Bentley Systems, Incorporated (Nasdaq: BSY), the infrastructure engineering software company, Infotech®, a leader in infrastructure construction software solutions, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), a nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing transportation departments in 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, today announced an initiative to support digital delivery for departments of transportation. Their work together will provide increased value and tools to modernize project delivery processes for better project outcomes, including streamlined design to construction processes, better quality of data, and improved communication of design intent.

To validate the approach, parties are working together with MnDOT, the lead state DOT on this effort, on a digital delivery proof of concept that should improve the digital collaboration across design and construction. By integrating and extending design and construction contract systems of record, Bentley, Infotech, and AASHTO will advance industry best practices for data federation, with data captured once and then seamlessly accessible across project delivery workflows. Bentley applications will be enabled to optimize for pay-item data during design and pre-construction processes, synchronizing digital twins for accurate and efficient construction deliverables. The integration of AASHTOWare Project and Infotech’s cloud technology with Bentley Infrastructure Cloud’s iTwin Platform to span OpenRoads, ProjectWise, and SYNCHRO will dramatically improve processes that to date have been manual, such as the entry of construction pay item summaries into plan sheets.

Bentley, Infotech, and AASHTO will streamline digital delivery market offerings that demonstrate value and best practices for:

• on-demand pay item updates – to synchronize the official pay item list in AASHTOWare Project with design and construction artifacts, minimizing pay-item differences at plan turn-in for letting;
• automated quantities – to maximize pay item amounts extracted automatically from the design process, versus manually entered;
• predicted future costs – to minimize variations between official design-based estimates and actual construction costs; and
• automated funding categories – to maximize automatic extraction, for transfer to AASHTOWare Project, of financial responsibility allocations across agencies and partnering parties.

Dustin Parkman, Vice President, Transportation, at Bentley Systems, said, “This partnership with AASHTO and Infotech will help DOTs realize their project delivery digital transformation goals with automation between Bentley’s solutions and AASHTOWare Project. Data, which had been siloed, will be extensively and easily shared across the design and construction lifecycle.”

Chad Schafer, Infotech Chief Revenue Officer, said, “We understand the pain points that DOTs experience from disparate systems, and our work with Bentley is focused on the common goal of facilitating a connected environment that eliminates redundant data entry and reduces errors by bringing design and construction together. We look forward to partnering with Bentley to support agencies as they prioritize digital project delivery initiatives.”

Brian Korschgen, Product Director for AASHTOWare Project, AASHTO, said, “The collaboration between Bentley, Infotech, AASHTO, and MnDOT is a signal to state DOTs that data must flow from system to system efficiently without disruption. This is a great first step toward making that a reality for the industry.”