CASE STUDY

Namibia Construction leverages
info@openspace.ai
openspace.ai

OpenSpace to manage construction
projects remotely

The Challenge
Namibia Construction is one of the most successful construction companies in the country. With 72 years ofexperience, the company focuses on delivering high quality projects, from building construction to civil works,
roads, mining, and more—all within the borders of Namibia.
In 2023, the company completed the construction of the Mokuti Etosha lodge. It is situated at the gates of
Etosha National Park, 105 kilometers away from the nearest town and over 500 kilometers away from Namibia
Construction’s headquarters in Windhoek.
The remote location posed a huge logistical challenge for the team, but that wasn’t the only one. The luxurious
lodge had to be completed with the highest quality standards within a very ambitious time frame, all while facing achallenging skilled labour market. As Du Bois Louw, Quantity Surveyor at Namibia Construction, puts it, “From theget-go, we had to do more with less time and therefore expect more from each colleague, also on themanagement level.”1

Even though a QA process was already in place, the existing manual method of capturing photos and writing diary
entries would not allow the team to manage the day-to-day work of the project remotely. “There’s always thatone photo in a specific location that you need, but you didn’t take”, says Du Bois. For him and his team, this is thegreatest frustration with a manual documentation process—wasting valuable time trying to find a specific photo
after the fact. “Pre-OpenSpace, the time it took to filter through hundreds of photos was significant. On aprevious project where we had to resolve an issue, finding photographs could take a whole week.”
When Du Bois and a colleague first saw a demonstration of OpenSpace at a local conference, they immediately
put together a business case to secure investment for the 360° reality capture solution. Their proposal: WithOpenSpace, senior management could reduce travel to and from the project site significantly. The travel costsaved was directly invested into using OpenSpace. “In the end, we were even better off with OpenSpace. We’ve
gained more value than what we’ve invested”, says Du Bois.

The Solution
The same Quality Control Agent that previously had to go from room to room to take photos is now walking thesite with a 360° camera and the OpenSpace mobile app on a daily basis. “With OpenSpace, documentation ismuch faster, because you can just continuously walk through the site”, says Du Bois. No more stopping in every
room to take dozens of individual photos. There is also less reliance on the QC Agent to know what photos totake. As Du Bois puts it: “With OpenSpace, he might not even see the issue, but it’s still documented.”

With OpenSpace, the QC Agent might not even see theissue, but it’s still documented.
Du Bois Louw,Quantity Surveyor
Thanks to the daily captures, Du Bois and his team can now access the project site any time and from anywhere.
During coordination meetings in the Namibia Construction offices, all key stakeholders, including subcontractors,architects, and engineers, come together to review site progress in OpenSpace and discuss current issues. “If wewant to discuss an issue in the pool bar, we just physically jump to that point in OpenSpace”, says Du Bois.

2Results

As a result, the team was able to cut site travel in half, saving the company not only money but also valuable timethat can now be spent on more pressing project management issues. Plus, the site visits that do happen havebecome more focussed and effective. “When on-site with consultants and key stakeholders, we now look at
three key items and fix them instead of having to look at 20 items and not one is solved at the end of the day”, DuBois says.
Having daily captures of the construction site marked with the relevant date, time, and location has also been ahuge help in resolving and even avoiding disputes. In the past, issues on site often led to finger pointing.

When on-site with consultants and key stakeholders, we
now look at three key items and fix them instead of having
to look at 20 items and not one is solved at the end of theday.
Du Bois Louw,
Quantity Surveyor

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Now OpenSpace provides clear and objective proof of what happened on-site and when. Everything is
documented so everyone is accountable. According to Du Bois, this has set the tone for the project and has
greatly improved how stakeholders cooperate and communicate with each other.
For the Mokuti project, Namibia Construction had access to a 3D model that the project consultant created. Themodel was uploaded to OpenSpace and, thanks to the BIM Compare feature in OpenSpace Capture, the team wasable to compare the model side by side with the as-built reality. The result: Potential issues were detected
before they became problems. “I can’t even put a number on how much value OpenSpace has created for us justby saving unnecessary rework”, Du Bois says.

4Getting the team started with OpenSpace was quick and easy according to Du Bois. “One of the foremen was
skeptical at first, but then he ended up needing OpenSpace to complete a tricky part of the project and he wasreally happy to have the captures available”, he says. The problem? The team kept hitting water pipes when
installing their work. So the team used the Split View feature in OpenSpace Capture to look behind the alreadyclosed-up wall and avoid any further damage.

Given the huge success at the Mokuti project, Namibia Construction is planning to roll out OpenSpace furtheracross the business. To Du Bois and his team, their investment has clearly paid off and the value became clear
very quickly. It’s not just a tool to help them build better and more efficiently but also an added value thecompany can offer to existing and future clients.

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