Case Study: Shenyang Aluminum & Magnesium Engineering & Research Institute (SAMI) achieves a digital-twin foundation for smart factories and CNY 117M in savings with Bentley

SAMI Provides Digital Foundation for Smart Factories in China’s Aluminum Industry

SAMI (Shenyang Aluminum & Magnesium Engineering & Research Institute) was commissioned to prepare a feasibility study and digital deliverables for a CNY 7.19 billion, 1‑million-ton‑per‑year aluminum production facility in Guinea. Faced with coordinating more than 70 engineering subcontracts across disciplines and managing massive, lifecycle data that traditional methods couldn’t integrate, SAMI turned to Bentley’s digital project delivery and digital twin technologies—including ProjectWise, AssetWise, SYNCHRO 4D, and iTwin services—to create a single-source engineering database and deliver asset‑based digital models.

Working on Bentley’s platform, SAMI established a connected data environment that managed ~5,000 documents and over 8 million data items, verified and resolved more than 2,800 model issues, and produced the industry’s first AssetWise‑based digital twin for China’s aluminum sector. The Bentley solution cut travel costs by 30%, reduced labor costs by 15%, sped document and report generation by 20%, shortened construction by 72 days (saving CNY 57 million via SYNCHRO 4D), optimized layout to save an estimated CNY 60 million, and delivered a combined estimated cost saving of CNY 117 million (about 1.6% of project cost).

SAMI

Fangbo Liu

Project Operation Director of Digital Engineering BIM Center