Case Study: CADDS Group achieves 30% cost reduction and optimized iron‑ore facility safety with Bentley's ContextCapture & OpenBuildings Designer

CADDS Group Optimizes Safety of Iron Ore Facilities with Innovative Guarding System Design

CADDS Group was engaged by Rio Tinto Iron Ore to audit and upgrade guarding across 17 Pilbara plants but faced dated brownfield infrastructure, tight 12‑week shutdown windows, and inaccurate 2D/3D as‑built workflows that caused costly bespoke fabrications and on‑site rework. To digitalize and standardize its approach, CADDS turned to Bentley, leveraging ContextCapture, MicroStation, Descartes and OpenBuildings Designer for reality modeling, point‑cloud processing, and intelligent 3D design.

Using Bentley’s reality‑modeling and BIM tools, CADDS captured accurate point clouds and photogrammetry, created reliable as‑built models, and designed a modular, weld‑free Sentry guarding system in OpenBuildings Designer; the Parker Point pilot installed 12+ units (AUD 1M+) on schedule with no delays. Bentley’s solution reduced materials/consumables costs by about 30% (an estimated AUD 24M across 17 sites), saved 12 weeks of on‑site modification time, cut 24 days from inspections, and delivered a 10% reduction in design costs while enabling scalable prefabrication and condition monitoring.

CADDS Group

Brendan Jarvis

Systems and Processes Manager