Revolutionizing Construction Management with Mostafa ElAshmawy

Discover the blueprint for the future as we sit down with Mostafa ElAshmawy, WSP Middle East’s visionary in BIM and GIS, to unravel the evolution of digital transformation within the construction industry. Witness Mostafa's riveting transition from an enthusiastic engineering student to an influential force in digital engineering, sharing the ins and outs of his career trajectory and the expansive role digital models play in enhancing data-driven decision-making. Learn how these advancements are changing the game in project estimation and coordination, and get a peek into Mostafa's pioneering strategies and his aspirations for seamless project management that could revolutionize how we build our world.

Embrace the excitement of managing colossal construction marvels as Mostafa gives us a front-row seat to the cutting edge of mega project management in the Middle East's AGC industry. From the sustainability-focused ambitions of the Future Ready program to the digital wizardry of Digital Twins and the promising efficiencies of modular construction, we dissect how these technologies are crafting a new era of design. Get an exclusive look into the grandeur and complexities of Saudi Arabia's giga projects like the Red Sea project and NEOM, while also delving into the sustainability practices that are setting new standards in construction. Mostafa's personal vision for health-enhancing technologies that connect generations offers a stirring close to our far-reaching discussion, all of which points to an industry at the cusp of a monumental leap forward.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Welcome to Future Construct. I'm Mark Odin, the CEO of BIM Designs Inc. And guest host of Future Construct. Today I'm hosting Mustafa El-Ashmawi, head of BIM and GIS at WSP Middle East. Welcome, mustafa. Thank you for making the time to join me. Thanks.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Mark, it's my pleasure.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Mustafa, you have an in-depth knowledge of architectural, landscape and MEP. You've worked as a global BIM manager, worked on many of the most significant construction projects in the Middle East over the last 12 years, delivering, coordinating and managing BIM, gis and CAD deliverables. You've used your knowledge and experience to implement BIM and provide digitization strategies for your organization and clients. You obtain a master's degree in global BIM management and are certified by many respectful information management organizations. You've also acquired a deep academic knowledge of internal standards, methods and procedures related to information management. With so much experience, you're continually and positively influencing the digital construction market. Thank you for all of your many contributions in the AAC space, mustafa.

Speaker 2: 1:30

Thanks, mark, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:33

To kick off the podcast, I'm wondering with your extensive experience, I'd first love to know how you got your start in the industry. Over the course of your career, the projects you've played a role in and altered and brought positive change to the industry in the way that you want to see the industry project management practices change or grow. If we could just learn a little bit about you.

Speaker 2: 1:56

Okay. So it all started before college. I dreamt of joining engineering college for a long time and even had a small fight with my dad to join engineering college. But then, once I joined, I chose to join the civil engineering department and focused on structural engineering for a long time. I was amazed by 30 of structures, how loads go through buildings and how it's transferred from an element to an element. But then when I was graduated from civil engineering faculty, I worked in the steel structure field for a bit short time At that part of my career I worked as a technical office engineer.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Also for a certain period of time I worked as a site engineer. So during the first two years after graduation I jumped through several positions. I worked for contractors, for fabricators, designers. I even worked as an instructor for some software and during this part also being an instructor for this engineering software led into me mastering more and more of these software. So being part of the AAC industry from my perspective was more of being involved in the digital engineering part of the industry. So I learned many software, at the beginning focused on the drafting and modeling, then started developing these skills further when I understood that there is much larger world called BEM.

Speaker 2: 4:04

So at the beginning I was just a bit professional, but then I started looking at BEM from an information management perspective.

Speaker 2: 4:15

I took a master in global BEM management, which helped me a lot in the next steps working for WSP as part of the project management services department and just before joining WSP.

