Varadise Limited

The inability to witness the progress of site works and performance of a building before it can take shape in the physical world has brought to several challenges for the stakeholders involved in a construction project. “Is the final measurement of this beam correct?” “How much power will a particular floor use?” “Are there enough resources?” These are just some of the doubts that arise in the minds of builders, architects, and engineers; since construction involves many technical disciplines, knowing the exact state of a project in real time is difficult. Digital Twin technology—which is the virtual replica of a building’s design, construction, and complex systems—offers the ability to simulate plans and build what-if scenarios for the products, facilities, and processes a builder wishes to change before they actually put real-world resources behind real-world implementation. In other words, digital twin makes it possible for architecture, engineering, and construction professionals to fully grasp of the future of the built asset—not only at planning and design stage but throughout its lifecycle. It offers a crucial, analytic edge to BIM activity. By amassing data from several sources and integrating that information into a 3D model, construction teams can gain acute insight into every component of the project.

Tapping into the immense potential of the digital twin technology, Varadise Limited, a Hong Kong-based construction IT solutions company, offers an intelligent, cloud-based BIM platform for clients to manage their projects more efficiently. Known as Varadise Twin, the platform connects everything together and serves as a next-gen integrated digital management hub or smart site supervision system that improves operational productivity, safety, and quality of a project. Terence Lui, CEO, Varadise Limited, says, “Our digital twin technology provides project teams with the ability to see and understand real-time site situations in 3D, and coordinate with different parties effectively.” By seamlessly connecting with IoT and in-house systems of an organization, Varadise Twin centralizes and manages live construction and facility data in one single platform. Project teams can visualize everything about a construction project in 4D BIM on a desktop or mobile device.

Integrated Construction Management

Varadise Twin covers digital design and planning management, progress management, IoT for site monitoring, and site safety management. By combining the data curated from the different IoT sensors on a construction site with big data technologies, Varadise Twin enables continuous and real-time construction site monitoring and data processing. With the platform, project managers can achieve optimized and coordinated design that meets clients’ requirements and set up a BIM CDE. Moreover, they can also supervise on-site activities with advanced safety measures to enhance efficiency and reduce the risk of accidents with accurate incident records. Talking about the services Varadise Limited offers, Tony Wong, the firm’s ICT Manager, informs, “Our clients can improve the whole life-value of the project, reduce prospective operating costs, and embrace innovation through collaboration.”

Designers and architects can also manage design data, collaborate with different teams internally and externally, and automatically eliminate design conflicts while running design validity and quality check. Alongside, construction engineers can connect with different internal or external systems to monitor all details of the projects and collaborate with other parties in BIM CDE. In short, today, there is a need for more integrated and intelligent construction, which requires a data platform to combine and connect all data flow with BIM. Varadise Twin helps merge live data with BIM in a manner that everything happening on-site can be recorded, monitored, and managed with a single source of truth.

Besides, via its innovative consulting and management services, Varadise Limited manages and proposes different technologies to support the digital transformation of construction projects. At the same time, using its engineering knowledge, the firm’s experts help design a global data warehouse structure to enable seamless integration between applications to create new opportunities.

The Dream Team

Among the several factors that propel Varadise Limited’s continued success, the core team’s expertise in the field of construction and their in-depth industry experience play a significant role. Lui, who started his career as a Civil engineer—promoting the use of AI and parametric BIM design in construction—has first-hand experience of over eight years in managing different large-scale innovation development projects, including BIM analytics, AI analytics, IoT, VR, and business intelligent (BI), driving business transformation through technology. He initiated and led digital transformation in Gammon Construction (a leading construction company in Hong Kong) as its head of digital transformation. He is currently developing construction CDE, integrating construction projects digitally as a whole for smarter construction.

Wong, on the other hand, is the key person responsible for Varadise Limited’s growth as the city’s largest provider of IT solutions for construction. Using his rich ICT skills and experiences in driving large-scale ICT projects across sectors, Wong has contributed significantly to the R&D and implementation for various key projects, including the first 5G water level monitoring platform in the city and integration of CCTVs and IoT to the firm’s cloud-based digital twin platform. He understands the need of the community and leads Varadise Limited’s R&D programs. In 2020, Tony helped the firm win global recognitions and majority of the innovative leading construction contracts in the city. “It is our combined knowledge and detailed understanding of the construction industry that sets us apart from other competitors. We are a team of young professionals that offer dedicated services and work hard to innovate on our offerings,” affirms Wong.

Staying Relevant with Changing Market Needs

Since 2019, Varadise Twin has been recognized by the industry as the best cloud-based 4D BIM platforms for enhancing the efficiency and safety of construction projects. More recently, following frequent requests from various vendors in the industry, the firm integrated CCTV and AI vision into its 4D BIM model to streamline its clients’ work. “Not only was Tony responsible for integrating the comprehensive CCTV system onto our flagship platform, but he also took it a step further to develop the first AI Vision for monitoring the cleanliness of a car’s wheels,” explains Lui. So, instead of stationing site workers 24 hours a day to check the cleanliness of construction vehicles before they leave the construction site, the new AI vision technology helps clients achieve the same goal with lower cost and higher accuracy.

Today, several major government bodies in the construction field, such as the Hong Kong Civil Engineering and Development Department, Drainage Services Department, Water Services Department, MTR, and numerous private construction companies are riding on Varadise Limited’s coattails to manage their construction projects efficiently. For the road ahead, the firm has several plans. On the one hand, Varadise Limited is poised to grow its company organically. Alongside, the company will continue to focus on developing its offerings and tailor-making them to cater to different construction projects. “Our vision is to build a smart city model for Hong Kong as well as other large cities around the world. We have received interest from overseas including, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and are planning to expand overseas,” wraps Lui.