One central tool for a data-driven airport, from design to digital twin.

As the hub of European air travel, Schiphol connects with the rest of the world every day of the year, with 71 million passengers passing through annually, ranking it 11th busiest in the world. The sheer size and number of projects and maintenance across the airport compound pushed the organization to look for smarter ways to organize, and BIM based on open standards quickly became key.

The design, engineering and realization of those projects demand constant communication and information exchange. Schiphol needed a central location that would make that exchange more transparent and efficient, and let multidisciplinary teams make choices based on data rather than scattered files and emails.

Catenda Hub became the central tool behind the BIM@schiphol program, the foundation for growing into a data-driven organization built around a 1:1 digital twin of the airport modeled in 3D. Coordinating designs virtually has already paid off: a clash discovered early in the steel construction at the corridor to departure hall 1a kept the delivery on schedule and saved the construction team a lot of money.

Because the platform is quick to learn, project partners do not lose time delivering information products, and the benefits show up as shorter lead times, more plan stability and lower failure costs. Catenda Hub and open international standards will remain at the core of Schiphol's project organization as the roll-out extends across the whole organization.