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Digital engineering & advisory

Digital engineering & advisory

We're digitising infrastructure. Work with us to co-create your future.

At Aurecon, our passion for digital is driving us to work with clients, using our digital engineering and advisory expertise to support them in taking control of their digital possibilities to improve their businesses. 

Increasingly, our client conversations are telling us that businesses are embracing digital technology and the almost endless possibilities created by digital disruption. 

Our digital expertise encompasses the way we work, how we share knowledge, collaborate and communicate. It’s essential to develop digital solutions, tools and expertise to improve whole of life performance on every project we deliver with clients. 

Currently, many businesses are in a digital limbo, with a part of them knowing they should do something ‘digital’ and another part unwilling to commit in case they make a wrong call. Aurecon’s digital team and strategy focuses on keeping pace with the developing digital environment and supporting businesses to become agile and connected.

Changing the game with digital studios

We believe that the creation of ‘digital studios’ is a game changer for engineering and architecture firms of the future. Gaming technology, augmented and virtual reality, as well as 3D, are having a huge impact on how the vision for major infrastructure and built environment projects are being communicated to project stakeholders, including Government, investors and the public.

Unsigned Studio: An Aurecon Business

Unsigned Studio

Bringing storytelling and technology together to create immersive and interactive project experiences.

Asian woman using virtual reality goggles

Regional Centre of Excellence | Singapore

The future of business lies in digital transformation – and Asia is ready to be transformed.

Unsigned Studio: An Aurecon Business

Unsigned Studio

Bringing storytelling and technology together to create immersive and interactive project experiences.

Asian woman using virtual reality goggles

Regional Centre of Excellence | Singapore

The future of business lies in digital transformation – and Asia is ready to be transformed.

 

In March 2018, the acquisition of a specialised team of digital designers and creative strategists has enhanced our access to new technologies, and combined with storytelling techniques, these are transforming digitisation across Aurecon.

We have further extended our 'digital' vision to the Asian market with the Regional Centre of Excellence for Digital Engineering, based in Singapore. Staffed by our Digital Futures team, the Centre is dedicated to help solving our clients’ challenges with emerging digital technologies and alternative business models.

We are committed to changing the way we analyse and solve our client's increasingly complex urban design and infrastructure challenges. Our ability to find the 'why' at the heart of each project and bring it to life through film, print, installation and interactive technologies allows our clients to experience projects in a way they never have before – completely reimagining the end-to-end experience, from visualisation to planning, construction and launch.

How we deliver digital solutions

Digital possibilities

Digital disruption is changing the way we interact, how we live our lives and the future we are creating. It is changing the face of industry, government and social engagement.

To thrive in the digital future, organisations and governments must:

  • Fundamentally rethink their planning, strategy and business processes
  • Create connected digital platforms
  • Improve their analytics and collaboration

At Aurecon we have combined our deep technical design capability, with our advisory expertise to deliver technically-led advisory services that empower clients to make well-informed capital decisions.

To support and strengthen our ability to deliver digital engineering and advisory to clients, we have digital leaders across our global network. We have an agreed digital approach to work planning and execution that is common across our business.

We are supporting and engaging our people to co-create your digital future. The ideas that we invest in are informed by the marketplace and our clients’ needs. We focus on connecting with our clients to recognise the digital changes we’ve made and to support them in building, transforming and optimising their own assets.

We do this through thought leadership, research and innovation. We are building on the ‘Our Digital Futures’ insights with agenda-shaping thinking.

Aurecon's digital advisory team assists clients in planning, procuring and managing their digitally connected enterprises to not only future-proof businesses, but to exploit the opportunities a digital future presents. We support clients throughout the digital transformation process by delivering deep business insight to help improve value and performance of assets.

Digitising the estate

Digitising the estate provides a digital profile of existing and real-time asset behaviour that can be used to optimise business performance – companies can detect physical issues sooner, predict outcomes more accurately, and drive greater value through assets now and in the future. Learn more ›

Machine learning

At Aurecon, machine learning is helping us find new answers to old problems, and outcomes for fresh challenges presented by our ever-evolving world. Machine learning allows us generate, manage and make sense of data, providing meaningful insights to help our clients make better decisions for a digitised future. More about machine learning here and below.

Defining digital

We use the words ‘digital disruption’ to describe the change that occurs when new digital technologies and business models affect how we do business. At Aurecon, “digital” means transforming the way we engineer, design and advise so we can help you – our clients and communities – become future ready.

What is digital engineering?

