Connecting Safety and Productivity with PROFIS Engineering Suite

Out of differences come similarities

Yilun Lu is a professional engineer at PKD Engineering Consultants in Taipei City, Taiwan. She is responsible for designing the glass curtain wall façades that cover some of the area’s iconic buildings. Various pieces of hardware must be combined to join window framing to the concrete floors of a high-rise. To the southwest, in Hong Kong, sits Jesse Chan, Principal Engineer for Structural Design at Arcadis Hong Kong. In addition to curtain wall attachment, his work includes structural systems. He must optimize how steel will be joined to other steel members and to concrete. Different applications, different cities, requiring different codes and standards for proper design. Each engineer, and their firms, solve complicated problems for how various materials can be fastened together, working in harmony over the entire life of a building. Hours will be spent on trial and error, checking and rechecking, because the safety of everyone in and around the building will depend on it.

Manual to modern

Without software, an engineer’s work starts with manual calculations, and lots of them. It is the kind of math some people dread during their formal education. A static mathematical formula exists for all types of load values, such as weight, seismic activity and wind. There’s also data about the geometry of the connection – anchor bolts, brackets and so on. It’s all tested through the formula to gain a result or solution. Different codes have different formulas and assumptions for what a design can handle. If the result of the formula is within the tolerance of a code, the design is deemed sufficient.  Adding to the complexity, codes and standards are constantly changing, making it difficult to keep track both locally and for firms that design globally.

“In the past, our structural engineers mainly used tables, based on relevant regulations and formulas, to review the design of curtain wall fastenings,” explained Lu. “It takes a lot of time and labor to complete quality control, and relevant regulations are constantly updated. Engineers will inevitably refer to older regulations or formulas that can cause blind spots and risks in safety.”

Since the 1990s, Hilti’s direct customer relationship has offered us a front-row seat to this iterative and time-consuming process. Our first computer-aided design software focused on just one part of the engineering process: anchoring. HIDU, Hilti Dübel – anchor in English – comprised digital tables of information not unlike the stacks of Excel spreadsheets many engineering firms still use today. HIDU led to the more modern user interface and well-known PROFIS Anchor.

In 2017, PROFIS Engineering pushed Hilti into the software-as-a-service and cloud-based resource model, which covers even more of engineers’ concerns. The software supports sustainability by reducing re-work, reordering of product, avoiding over-design and, in some cases, eliminating the need for excessive on-site anchor pull-out tests, thus reducing waste. Today, PROFIS Engineering Suite is a subscription-based service, adding to an already long list of ways we partner with our customers. In addition to on-site and in-person support, the suite itself includes access to engineering training and e-learning modules that combine our digital application service and in-app training.

Making the connection

For Hilti, PROFIS Engineering Suite presents a massive opportunity to embed ourselves into the initial stages of a building’s construction. Specifications, or requirements by the engineer of record, to use Hilti products are the first section of a long pipeline of eventual sales of mechanical and adhesive anchoring solutions, tools and services. Millions of Swiss francs have been invested in the suite, which now includes features that cover the whole application – not only the anchor we sell but also the baseplate, stiffeners, welds and base material. PROFIS helps the engineer consider the entire system, says engineer Chan.

“Design requirement updates keep refreshing with different products launching to the market. That is why we must ensure that the design solution fulfills the latest local assessment. PROFIS Engineering is our one-stop solution design software, and it reduces repetitive work. Using this software can help decrease our efforts, increase my teammates’ productivity and lead the design to perfection. The calculated results also provide for greater optimization of the materials than the manual calculation, which is beneficial to the owner and contractors, too.”