Innovation
Innovative tunnel construction Tunnellers often encounter difficult geological conditions. Manuel Entfellner, Construction Manager at the Semmering Base Tunnel infrastructure project in Austria, invented a yielding element to protect shotcrete linings against pressure. It is better, lighter and cheaper than traditional products.
“What excites me about my work is that my idea will soon be used in tunnel construction projects across the whole of Europe.”
Manuel Entfellner
Construction Manager and innovative developer of new tunnelling technology
Promoting employee engagement through recognition: You Matter
Innovations for greater sustainability and economic efficiency
For companies that want to survive in today’s marketplace, it is no longer enough to deliver solid work using traditional techniques and methods. The entire construction and real estate industry is in transition and Implenia is actively involved in shaping this change. Because it wants to build a world for future generations in the best possible way, Implenia is constantly developing and using new services, products and methods. Innovation is the key to doing this successfully. And innovation is another component of Implenia’s 2025 Sustainability Goals. For Implenia, successful innovation means developing ideas that make sense environmentally, socially and economically. The company gets its innovative strength from various sources.
Source of innovation: employees
It’s simple. It can be installed safely and quickly in a tunnel by just one person. And, above all, it can be used flexibly to produce different thicknesses depending on the geological conditions. What is it? The yielding element, which is made of very light but very resistant high-strength polystyrene layers. The stress controller is a great example of how Implenia successfully develops ideas generated by its own workforce. The idea for this particular project was submitted in 2019 by civil engineer Manuel Entfellner to “Kickbox”, the Implenia intrapreneurship programme that helps the company harness the entrepreneurial spirit and innovative power of its employees. The yielding element was successfully tested in a pilot project and then developed further through to the patent application phase in 2021. The next step is to market the product.
A total of 33 new ideas were developed, validated and tested via the Group-wide Kickbox programme in 2021, five of them in response to a specific Kickbox campaign: “Sustainable Implenia”. This was designed to generate ideas that make the construction industry more environmentally friendly, safer and better for society. It focused on six of the twelve Implenia Sustainability Goals for 2025. A pitch event was held in December 2021 at which employees presented their innovative sustainability ideas to an internal and external jury. The ideas were examined in detail to assess how much potential they had to be turned into viable business models and to attract internal sponsors. “As well as generating some very promising ideas, the campaign helped us make a lot of new people aware of the topic of sustainability,” explains Karel van Eechoud, who works as Senior Innovation Manager and Head of the Implenia Innovation Hub. Implenia will continue to promote intrapreneurship as an important driver of innovation – with the clear aim of bringing sustainable, implementable Kickbox ideas into the Divisions as promising business models.
“We are looking for and finding new business models precisely where the biggest emissions and costs arise.”
Karel Van Eechoud, Senior Innovation Manager
Source of innovation: Open Innovation
For Implenia, innovation also means opening up to the outside and gaining new perspectives by engaging with external parties. The company works closely with various partners – including research institutions such as the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, the ETH Zurich and numerous start-ups. In 2021, for example, Implenia set up a pilot with two start-ups, Imerso and Scaled Robotics, to develop methods for quality and construction progress management using BIM, reality capture and artificial intelligence. Collaboration with energy supply companies has also been initiated, with Implenia focusing on optimising and modernising energy supply in neighbourhoods and districts – a sustainability issue that is of great relevance to Implenia’s property development and building construction work.
Source of innovation: screening new technologies
The third source of innovation is the screening of new technologies that appear on the market, including new processes, products and services that increase productivity and efficiency, conserve resources and reduce waste. Using such innovations can help optimise energy consumption across the whole life cycle of a building infrastructure project, for example. Karel van Eechoud: “We seek out and find new business models, not just for traditional execution processes, but also throughout the design, planning and operating phases – i.e. exactly where the greatest emissions and costs are generated.” A good example is the Predictive Asset Management initiative that was launched in 2021. This will allow Implenia to offer owners or operators of infrastructure a comprehensive maintenance and repair package using new or existing technologies.
Pushing ahead with innovation projects
2021 was also the financial year in which Implenia took numerous existing innovation projects to the next stage. This includes the multi-chamber skip that facilitates sustainable waste disposal on construction sites, an idea proposed by Frank Reschke, Head of Calculation at Implenia subsidiary BCL. Then there is the modular, energy-generating facade system that uses the latest technological innovations to provide office buildings with an autonomous sustainable energy supply. The innovative facade system was developed by the team at Implenia Fassadentechnik, which worked with the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP to create a product that is both sustainable and affordable.
Sustainability focus on digitalization: augmented, virtual and mixed reality
As innovation drivers for digitalization, the Innovation Hub Team put a particular emphasis on mixed reality, virtual reality and augmented reality in 2021. “Together with the Building Information Modeling (BIM) team and the Divisions, we provided an overview of the latest technologies, identified possible applications and evaluated potential partners”, says Karel van Eechoud. This resulted in various pilot projects, including one to optimise support for customers and investors when they are making decisions about real estate. “The aim is to gain more facts – and so make construction more efficient.”
Ideas only become innovations
if it’s possible to commercialise them
There is a benchmark equation for all the innovation projects Implenia considers: Innovation = idea x commercialisation. As well as being innovative, an idea must offer customers and end-users added value for which they are willing to pay. Innovative ideas only become commercial solutions when they can be marketed successfully. This is the background against which Implenia drives innovations forward – to give construction a sustainable and economically viable future.