Digital engineering is the art of creating, capturing and integrating data using a digital skillset. This process enables designers to interact with and modify digitised representations of a design, facilitating communication and collaboration to resolve design challenges more effectively and efficiently than before. It also enables designers to innovate and develop solutions that push the boundaries of imagination and creativity.

How we define digital engineering ›

What do we mean by digital engineering transformation?

Digital engineering transformation refers to the integration of new technologies into the way we practice engineering and design. As digital technologies and their real-world applications continue to evolve, we are provided with increasing opportunity to transform the way we engineer, moving away from traditional methods and increasingly towards digital approaches that deliver more efficient, innovative and effective outcomes for users and clients.

The digitisation of engineering provides engineering practitioners with new ways to envision design, and to engage and collaborate with our clients, stakeholders and communities; using tools like virtual reality, augmented reality, visual models and virtual representations (flythrough videos and still images).

The benefits of digital engineering ›

What do we mean by digitising infrastructure?

Digitising infrastructure refers to the application of digital engineering approaches and tools to design. From the initial designs of new builds to the retrofitting of digital technologies to existing operations, we are designing new ways of delivering future-proofed infrastructure by exploring new technologies and emerging opportunities, helping our clients mitigate the effects of disruption on their projects.

What role does data capture play in digital engineering?

Data capture is any method of transforming information into a form that can be read by a computer. For Aurecon, it is the process of extracting key data from collection tools, and interpreting or manipulating that data for use in digital engineering approaches which inform the design outcome of a project.

One example of data capture is a photogrammetry scan, used on major infrastructure projects such as the remediation of Deans Head to capture the constantly changing topography after the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. 

Without a complete data set, engineers cannot effectively take advantage of the benefits of visualisation technologies because the representations would not accurately reflect project conditions. Conversely, if digital engineering tools are unable to accurately interpret the available data, then engineers may be designing solutions that may not be providing the best outcomes for the client.

Data capture with drones ›

What do we use virtual reality for?

Virtual reality (VR) is a term used to describe a computer generated, immersive 3D environment in which an individual can interact with their surrounds and manipulate objects. We use virtual reality and other visual technologies because it can lead to exciting new discoveries throughout the design and delivery of projects.

At Aurecon, we have been actively using visual technologies to visually collaborate with clients and engage communities on projects such as Wynyard Station Upgrade, Christchurch Bus Interchange and Brisbane Airport. These technologies help us co-create and test human-centred solutions, and allow our stakeholders to see the full extent of their design decisions in an interactive and safe way.

What is SMART technology?

Smart technology is defined by technologies that are connected through the Internet of Things (IoT), using sensors to analyse their environment and automatically modify their behaviour to provide for users in that environment.

Smart technologies are reactive to human actions and have the capability to self-regulate – to make their own decisions and respond to changes in the environment without human intervention. An example of smart technology is a temperature sensor, which helps a building self-regulate the optimum settings for heating and cooling.

What is the difference between artificial intelligence and machine learning?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term used to describe “intelligence” demonstrated by machines. AI programs may mimic or simulate cognitive behaviours or traits associated with human intelligence such as reasoning, problem solving and learning.

Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence, and describes a form of artificial intelligence programming which makes it possible for a machine to iteratively “learn” from experience. This “learning” is the refinement parameters based on observed data (historical or new) and related calculations. In this way the machine’s model of a system and the associated outputs (decision making behaviour) is adapted. It makes use of the ability of an AI program to recognise patterns in large amounts of data.

Case studies

Aurecon delivers a virtual reality experience for Brisbane Airport.

Brisbane Airport Corporation – Finding the best way using virtual reality

Aurecon with its Alliance partners – CPB Contractors, Lendlease, WSP and Metro Trains Melbourne – were selected by the Level Crossing Removal Authority (LXRA) to remove nine dangerous level crossings, and elevate three sections of rail line between the Melbourne suburbs of Caulfield and Dandenong.

Caulfield to Dandenong Level Crossing Removal Project – Large-scale digital evolution

Aurecon

Deans Head Christchurch – Digging the dirt digitally

Lam Tin Tunnel, Hong Kong

Lam Tin Tunnel – Before the blast

More case studies

Thinking

According to Aurecon’s Chief Digital Officer Andrew Maher, rushing it to digital without a fit for purpose strategy will pose more challenges than opportunities.

Building the digital estate

Aurecon team operating the drone using a programmed flight path

How drones are changing the way we design, deliver and manage assets

More thinking

Related expertise

More expertise

Copyright 2019 Aurecon Group Brand Pty. Ltd.

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