On June 27, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released the much-anticipated ADCMS Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for FY 2022 and FY 2023.
FHWA has stood up dozens of grant programs as directed by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) since the law was passed 18 months ago. Formula and discretionary grants such as MEGA, BFP, RURAL, RAISE, and INFRA all, in some way or another, allow for states, tribes, and localities to use federal money to build more infrastructure. The Advanced Digital Construction Management Systems (ADCMS) grant program, however, doesn’t just enable states and localities to build more infrastructure, it allows them to build better infrastructure by allowing for state public agencies to invest in the tools required to accomplish more with fewer resources.
Digital construction technologies help to build more resilient, equitable, and sustainable infrastructure while reducing costly overruns and providing a stronger return on investment for federal and state taxpayers.
What is the Advanced Digital Construction Management Systems Grant Program?
As defined by the FHWA, “The ADCMS Grant Program provides federal funds to promote, implement, deploy, demonstrate, showcase, support, and document the application of advanced digital construction management systems, practices, performance, and benefits.” The Grant Program will provide $34 million in combined fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023 funding to state DOTs.
A key goal of the Grant Program is to increase state adoption of advanced construction management systems throughout the construction lifecycle, that maximize interoperability with other systems, products, tools or applications; boost productivity; manage complexity; reduce project delays and cost overruns; and enhance safety and quality. Other program goals include driving more productive and timely information sharing amongst stakeholders and the deployment of digital management systems that enable and leverage the use of digital technologies on construction sites by contractors.
The adoption of ADCMS can’t be solved by technology alone. $15 million, almost half of the available funds, will be set aside for peer exchanges, training, and best practice sharing between the various state DOTs. This exciting funding opportunity ultimately enables states to learn from each other as they expand their digital construction footprint and continue integrating digital technologies into their workflows. FHWA will convene these sessions with awardees after the application window has closed and FHWA has selected which projects it will fund.
Eligible applicants include all state DOTs, including the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, though the NOFO encourages partnerships with local governments and fellow DOTs.
There is a brief window to apply for this grant, with applications due on August 28, 2023. Application awards will vary from $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 with a 20% matching requirement to be put up by a state DOT.
Partnering to Maximize ADCMS Funding
Bentley has a long history of successfully working with state governments and offering solutions to nearly every state department of transportation for the design and construction of their infrastructure. Additionally, we have great success with private industries that support federal, state, and local governments, as well as transportation departments, in these efforts. Our work with the New York State Department of Transportation and Minneapolis-based design and engineering firm WSB serves as two prime examples of ADCMS in action and our efforts to make it a success.
Partnering together to leverage these much-needed innovative digital strategy federal investments, Bentley software and solutions can help you start – or continue – going digital and meet the ADCMS goals.
1. Interoperability: Bentley software supports open standards and formats, enabling seamless integration with other systems, products, tools, and applications used in industry. Ensuring data exchange and collaboration between different software platforms and facilitating smoother workflows while eliminating information silos.
2. Productivity: Our solutions are designed to streamline workflows and improve productivity. They provide intuitive user interfaces, customizable templates, and automation capabilities that help users work more efficiently. By automating repetitive tasks and providing intelligent tools, Bentley software accelerates design, engineering, construction, and operational processes.
3. Manage Complexity: Projects are often complex, involving multiple disciplines, stakeholders, and phases. Bentley offers comprehensive solutions that address various aspects of a project’s lifecycle, including design, engineering, construction, and operations. We help manage this complexity by providing integrated workflows, standardized processes, and collaboration features, ensuring smooth information exchange and coordination.
4. Project Delays and Cost Overrun Reduction: Bentley solutions aid in project management and control, helping to minimize delays and cost overruns, enabling better planning, scheduling, and resource management and allowing project teams to identify and mitigate potential issues early on. We support real-time collaboration, facilitating effective communications, and enabling data-based decision-making, which helps avoid delays and cost escalations.
5. Improve Project Management and Project Controls: Bentley software brings all project data, analysis, and insights on an integrated platform where users can reach project goals faster. Access and manage data based on location, in task views, map views, geo-PDFs, and 2D/3D/4D/5D model views.
6. Increase Operational Efficiency with Field Collaboration and Coordination: Access, capture and analyze data from the field to make faster data-driven decisions to ensure that field operations are running efficiently and focused on value-added work. Our solutions track project productivity in real-time and ensure that projects are on plan (cost, schedule, and quality).
7. Data Utilization: Bentley recognizes the value of data throughout the asset’s lifecycle. Our solutions enable the capture, integration, and utilization of data at different stages from design to operations, allowing for a data-driven approach for informed decision-making, performance analysis, and predictive maintenance. This enables the use of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for enhanced insights and optimization.
8. Optimize Project Plans and Resources: Innovative features, such as digital rehearsal, pre-construction review, and the ability to properly sequence work, means that infrastructure projects can be executed with increased safety, accuracy, and delivered on time. Make mistakes in the virtual environment not in the field to avoid costly errors, rework, and cost.
Going Digital to Drive Better Outcomes
Congress made “going digital” a priority in the IIJA, with numerous programs having a scoring criterion for how the applicant plans to use digital technology in the planning, constructing, and maintaining its infrastructure. ADCMS is one piece of that puzzle – albeit an important one – because it will allow applicants to begin, or continue, their journey towards prioritizing the use of digital technology.
Using ADCMS technology leads to better outcomes – outcomes that USDOT and the Federal Government care about greatly, namely that digital construction technologies help to build more resilient, equitable, and sustainable infrastructure while reducing costly overruns and providing a stronger return on investment for federal and state taxpayers.
