Built + Beyond

Buildings are one of the largest contributors to emissions.

If you own, operate or manage existing buildings this episode is for you.

We’re chatting about decarbonization plus economics – we call it Decarbonomics. It’s just one component of our Engineering Net Zero strategy to build quantifiable solutions for a Net Zero carbon future.

We get it that while you’re building these kinds of strategies into your operations, you’ve got to contain the cost of the changes you make.

It’s all about improving performance and we can help. By using the full power of technology and digitization (digital twin, data and the metrics behind carbon calculation) we’ll help you figure out which building(s) in your estate portfolio have the greatest need.

Tune in for some insight and click below to generate your own preliminary roadmap. Then reach out to us to do the rest.

Benchmark. Roadmap. Deliver. That’s Decarbonomics.

Try Decarbonomics - Role - Engineering Net Zero

Joining the discussion:

• Justin Jones, Sr Vice President, Business Development & Strategy Director, Atkins North America
• Masjood Jafri, Resiliency Market Director, Atkins North America

As more of the population migrates to coastal areas, the need to improve aging infrastructure and make communities more resilient grows with it. Join us as we talk about the challenges that coastal communities are facing from climate change. From tidal flooding to pounding waves and rapid beach erosion, the risk to communities is growing and the impacts must be understood from both a physical and economic perspective. We’ll discuss the application of coastal digital tools , like our City Simulator, and numerical models that will help improve resiliency and provide more certainty for local stakeholders.

Joining this discussion:
Steve Bourne, Project Director, Atkins
 Mike Salisbury, Hydrodynamics Team Leader, Coastal Engineering, Atkins
 Jeff Wright, VP, Water Practice Director, Atkins

Let’s talk about dams.

Join us as we dig into dam safety awareness. We’ll talk about a pivotal incident in history that to this day is an impetus to being proactive about dam safety and is the reason why there’s a National Dam Safety Program.

There are inherent risks regarding dams and many times it’s “out of sight out of mind;” you think it can’t happen to your community. It can. It’s important that we have an awareness of risk and what FEMA and others, including Atkins, are doing to manage that risk.

We’ll chat about inclusion and climate change, equity and diversity, the importance of integrating dam safety, mitigation, flood risk and flood management into a national flood safety program where everyone can work together to build a program that reduces risk.

We’ll also talk about the High Hazard Potential Dam Program and the availability of increased funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). It’s a game changer.

Tune in to episode one to understand your risk and improve your program.

Joining the discussion:

• Cathy Carr Clinch, VP, Civilian Sector, Atkins
• Ed Beadenkopf, Sr Project Director, Civil Engineer, Atkins
• Ann Terranova, Program Director, Planner, Atkins
• Diana Castro, Civil Engineer, Atkins
• Tom Schweitzer, Division Manager, Water Resources Engineer, Atkins

On this episode, find out how transit agencies in the US and around the globe are upgrading their signaling systems. Atkins’ Kurt Goddard, transit sector manager, along with Gavin Martin, director of rail and transit and Paul Smith, senior consultant, will talk about the go-to technology in the industry: Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC). They’ll also talk cyber security, new technologies, covid-19 impacts and more. Join us. 

The City of Houston has embarked on an aerial mission to capture the conditions of some assets in hard-to-reach places. From catch basins that are inaccessible by foot to miles of elevated pipelines, drones are doing the hard work. Join Jeremy Price, DTS GIS analyst, and Ricky Flakes, Aerial Ambiance drone operator, who piloted this innovative approach to data collection.

Our final episode deals with the last two stages of the data lifecycle:

• Distribution - Taking the data that was analyzed and getting it to the right people. 
• Removal - Knowing the timeframe you need to keep data, per state and government requirements is key; be aware of those rules because that information drives when to purge. 

This stage also addresses what can be archived vs. what needs to be purged; what systems can be retired and what to do with the data. When you’re in the planning stage, you need to consider how data will be handled at the end of its life.

We’ll also discuss the importance of determining what data needs to be public-facing which entails pushing information outside of the firewall, assigning permissions, protecting backend data, etc. 

In 2018, a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico changed rapidly into a Category 5 hurricane that devastated Tyndall Air Force Base near Panama City, Florida. A few months later, a catastrophic flood in the Missouri River basin completely inundated Offut Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska. In 2019, Hurricane Florence similarly devastated Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in North Carolina (requiring repair and replacement programs of $1.2 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively) while an earthquake caused significant damage to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California and forced it to temporarily shut down operations. What makes these events notable is their rapid development and intensity, indicative of the magnitude of the peril and cost of such disasters.

In this informative discussion, Atkins Federal Planning Director Lawrence Frank joins Federal Business Director J.R. Steele to talk about what the Department of Defense can do to plan for extreme weather events, as well as how a resilience planning decision support framework can help installations protect their facilities and the soldiers and staff who rely on them to defend our nation and improve our quality of life.

City Simulator, a community focused tool developed by Atkins that allows communities to create digital twins of their buildings, roads, utilities, natural areas and other assets and then measure how resilient they are through a 30-year simulation.

Executive Order 14008, an executive order issued by U.S. President Joe Biden on January 27, 2021 prioritizing the climate crisis in U.S. foreign policy and national security considerations. 

Acronyms are pervasive in the consulting and engineering world. And PMO is no exception. 

PMOs can be referred to as Project, Program and sometimes Portfolio Management Offices. Over the course of this series, we’ll be talking mostly about “Project” Management Offices, but the theories and techniques we discuss can certainly be applied across Programs and Portfolios.

In this episode, you’ll find out exactly what it means and why you need it. Transportation, healthcare, energy, infrastructure—all can benefit by having a good PMO in place. 

At its heart, a PMO is all about making projects more efficient. 

Bottom line: it affects your bottom line (in a good way).

Data warehousing is playing a bigger role in the assimilation of enterprise data. If you’re intimidated by the thought of implementing a data warehouse, don’t be! John, Soraya and Allen break it down. We’ll talk about how to take data from one location and into a data warehouse. Why is this important? You’ll find out in this episode as we discuss Pillars 3 and 4 of the data lifecycle, Assimilate and Use.  

We’ll also chat about business intelligence tools (like Power BI) that will help you create efficiencies. Tune in now.

We’re back with part two of Data: Your most valuable asset. An important piece to implementing a data governance program is preparing for change through organizational change management – informing staff of why changes are needed and what’s in it for them. It’s important to build the buy-in at the front end so you can be successful on the back end. 

We’ll also talk about the elements of data lifecycle management – plan, create, maintain, assimilate, use, distribute, remove. 

The big takeaway: your information is only as good as your data.