Arup

This category is open to any geotechnical company that can show excellence in the way it has used digital technology to improve systems, performance, processes or project delivery within its own business between January 2022 and January 2023. Entries in this category should focus on business-wide innovations and, where applicable, be used on multiple projects. Project-specific innovations should be entered in the Technical Excellence category. Entries could focus on a particular digital innovation - such as an initiative to improve safety, employment practices, collaboration or delivery - or present how digital innovation is fostered and encouraged across the business and the benefits this is driving. The innovation could be site or office based, and entrants should present clear evidence of how the innovation has delivered performance, cost, health and safety or reliability improvements for the business and how this benefits both clients and society.

Reducing cost, carbon and uncertainty through parametric design automation

Digital innovation through developing and connecting components at each stage of a ground engineering project lifecycle is delivering time and cost savings to our clients. We have developed an ecosystem of digital tools that our geotechnical engineers and geologists are trained to use, including a platform DesignCheck. DesignCheck is a cloud-based repository of over 2,500 calculations engineering calculations from 24 engineering disciplines; 86 are ground engineering based. Geotechnical DesignCheck hosted calculations have been run over 37,500 times within Arup in the past 12 months, reducing errors and saving design time. Our investment enables parametric design. Scripts embedded in grasshopper elements operate geotechnical analysis such as pile design using Oasys Pile and Alp, footing settlement calculations using Oasys Pdisp, 2D FE analysis using Plaxis and pile group design using Piglet.