Støren Treindustri

Company: Støren Treindustri AS
Industry: Engineering/Designing prefab timber elements
Location: Støren, Trøndelag, Norway
Year founded: 1969

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Background

Støren Treindustri AS is one of Norway’s biggest independent element factories, founded in 1969 and currently employing around 130 people. The Støren Treindustri element factory has a production capacity for over 1000 element units and 80,000 trusses a year. Støren Treindustri specializes in wood framing for residential buildings, producing prefab building elements (walls, floors, trusses, roofs) and other pre-cut wood structures.

Recently, Støren Treindustri has seen a growing customer demand for enhanced digital co-operation across building disciplines – a trend we’re seeing across the construction industry as a whole.

Marius Indrestrand, Pre-Cut & Element Designer, currently in charge of implementing Archicad and ArchiFrame at Støren, explains how they are rising to the challenge with BIM: “Since every project we deliver is unique, we believe that in order to stay competitive, it’s imperative that we use BIM software that is not only flexible, but also helps us automate. With increasing project sizes, we needed software that allowed several designers to simultaneously work on the same project. When evaluating BIM software, we also paid close attention to its integration possibilities with other programs such as Solibri and FEM Design.

After a longer process of evaluating our needs, we chose Archicad with ArchiFrame as the base software for digitizing our workflow, using it to produce files for our factory. Plus, combining Archicad with ArchiFrame means that as soon as we get sent design files, we can get to work – our structural engineers do the calculations, ArchiFrame designers does the adjustments, and we “print” the elements themselves in our factory”.

Why ArchiFrame?

Marius has been in charge of implementing ArchiFrame at Støren, and is best placed to explain how ArchiFrame has helped Støren remain competitive and innovative. Marius clarifies how ArchiFrame’s features actually tipped the balance in Archicad’s favor: “Our primary usage of BIM software is to produce machine files and drawings for production. ArchiFrame is the reason we chose Archicad – ArchiFrame expands the already flexible and user-friendly Archicad workflow with the production of necessary machining files (CNC) to be used in our highly automated factory. ArchiFrame being able to produce CNC files for Hundegger, Weinmann, Stromab, Randek machines straight out of the box was key for us. Also, we appreciate how versatile ArchiFrame is when it comes to tailored settings, with great future possibilities for process automation to speed up element design.

Another key reason to choose ArchiFrame was our ability to produce all our element types with the same software as well as ArchiFrame’s ability to use architect IFC or PLN files as templates for element design. We needed a versatile software that could handle all the unique projects that we have, but at the same time automate necessary processes”.

Marius highlights the important ways in which this powerful software combo has enabled him and his colleagues to collaborate better with architects and harness data in a more efficient way: “Another reason for choosing Archicad was that architects like using Archicad! We value having everything in one file. If an architect has already spent up to several months perfecting a design, why waste time with an expensive re-draw phase? The whole point of BIM is to re-use data. In many projects we can now skip unnecessary re-draws altogether and provide speed and accuracy for our clients”.

Benefits of using ArchiFrame

“One of the reasons we prefer Archicad and ArchiFrame is the efficiency: we love automation and automated processes. Compared to other softwares we have seen, the level of automation is great. But automation only gets you so far, and that is where ArchiFrame’s versatility comes in – you can seamlessly work in the projection, 2D or 3D having full flexible freedom down a single nailing”.

Marius finds that the layout of software is very versatile, meaning that the same tool can be used for many things. There is also a good amount of specificity of models and data, as well as accuracy and integration – all these key features make it a reliable ecosystem for designers to work in”.

“We are still early in the process of implementing ArchiFrame at STI, but we can already see that ArchiFrame will help us with speeding up and digitizing our process of designing elements and how we collaborate with our customers”.

Marius’s advice for other keen ArchiFrame testers?

“Try it out, ask questions to your reseller or the ArchiFrame team. See something you don’t understand or functions that you miss? Ask about it. Right now, it’s a really good software for producing elements, and it’s only going to get better. For large-scale element production like ours it’s ideal, but I can also recommend to use it for smaller buildings even to just produce drawings and text-listing without the use of CNC.

Most useful features of ArchiFrame

Use of IFC as template
TeamWork (BIMcloud)
Copy/Mirror – Hotlink of actual framing/element pieces or even whole buildings
Great automation, but with the full freedom to edit individual objects when needed.