analysis, planning and drawing production.

“By using Tekla software, our estimating costs have been halved. We are a lot more informed by modeling and therefore more selective on tenders as we now have the ability to submit high-quality bids quickly and efficiently, resulting in our tenders versus secured work up by a factor of 2.5 from 1 in 10 jobs to 1 in 4,” continues Ciaran.

“Ultimately, the software has given us the flexibility and the confidence to offer a highly credible, efficient and competitive service to our customers, which is completely in line with Cidon’s company ethos.”