Kane Group: Customer Success

Based in Banbridge, County Down in Northern Ireland, with offices in London, Glasgow and the Rep of Ireland, Kane is a leading mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) contractor, specialising in design, prefabrication on a range of large-scale projects. A family-run business founded in 1967, Kane is now a multi-disciplined building services contractor with a turnover of £55 million, which employs 200 staff and owns advanced facilities, including a 1,600m2 fabrication workshop and two purpose-built virtual reality rooms.

The company delivers projects across sectors including residential, hospitality, commercial, education and healthcare. The Kane team take designs from conception to completion in-house and gets involved in every stage of the process: from design to prefabrication and installation, and from fit-out to commissioning, aftercare, and facilities management. Kane has worked on many prestigious construction design projects throughout the UK, including Claridge’s Hotel and Southbank Place.

Revolutionising Collaboration and Communication.

Kane’s experienced teams lead with an open and collaborative approach to ensure they deliver first-class projects to their clients every time. That focus on openness and collaboration is evident in its choice of technology solutions and the strong relationships with partners, to successfully implement key solutions and processes across the company.

In delivering services, Kane uses the Autodesk AEC Collection, a set of building information modelling (BIM) and computer-aided design (CAD) tools that support projects from early-stage design through to construction. In leveraging the software, it draws on the services of Autodesk Gold Partner, Pentagon Solutions, which provides extensive support, training, and consultative services to AEC Industry.

Kane uses Autodesk® Revit® on design projects and all BIM Level 2 projects and above, as Clients often specify the use of Revit to host the model. It is now well established as an industry-standard solution, with a large and ever-expanding user base. Kane’s engineers also make use of Autodesk® AutoCAD® for viewing consultants’ drawings and creating drafts of layouts, which are transferred into Autodesk Revit to generate schematics. The Kane team prepare integrated models for clash detections using Autodesk® Navisworks®

Delivering Smart Construction through CLOUD

Kane were early adopters of BIM360 software, their familiarity with the benefits of using the AEC Collection meant that they quickly reaped the benefits from this progression to the BIM360 platform. Kane uses a variety of BIM360 offerings with BIM 360 Docs as their (CDE) and BIM Collaborate Pro as a key tool that enables them to fully leverage the benefits of Revit and Navisworks based workflows.

Kane has transitioned from offline to cloud-based working seamlessly and have seen the rewards. With ten BIM technicians and two BIM managers, the use of BIM Collaborate Pro ensures they connect their teams instantly and work in a collaborative design environment, in real-time, from any location and across the company. No matter if team members are located at head office, home, or in the field, they have instant access to all relevant documents.

Having access to Autodesk BIM360 also gives site teams the ability to access live models and make changes in real-time, eliminating the need for site engineers to contact the design team for updated information.

BIM360 capability has ensured Kane stayed ahead of the game throughout lockdown as they already had the relevant systems and processes in place and the design team have been able to keep working at maximum capacity throughout the pandemic.

Boosting productivity through Automation

Kane makes use of Autodesk Dynamo Studio, a state-of-the-art visual scripting tool that explores visual programming, solves complex problems and makes user-defined tools to aid in design and documentation workflows. Dynamo automates a lot of repetitive tasks in Revit while also enhancing parametric design enabling the exploration of almost limitless options in a streamlined, highly efficient way.

Craig Doran, BIM Manager, Kane, said: “We are delighted with the enhanced efficiency and productivity Dynamo has given us. On one job, our design team calculated it would take three weeks to create the views and sheets in the model. With Dynamo, the script was written in two days – and two hours later all relevant views and sheets had been generated too.”

Value-Added Services by Pentagon Solutions

Pentagon Solutions have been in partnership with Kane for over ten years. Kane value Pentagon Solutions both as a consultant and for the services they continue to deliver. Pentagon has delivered extensive training to Kane, from entry-level CAD training right through to custom-built courses unique to Kane and designed to ensure they experience a faster return on their investment via Revit, Navisworks and Dynamo (to name a few). Kane has achieved two Autodesk Certified Professional Revit MEP Mechanical qualifications following on from the Pentagon training.

Other services provided have included consultative workshops, assistance with implementation and deployment, product support, also running regular webinars, live demonstrations, highlighting new technology and workflows which cover key features business benefits. Pentagon Solutions are now firmly established as a trusted advisor to Kane, the two companies have a strong and enduring relationship.

Future vision

Looking ahead, Kane plans to continually lead through new and innovative technologies. They will integrate Dynamo into the wider team to drive enhanced efficiencies in house and continue to apply BIM360 throughout the engineering team, then integrate data gleaned from the site back into the model.

Kane is constantly looking at ways to enhance their digital workflows and drive efficiencies in their organisation and produce greater results for clients. Using Autodesk software and the expert guidance and support that Pentagon Solutions provide, Kane is confident of further enhancing their reputation for in-house design excellence and their position at the forefront of design expertise.