Speaker 2: 4:34

There was a specific incident that happened at one of the projects that drew my attention to the way we manage projects, where I attended a meeting with lots of senior engineers and many decision makers and in that meeting we spent around 20 to 30 minutes discussing a very small box of concrete three meters by three meters. Everybody was trying to avoid having this in their scope and then we realized, hey guys, you are discussing something that worth nothing compared to the salaries and the hours spent by all of these people in this room. So I thought that if such small box was properly identified in a digital environment or in a BEM model with clear scopes defined, so that specific meeting get me to think more about how we can enable these kind of decision makers and key personnel in projects to manage the project more efficiently without wasting time in discussions and disputes, using BEM as a tool to facilitate this. And yeah, that's mainly what it is for this book.

Speaker 1: 6:11

Well, thank you for the background. I'm very curious about how, coming out of that meeting and the positive change that you wanted to bring to the industry, where have you applied the efficient management of BEM to make the best use of everybody's time? Do you have some examples of that?

Speaker 2: 6:28

Yeah, a lot. We currently try to always have the digital twin or I will not call it a digital twin, let's say a digital representation of the project as detailed as needed to support data driven decision making. So when it comes, for example, to contributing to a project at bidding stage, I always try to have a BEM model that's ready for estimation so that we can have better quantities, better estimates, cost estimates to apply or to propose the best bid in this project. And if, for example, we are joining into a design part, I want always to ensure that my BEM models are ready for collaboration, for coordination. So the way that I'm using the digital tools currently is to ensure that there is always a BEM model or a digital model fit for the best needed to manage the project. There are many other examples, but I may elaborate on it a bit late.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that and switching back to work topics. You're at WSP now, which is one of the world's largest engineering firms. What brought you to WSP?

Speaker 2: 8:05

So basically WSP was a dream for me. Before WSP I worked for design and build contractor. I was more of a bin manager plus a technical coordinator, looking to my technical experience. So I was using all what I learned to support the design and construction process. But I have always looked to WSP as a place where I can develop myself, develop myself and be more innovative.

Speaker 2: 8:43

And the opportunity came when WSP wanted to, or posted a job about, a bin manager for a project here in Nuriad, saudi Arabia, as part of their project management services and at that time when I applied, I passed in the interview and immediately after joining I started not saying that I can add not only learn from WSP, but also add from my experience to fill the gaps that's available in the organization related to BIM. So I helped in developing better BIM strategy for the project management services department and also started to integrate BIM and GIS and to achieve more efficient delivery of the project. Wsp in the Middle East operates in four different business units. Two of them are more of design consultants and one is a project management consultancy and another business unit which is advisory. So in my business unit my role is more of supporting the clients in defining the requirements and also helping the client in supervising the various consultants and contractors and other stakeholders involved in the project. So this role gave me better control on the digital delivery of projects.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Very cool, and how long have you been at WSP now?

Speaker 2: 10:31

Yeah, it's around three and a half year.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Well. Congratulations on your tenure and your growth. I imagine, working for WSP and living in Saudi Arabia, that you've encountered a number of innovations, having worked on massive giga projects. I'd love to hear some examples of some of these cutting edge technologies and methodologies that you've witnessed that have significantly transformed the AGC industry.

Speaker 2: 10:57

Yeah, first thing that I learned in WSP is something we call Future Ready. Future Ready is a program in WSP that's focused on ensuring that everybody in the organization deliver future ready solutions to our client. So when we are designing a project, for example, we need to think that this project will live for hundreds of years. So we want to ensure that this building, for example, will not only serve people that are living now but their descendants also. So same happens when we are managing a project. We need to ensure that all stakeholders in the project have the same mentality, understand the life cycle of the project to ensure that everything is made to be future ready.

