Modernizing hydropower: cloud-based BIM enables real-time collaboration

Leading engineering and design consultancy Norconsult, headquartered in Norway, recently leveraged Trimble Connect to drive success on the complex Rockesholm power station project in Sweden. By shifting to a cloud-centric approach, the team elevated efficiency, stakeholder collaboration, and project delivery speed, all key drivers in modern BIM workflows. Utilizing Trimble Connect as their Common Data Environment (CDE), Norconsult optimized productivity and data management, highlighting the platform’s advanced capabilities for controlling and sharing critical information at scale.

Breaking free from legacy BIM workflows’ file-based delays

For complex infrastructure projects, legacy BIM workflows simply can't keep pace with today’s demands. File-based systems introduce friction, hinder true multidisciplinary collaboration, and delay data-driven decision-making.

Updating the federated model, which means combining IFCs from common authoring tools, required the BIM coordinator to manually export, save, and assemble a new file for distribution. This cumbersome workflow meant model updates were typically shared only every 14 days. The process was time-consuming. For example, a simple change, such as repositioning a door, as discussed, could trigger a cycle lasting up to three weeks before the updated information reached everyone on site. This bottleneck was inefficient and frustrating.

Trimble Connect: instant interoperability and time savings

​By adopting Trimble Connect₁, Norconsult transitioned to a cloud-based solution that enabled instant access to the latest federated model for all users. The ability to instantly update and share a single source of truth across complex folder structures was transformative. During project meetings, the BIM coordinator could make a change, publish it to Trimble Connect, and have site teams simply reload the model for real-time updates. What once took weeks now happens in seconds, dramatically reducing wasted effort and cycle time.

Trimble Connect simplified the management of complex IFC model data. The intuitive, nested folder structure made maintaining a rigorous data hierarchy easy and efficient, eliminating the time-wasting workarounds required by previous software and mitigating the risks of mismanaged file versions.

By aggregating IFCs from multiple authoring tools, Trimble Connect delivered a dramatically simpler and more reliable model assembly process. This enabled Norconsult to realize the full potential of a constructible BIM workflow, minimizing issues and maximizing coordination efficiency.

Collaborative visibility for every stakeholder

Seamless coordination between diverse teams and specialists was essential to project success. By shifting to a true Common Data Environment in Trimble Connect, all stakeholders, from designers to contractors to owners, gained instant access to up-to-date project information from a single, authoritative source. This elevated visibility accelerated communication and empowered confident decision-making, reducing the risk of missteps and costly rework.

On-site teams, including builders and contractors, benefited from Trimble Connect’s robust mobile performance. The platform delivered advanced functionality for activities like taking measurements and generating cross-sections directly on iPads, supporting a truly connected site and empowering field teams with unlimited access to model intelligence.

Trimble Connect served as a centralized hub for all project partners, including the power plant owner, construction teams, and surveyors (using Trimble devices). Surveying teams could now connect directly to the model, eliminating the need for manual exports and accelerating the translation of design intent to the field.

By providing direct access to the latest model data, the power plant project ensured all stakeholders maintained real-time visibility and worked from a single, accurate source of truth, minimizing the risk of errors and rework.

This highly collaborative, cloud-enabled BIM workflow delivered significant time savings and reduced errors for the project team, reinforcing the growing importance of cloud-based CDEs for major construction and infrastructure projects across Europe.

¹Trimble Connect is an open collaboration tool that provides the right people with the right data at the right time. This cloud-based tool serves as a common data environment for project stakeholders to securely share, review, and collaborate on multidimensional project files without specialized software or an internet connection. From the office to the field, Trimble Connect provides everyone on the project with visibility to the big picture, right down to the tiniest constructible detail.