New orchestration layer enables contractors to more easily compare information across specifications, drawings and BIM models
Volve, an AI platform for tendering and pre-construction, has added an orchestration layer designed to automate more complex tasks across calculations, estimating and the interpretation of drawings and BIM models.
The new capabilities allow users to give the system a task in natural language — for example, to “check that the quantities in the specification match the drawings and the IFC model”. Volve says the platform can determine the steps required, run those checks across a tender and verify the results before returning its findings, with the source behind each finding.
The aim is to reduce the manual work involved in comparing information across specifications, drawings and BIM models. Today, Volve says, identifying discrepancies between these sources can require someone to review each one manually.
By bringing the checks into the tender and estimating process, teams can potentially identify inconsistencies while an estimate is still being developed. The platform can also support decisions such as whether to bid, how to price the work and which risks to accept.
“We have always built toward AI that assists the expert tasks in tendering. What has changed is the architecture, and with it the speed,” said Herman B. Smith, co-founder and CEO of Volve.
“With orchestration on top of the project graph structure we already had, we are seeing completely new possibilities, sooner than we had planned for. Quantities against drawings and technical specifications is one first case. It will not be the last.”
