SBB Swiss Federal Railways

The deployment of 4D design applications, simulation technologies and process patterns to support Lean Construction Methods on the station refurbishing and facelifting project of the SBB corporation.

Starting Position

The architectural renovation and upgrade of its regional railway stations is part of a development strategy in which the SBB invests annually 80 to 100 million CHF. Civil engineering works like underpasses, new roofings of platforms or facilities like waiting halls and informations boards are typical for this program. Examples from Great Britain an the USA, namly the extension and reconstruction of the Heathrow Airport (Terminal 5), the Pancras Station in London or the Fulton Street Transit Center in New York City show cost saving up to 30% on comparable construction projects if appropiate methods were applied. Given this rationalization potential, the question is if it can be utilized on SBB's current projects and if methods to significantly reduce the construction time can be developed to minimise the mitigation of the travel and transport operations.

Objectives

The site construction processes of one regional station upgrade project serves as a pilot case. New planning and management methods, models and simulation systems will be assembled to a powerful tool-set for the optimization of the construction processes. We will deploy instruments, which have been used up to now only independently or outside the AEC domain. The main focus lies on 4D technologies, virtual environments, process planning and management, the identifi¬cation and description of recurring process patterns (Process Design Pattern) as well as the integration of Lean Construction methods. In particular we study and evalute

  • the challenges, requirements, conditions and benefits of the deployment of 4D design and conctruction applications in conventional planning and construction processes
  • the potential of 4D model technologies for the implementaion of Lean Construction methods
  • the deployment of Virtual Reality technologies in planning processes
  • and develop
  • strategic virtual design, construction and operation methods
  • process design patterns to rapidly build process models to solve recurring planning, design and construction problems efficiently

Project Participants

Lead

  • Prof. Fritz Häubi

Project Team

  • Dr. Doris Agotai
  • Prof. Dr. Manfred Breit
  • Prof. Mario Doulis
  • Fabian Märki
  • Michael Raps
  • Prof. Dr. Manfred Vogel

Partner

  • SBB Swiss Federal Railway Corporation
  • Schock+Guyan Architects ETH SIA
  • in flagranti advertising agency