The University of Sydney

Following some significant rain events in 2019/2020 that resulted in some serious damage to internal spaces within university buildings, Martin Ayres, Head of Strategic Asset Management at the University of Sydney, started leading a shift to a digital solution.

"Faced with some potentially serious lifecycle issues in the building fabric, as well as the effects of significant weather events over the last few years, we set out on a mission to create an inspection program to document defects and areas requiring repair or restoration," he says.

"We took a considered approach to the program, looking to equip ourselves with the right tools and partners to do the job most effectively now, and in the future."

"Piloting technology solutions over 12–18 months, as well as the traditional abseiling and photography method, together with expert consultants, we identified Trendspek as our solution of choice and presented our recommendations to the executive."

"We broke the project up into phases, and over 15 months we captured more than 100 buildings that had never been fully inspected before. With Trendspek, we have documented evidence of the whole fabric of the assets – we have more data and better geolocated data, so we can now make more informed decisions to reduce future risk."

"While we had done some inspection before, it was more spot inspection, as opposed to 80–90% coverage of the asset facade, and the ropes approach we employed was nowhere near as efficient as drone capture and 3D modeling. We chose Trendspek as it was intuitive and easy-to-use, as well as its ability to enable markups and simplified sharing with contractors."

"Though we tried some other options with concepts similar to Trendspek, we landed on it because we could mark-up the model and share access to the platform with others, and it gave us the ability to capture change over time really comprehensively."

"We can have 80,000 people here a day, from staff to students, so there is a lot of risk that we need to manage. This tool is helping us with that, and feeds nicely into our shift from a reactive to a more proactive asset management approach."

Following initial capture, a fully integrated workflow of templated risk classification, repair scoping and remediation planning enabled scalable lifecycle management.  

The Technology: Drone surveys and Trendspek’s 3D cloud-based platform modelled each building exterior into a mm-accurate photogrammetry model.

‍The Engineers: Infracorr conducted detailed virtual inspections to annotate defects and repair timeframes, enabling targeted site investigations for areas of concern. 

‍The Asset Owner: The University integrated insights into planning and tenders. Engineers, facilities teams and asset managers adopted the platform to accelerate repair works and inform long-term strategies.

This digital approach transformed labour-intensive workflows into a proactive, data-driven system that improved safety, sustainability and cost-efficiency. 

A total of 13,591 virtual inspections and over 11,000 defect annotations were completed via millimetre-accurate 3D models, enabling risk ratings and repair timelines to be mapped directly into the University's facilities management system.

According to Bill Chant, Senior Engineer - Asset Management & Operations, University of Sydney:

‍"This digital approach has been used in many ways on a daily basis at the University, and has provided an efficient pathway for the remediation phases to proceed next year. The result has been long-term use of the data for condition ratings, material-based forecasts, and portfolio-wide risk modelling, with vast options for how the data will be used going forward to manage campus assets.”

Measurable outcomes included 80% faster inspection workflows, 65% risk reduction across inspecting the portfolio, and the development of a strategic asset management roadmap for the next 25 years.

Overall, the project demonstrated digital engineering innovations, setting a repeatable standard for educational precincts across Australia.