BIM Applied to the Portel Water Supply Project

Ana Amélia Santos, Manuel Fernandes, and Susana Freitas

Department of Studies and Projects for Water and Sanitation, Empresa Portuguesa Águas Livres, Portugal

Abstract: The detailed design of the Portel Water Supply System was based on the BIM methodology, the main goal being to initiate project implementation by applying this methodology, thereby improving and optimizing asset management, operation and maintenance and, in particular, to promote interconnection of all management areas across the company at the early stages of the decision making and implementation process.

The application of this methodology to the Portel Water Supply System, also aimed to integrate information management of various project components, thus promoting a structured flow of information, to be shared amongst the various stakeholders. Additionally, the involvement of all technical areas of EPAL/AdVT, the ultimate recipient of the asset in the form of a BIM model, assured it incorporated the requirements of each technical area, naturally bringing added value to future asset management.

Therefore, this is considered to be a pioneer project, which went ahead with an innovative approach to project design, in order to follow the global trends of modernization, enabling development of more complex projects, with better quality, reduced construction time and lower associated risks.

Key words: project, methodology, BIM (Building Information Modeling)