Speaker 2: 12:01

And part of the innovative solutions that were introduced and I'm a very big fan of and WSP is constantly developing in them is Digital Twins. So Digital Twins, specifically, is one of my main focus areas. I am doing some researches on this topic and also supporting in developing some strategies for this. The concept of Digital Twin is to ensure that we have a Digital Twin that's linked with the physical assets and we have, in the best case scenario, two-way link between the digital and the physical assets. So in that way, we can control the physical assets using the Digital Twin and also gather data from the physical assets into the Digital Twin to make analysis and so on.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Another tool or technology that I'm involved in implementing in some projects is some applications of the larger world of the metaverse. So I will not say that I have delivered such a complete solution under the metaverse, but many sub-projects or many smaller solutions. That applies the same concept where we have a digital reality that can support in either managing the construction process or supporting clients after construction. So these are mainly two technologies that I'm a big fan of and, on the same time, heavily immersed in. One last thing that I'm usually promoting and supporting is the modular construction, because it's an important concept from my point of view and it helps a lot in the sustainability of our projects. So having prefab parts of the buildings as much as we can will support in having, let's say, replaceable parts of our building in the future and also it will enhance the design process. It will help in longer life for our projects.

Speaker 1: 14:47

That sounds absolutely incredible and I love that domain and all of those topics. They all intertwine and they help for a better digital and a physical environment. So I love your focus on that and I'm very excited to speak with you about some of these large scale projects that you may have experienced on In the Middle East. I'd love to really hear about your involvement on these very large, mega scale projects like the Red Sea project and Neon, which is otherwise called the line. Can you describe the scale of these projects and really help our audience understand the massive element of this?

Speaker 2: 15:25

Yeah, so specifically these two projects that you mentioned, the Red Sea and Neon, are really massive. So, for example, the Red Sea project is around 28,000 km2 and Neon is around 26,000 km2. So as far as I know and I did some small research before another webinar that I was doing about the giga projects in Saudi Arabia this area around 26,000 to 28,000 km2 is more than the size of, or the area of, many countries. Actually, to be more precise, around 50 countries are smaller than this area. So I really appreciate the work done in these projects and I always look about how these huge projects are managed. And just to explain something about Neon, for example, so the line is one of the projects under Neon. So a project like Neon has around I don't know how many projects under it, but it have many, many larger, large projects below it, so the line is one of them. There is Trugina, there is some other amazing projects, and the good thing in Neon is that almost every district or every part or every project under Neon has a unique design and a unique intent for use. So the main pattern that you would notice in the Saudi giga projects is that they are trying to make things that we think impossible. They are trying to make it normal or trying to make it real.

Speaker 2: 17:37

So some of these projects have a very long life cycle. So, for example, some of these projects will last in construction for more than 10 years. It will be delivered phase by phase. So you will notice, starting 2024, some delivery of these projects. For example, red Sea is delivering their first hotel during 2024. But still, there will be lots and lots of work done for this project through the upcoming years. The main challenge that I can see facing these projects, for example, logistics, coordination, the availability of resources that can deliver all of this huge work at the same time simultaneously in or across Saudi Arabia, because Nium and Red Sea are at the western part of Saudi Arabia, but there are many other Giga projects happening in Riyadh and in Jeddah and in other regions of Saudi Arabia, for example, durea, gait, qedaya and many others. So it's interesting and it's really something that sometimes I envy myself for being in Saudi Arabia at this period of time, because it's really booming and it's helpful for the construction industry.

Speaker 1: 19:17

And thank you so much for that context. I mean, just think about these projects. Each of them are larger than the size of 50 different countries is amazing and credible. And I'm curious your goal at WSP is to combine digital twins with the concept of the metaverse and prepare for modular construction. So just to combine the scale of these projects, you're looking at creating a digital twin of 26,000 kilometers squared. Is that accurate? And I imagine there's a tremendous amount of complexities with that. Can you speak a little bit to just the collaboration of all the different stakeholders and how you're even looking at the digital twin or even at the process of executing on that work?

