openBIM®Processes Helped Minnucci Associati s.r.l. Deliver Whole-life Value for Naples Station

The Naples Central Station is the sixth largest train station in Italy for passenger flow. The station manages an average of 150,000 people a day with around 400 trains in operation. The owner, Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) is responsible for the management and safety of railway traffic on the entire national network, including tracks, stations and installations.

With the need to continuously develop its own assets and at the same time maintain existing ones, RFI initiated a pilot project to capture their existing assets through surveying to modeling. This digital twin would then be converted to an open and collaborative format, allowing integration into their facilities management system in order to help improve the whole-life value of their assets. The project was developed through standardised methodology requiring project teams to work within buildingSMART standards and toolkits to better manage the flow of information guaranteeing maximum interoperability.

With the need to develop new buildings and better understand their existing assets, RFI required a solution that could capture and model their existing buildings and an open and collaborative framework for integration into their facilities management system to help improve the whole-life value of their assets. With passenger flow, experience and health and safety being of central importance to the station, RFI required all project participants to work in a standardised methodology.

As BIM manager for the project, Minnucci Associati s.r.l. needed to develop a BIM model covering the 5 main buildings, spanning over 400,000 square meters to provide a digital data workflow to manage thousands of components including electrical, HVAC, hydraulics, and other critical assets that need regular maintenance.  Minnucci also needed to create a common data environment (CDE) to set up an exchange, storing and verification of the BIM deliverables. GRAPHISOFT’s BIMcloud was the chosen solution.

GRAPHISOFT’s ARCHICAD was the chosen BIM authoring tool with an open workflow with IFC. The 44 models created were shared with the owner for approval. By mapping the BIM authoring tool with IFC open standards, Minnucci was able to create automated workflows and instant asset recognition.

This project benefited from a variety of buildingSMART tools and solutions to enable better collaboration, cooperation and value from their BIM deliverables.  IFC2x3 was deployed for Coordination View, Reference View, Design Transfer View and FM Handover View. buildingSMART Data Dictionary.

As a consequence of adhering to open standards, Minnucci Associati was able to demonstrate true value in developing, managing and exchanging BIM deliverables as well as seamless integration with existing facilities management tools. This not only helped the detection and modeling of existing assets but enabled improved decision making for the ongoing operations and maintenance of the Naples Central Station.