The $400 million upgrade of the Ipswich Motorway between the suburbs of Rocklea and Darra in Brisbane’s south drastically cut congestion in the area, provided more cycling routes and enhanced driver safety.
Increasing the number of lanes from four to six, building six new bridges, and creating a series of new intersections and service roads meant it was a major undertaking on one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares.
It also presented some unique challenges for Dykman Consulting, the transport infrastructure and land development consultancy tasked with the composition of the pavement that would support the improved motorway.
“The conditions along the three km varied enormously, so we had to make sure the thickness and configuration of the layers under the tarmac was correct for every point along the road,” Dykman Consulting Managing Director Mark Dykman said.
“That meant taking into consideration the type and volume of traffic, support conditions, and the risk of flooding.”
Dykman, a professional engineer with more than 30 years’ experience in major infrastructure and transport design, formed the company with his son Scott eight years ago. Since then, it has completed more than 300 projects and gained a reputation as the leading pavement engineering consultancy in South East Queensland.
“Pavement engineering is a sophisticated skill as there are so many factors to take into account and calculations to make,” Mark said. “Every road has a unique traffic profile and the ground it’s built on can vary enormously.”
Growing through diversification
Four years ago, Dykman began to broaden its range of services to include road design, land development, highway engineering and transport planning. As a result, demand for its services soared and the team expanded to 15, including Transport Planning Manager David Hayward, the Queensland Branch Chair of Engineers Australia’s Transport Australia Society.
“We became known as industry specialists in pavement engineering, but we saw the potential to grow the business through diversifying into related disciplines,” Scott said.
The addition of transport modelling and planning capabilities enabled Dykman to offer a more holistic integration of services throughout the lifecycle of projects.
Pavement and transport infrastructure designs can be enriched with data-driven strategic transport insights to foster successful results for clients. An RPEQ Senior Civil Engineer, Scott is Dykman’s Director and has worked for more than 10 years in infrastructure upgrades, road and pavement design, and asset management.
He credits the decision to use construction software leader Bluebeam’s collaborative platform Revu as one of the biggest factors in Dykman’s rapid growth.
“I was introduced to it a few years ago by a peer at another consultancy and now we use it in all our projects,” he said. “It’s been transformational for us, particularly as we’ve started to scale up. We couldn’t run the business as successfully as we do without it.”
The end-to-end platform allows contributors in any location to simultaneously review and amend PDFs with searchable mark-ups and annotations throughout a project’s lifetime.
Centralising project documentation ensures accuracy and uniformity, reducing the risk of errors in complex design flows or traffic modelling.
Team visibility
Mark also saw the benefit of Bluebeam immediately.
“It’s so easy to do markups for the graphics team,” he said. “You can see who has added what, so everyone knows what’s going on. I also use it as a publishing tool to do my tenders and proposals.
“Once I’ve edited it, other team members can check it before it is finalised and submitted. It’s very handy for the highly technical components as well as the more basic deliverables.”
Its effect on quality assurance is one of the reasons why Dykman hasn’t had a single non-conformance issue in the five years since it has had certification, and has gained the highest pre-qualifications for state government work in the sector – an unusual feat for a relatively small firm by industry standards.
Another recent development has been the use of Bluebeam Studio, championed by Principal Civil Designer Scott Hodgkinson, which makes it possible to collaborate in real-time with team members in different locations.
“We use it to track markups hosted on the Bluebeam server in live sessions where everything is updated for everyone to see instantly,” Hodgkinson said. “It’s a very powerful and useful tool.”
And it will help Dykman continue to punch well above its weight in every area of its ever-growing specialist capabilities within the transport and land development sectors.
“We pride ourselves on being a highly respected mid-size firm with top-tier experience,” Mark said. “I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved in the last eight years, and I know we’ll build on our reputation to contribute even more in the years ahead.”
Find out more about Bluebeam’s software solutions for AEC professionals.