Speaker 2: 20:05

Yeah. So firstly, let me explain that WSP is only one consultant out of tens of consultants working on these projects. So almost all the international and national organizations that's related to construction are contributing to these projects, and this is one of also the good things about these projects it's gathering experience from all over the world to deliver these projects. However, as I mentioned earlier, there are some challenges and, from my point of view, my main priority when I'm involved in any of the largest projects here is to develop a trusted source of truth. So what we like when it comes to this size of projects is to ensure that the information that we have is correct, and this can't be done without the involvement of technology and information management techniques. So, due to the nature of having all of these stakeholders working at the same location, sometimes it's very hard to unify all the methods of delivery, to unify all the standards, methods, procedures for all of these stakeholders and enforce it at one time. So you need to balance between enforcing the thing, the must things, or let's say, enforcing the things that must be done, but also having the flexibility to absorb other solutions and other methodologies, and to do so instead of having a single common data environment. You need to have an ecosystem for common data environments. So you have several platforms and you need to build an ecosystem that can integrate various platforms. Very software, because, for example, if you go to an architect that's specialized in organic designs and enforce him to use Rivet, for example, and leave Rhino or any other solution, sometimes you are taking out the tools from him. So you need to enable him but do your work in ensuring that whatever the solution he will use will be integrated in your ecosystem. So one of the priorities for this project is to have this trusted source of truth, and it can't be trusted unless it's well defined and well developed and well managed. Also, this will immediately develop a better way for data-driven decisions.

Speaker 2: 23:22

When you are dealing with these kind of projects, you need to take decisions and to be able to take these decisions you need to have the data always available.

Speaker 2: 23:32

So if you need quantities for a specific project, you can't just check the BIM model and then you find that you have some duplicates inside the BIM model, for example. So the quality control process for such digital models that will be and are being developed for these projects need to be on a very high level to ensure proper decision-making process. Another challenge that's facing large projects is the various perspectives of the stakeholders involved with it, even sometimes in the same organization. So even when you are dealing with a client, for example, sometimes we'll find the construction director have different priorities than the digital lead, for example. So even if you have a well-established information requirements, if you don't have an alignment across the teams about what are our digital goals, sometimes you will have different. These different perspectives will result in bad delivery or lead delivery of information or even delivery of information, but then it's not being used. So this kind of balance between the various perspectives of the various stakeholders and various teams in these projects sometimes is a great challenge.

Speaker 1: 25:14

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. It sounds like these challenges can be faced by teams of small sizes and teams of very, very large sizes, so I'm glad that we're all not alone in those challenges. I'm curious can you share an initiative that you're particularly proud of, given all of your national and international work, and how you see those types of initiatives positively influencing the future of digital construction?

Speaker 2: 25:43

I think the latest one I've been involved in is being NIMA Ambassador. Nima is a great organization that's involved in the writing of the International BEMS Standards ISO 9650, and also an organization that develops information management guidelines, like UK BEM Framework. So being part of this organization is a great honor for me and I'm very proud of this. Being an ambassador for NIMA will help me to support the use of these standards and the implementation of these standards in the Middle East in a more proactive way. And another initiative that I'm very proud of is being the lead of a glossary called Digitalization and Data Glossary. This one was part of CAN BEM organization, which is now called Building Transformation they shifted their name but this glossary is more about collecting the various terminology used in the data and digitalization space and try to find the best definition that can help all of us to speak the same language. Why I'm proud of it is not about the results we obtained but about the discussions that I was involved in while gathering this glossary.

Speaker 2: 27:36

I was in discussions with various experts from various industries that are part of the larger architectural, engineering, construction and operation industry, and it was amazing to see the same world, how it can have different perspectives from various people based on their profession, and then agreeing on the best way to describe things, not only in the context of today, but also in the context of how we want to use these terminology in the future. So, for example, when we were discussing how to define an As-Built model, that was great because we realized that today, as-built model is just modeling off the red mark drawings that's gathered from side, based on traditional surveys. But what we want as built models to be is the day-to-day update of what's model or sorry or what's built on site, so to have all that change captured immediately inside the pen models, day by day. So this kind of conversations added a lot to me. That's why I'm really proud of this initiative.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Oh, thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, I can't imagine the complexity of the challenges you're trying to solve. I mean, as you mentioned, just the definition of the as-built model and immediately capturing changes day to day in the model and the technology that's required, just to you know, just to be able to deliver on that. Shifting over to sustainability, I'm curious about how you've applied sustainability, how sustainability is considered in these, in these mega projects, and what are the obstacles that you often face when, when, having sustainability in mind and combining that with these very large initiatives.

Speaker 2: 29:54

Yeah, from my perspective, one of the main challenges to achieve sustainability in these projects is waste and how to control it and how to ensure it's minimized as possible. So, for example, if we think about the waste of reinforcement rebars and if you, if you allowed every contractor to cut their reinforcement based on their scope and just deliver it the way they want, you will find a huge amount of waste looking into the amount of construction in such projects. But in these projects, you need to try as possible to unify the way all of these contractors work, and I was aware of some initiatives and slightly involved in an initiative on one of specific one of these projects, trying to manage the reinforcement fabrication for the whole projects and ensure that there is specific process followed by every single contractor involved in the project. So imagine this being applied also on all the other material and all other elements of construction.

Speaker 2: 31:24

And when I speak about this topic, the main thing that come in my mind is a publication called Apollo protocol. It's it's published through a forum called Apollo protocol forum. So the Apollo protocol is trying to find the link between the manufacturing industry and the construction industry, trying to feed the manufacturers by the sufficient data from construction. So if, for example, manufacturers are aware of the needs for a specific project, they will be able to to provide based on these needs, instead of having a gap between both worlds. So this kind of initiative can help in reducing the waste in in tremendous way, because imagine that me, as a contractor, are aware of all the projects and all of these projects on the same way are built in a way that can fit the needs of my construction. So it builds this kind of glue to fill the gaps between the construction industry and the manufacturing very cool and thanks for acknowledging the Apollo protocol forum.

Speaker 1: 32:59

I'm excited to look into that. I'd like to merge together a few different topics here and kind of bring together the, the, everything we've discussed about today, just the, the challenges that you're facing, a level of scale at which you're, which you're trying to solve some of these problems. If we look into some of the technological and digital and and managerial solutions that you've you've had to employ in order to manage such that these large-scale projects, we just love to hear some, you know, some tangible thoughts on, on on tools or or processes that have led to success for you, especially when we're looking at, you know, such mega, mega projects yeah, it's um, what I can think of is reality capture.

Speaker 2: 33:50

It helped a lot in actually capturing the, the as-built and the existing condition without the need to have huge teams for off-server, and also it provides more accurate data and more usable data.

Speaker 2: 34:07

So capturing uh, reality, including all the technologies that that lies beneath it, including laser scanning drones all of these technologies help it a lot in better capturing of information. We even utilize these technologies to calculate the cut-and-fill for a massive earthwork projects, specifically Kings and man Park. We are contributing to it. It has huge cut-and-fill areas and volumes and we are using drones to survey this and calculate the data day by day or week by week directly from the platform that we are using. It can also help or it's helping us actually in delivering better B-models, because in these kind of projects you can't go and model everything in them because, due to these large areas, you will have huge project sizes in Revit, for example, or in whatever BIM solution you are using. So sometimes we have integrated delivery that integrate the models and also the laser scans and also some GIS layers. So these kind of integrations help us a lot in delivering more efficient digital deliverables.

Speaker 1: 35:51

Fantastic. Thank you, mustafa. And the final question of the future construct podcast and a tradition of our show. If you could project yourself out 25 years and wanted to have any device or technology that would benefit you personally, what would it be and what would it do?

Speaker 2: 36:08

In 25 years, I always imagined myself sitting with my kids or the kids of my kids, playing with them and to help myself. After 25 years, I think it will be something related to health. So if it's some device that can enable me to play football with sons of my sons, or some metaverse solutions that can help me do same activities with them, I think that will be the technologies that I need at that time.

Speaker 1: 36:51

I love that. That's fantastic. How touching as well, and I hope to see that for you as well. So I appreciate your time today. I feel like there's so much I can learn from you and so much the industry can learn from you. Thank you for all of your contributions, sir.

Speaker 2: 37:03

Thanks a lot, mark. It was a pleasure being here with you. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 37:08

Yes, absolutely.