From the get-go, Sensat has held sustainability central to our mission to make construction more sustainable. Following this, we are proud to announce that we have become a B Corporation! 

This certification is just one way of showing our dedication to making a positive impact. We believe that business can be a force for good, and we will continue to work hard to make Sensat a leader in sustainable business practices.

What is a B Corp, and why does it matter?

, “Our most challenging global problems cannot be solved by governments and non-profits alone. By harnessing the power of their business, B Corps commit to positively impact all stakeholders – workers, communities, customers, and our planet.”

From this, Certified B Corporations (B Corps) were born back in 2006. B Corps are organisations that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. They use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. There are currently over 

 in more than 70 countries and over 150 industries. B Corps are for-profit companies, but differ from traditional businesses because their purpose is to create a positive impact on society, not just to make money. B Corps are leaders in sustainable and responsible business practices.

As an organisation, Sensat has always been committed to operating in a sustainable and responsible manner. We believe that businesses have a responsibility to the planet and the people they serve. So, becoming a B Corp felt like a good way for us to externally demonstrate our commitment to Sensat's core values of sustainability and social responsibility.

Kat Maclean, Sensat’s Director of Product and Sustainability Sponsor explains:

 felt like a natural fit for Sensat. The certification process has been rigorous but that has only made it all the more rewarding. The assessment really made us look even deeper internally about ourselves as a sustainable and responsible organisation, what policies we have in place today for our people and planet, but also where we can be doing more.

Reflecting on construction, it is one of the most environmentally damaging industries in the world. And at Sensat we believe that innovation and technology has the power to be a force for good. By leveraging information and collaboration teams can make better, more informed decisions and reduce waste in order to reduce the damage caused.”

In order to achieve B Corp certification an in-depth assessment process is undertaken. Across 5 categories scoring is weighted across governance, workers, community, environment and customers - with dozens of questions in each. There are 200 points up for grabs and the threshold for becoming a B Corp is 80 points. Meanwhile, the average score across all businesses is 50.9.

Sensat was evaluated by the B Corp analysts and scored 113 points, which we are incredibly proud of. Our strongest scores fell into the categories of Workers, Governance and Environment. However, where there is always room for improvement, we will continue to work hard in all areas to boost our scores, especially as we mature as an organisation. B Lab requires organisations to recertify every 3 years, which means we have a great opportunity to beat our score next time.

To those thinking about certifying… buckle up because it is a long ride!

Engage early on and regularly with all the relevant stakeholders both in advance of, and during, the certification process, as you will require input from across the business on a number of topics. The more buy-in and support you get from the business, the smoother and more efficient the certification process will be. Dividing and conquering is key!

It is important to be able to back up the claims you make as part of the process and the answers you provide. Make sure you answer all questions truthfully and transparently; greenwashing will only lead to problems when it comes to presenting evidence and verification during the later stages of the process.

Finally, it is easier to become B Corp certified when you are still a small (yet fast-growing) business laying down the building blocks of your business model, as opposed to when you have become more rigid in structure.

 Employee Environmental Engagement Survey

 to gain an understanding of our colleagues' attitudes towards sustainability (both personally and how we are doing as a company). This helped us diagnose the current state of play of environmental engagement at Sensat: what we’re currently getting right as well as where there is room for improvement.

This assessment provided us with insight into how people at Sensat value sustainability. It revealed 93% of Sensat employees have a personal interest in sustainability whilst 60% of the team responded that sustainability was a factor or motivation for joining Sensat.

We believe that to be a sustainable business, we need a holistic approach to our environmental practices. It should be woven into our business strategy, practices and culture, as opposed to performing a ‘sustainability stunt’ or ‘greenwashing’. We want sustainability to be ‘baked in’ as opposed to ‘bolted on’.

Following the survey results, we have put some additional actions in place to improve our approaches, both in terms of our immediate impact, as well as environmental culture improvements. Initiatives include:

Monthly ‘Carbon Chats’ held by our internal environmental group, which focuses on creating an open forum to learn and discuss current climate issues (e.g. fast fashion and the geographies of food).

An internal audit of all collateral to make sure that we are transparent and truthful about our environmental commitments

Joined the construction sustainability group Zero

Fully supported remote working, thereby reducing the carbon footprints of our employees

Offset all of our emissions by tracking each and every data capture’s direct emissions.

Sensat is fueled by our mission to help construction become more sustainable. We believe that although construction is one of the world’s most polluting industries, it doesn’t have to be that way. By using Sensat your teams can leverage better decision-making, reduce rework and minimise their project’s carbon footprint from the get-go.

Learn how Sensat helped Octavius to save 7.4 tonnes of CO2 as a result of reduced site visits. 

Sensat joins the B Corp revolution

Options Appraisal can be a lengthy process when determining an optimal design route for new transmission lines, or location for a substation. Traditionally this has required multiple teams flicking between sheets, maps and applications. However, today teams are starting to explore digital twin technology as a way to expedite this process and make better first-time decisions.

Learn how digital twin technologies are set to revolutionise optioneering.

The optioneering of electricity transmission lines is a complex process that can be hindered by several challenges including

The lack of standardisation between data sources

When assessing design options for electricity transmission, the more context that can be used to inform plans, the better. However, the different file types, software licences and gatekeepers to information can make it difficult to assess multiple design options for electricity transmission.

Assessing multiple design options can be time-consuming, particularly due to the back-and-forth often required between designs. It is important to verify and validate the results within the real world to ensure that the best decision is made.

When you’re working towards strengthening an options appraisal for your project stakeholder buying is essential. A project team will need to consider the needs of landowners, environmental groups and local residents in order to get stakeholders on side. And, managing the expectations and objectives of these different stakeholders requires clear communication channels.

Digital twin revolutionising optioneering

Digital twins are being adopted in numerous different situations across infrastructure, but their potential use in optioneering is only just starting to be explored as an application. Digital twin platforms are enabling expedited optioneering by helping teams to gain a better understanding of how different options would interact with the real world. Using a base map of reality created using autonomous data capture methods such as UAVs, project teams can overlay potential designs and visually inspect them in the context of the real world as well as other data sets such as land boundaries or flood risks. Using this holistic view of the proposed design options in the context of reality, teams are more thoroughly exploring different scenarios to find the best possible option from a desktop.

Using digital twin software you can find the most efficient way to move power from Point A to Point B without the need to go back and forth to the site. From a single desktop platform, you can explore all of the different options to make the best decisions and balance technical, environmental, socio-economic and cost impact.

10 Benefits of leveraging digital twins in optioneering

Reduce risk and uncertainty from your desktop by layering and visualising all of your contextual data in one view you can reduce the risks and uncertainties associated with missing information.

Benefit from greater flexibility in uploading and testing different scenarios within the environment.

See options in the context of the real world:

 Input routing and siting options to see exactly how designs interact with the environment.

Viewpoints can be created automatically by digital twin platforms. For example, to assess how a design would affect the view from someone's house would no longer need specialist CAD drawers to draw up the viewpoint. Plans can be understood by the stakeholder and explored within a 3D environment.

The consulting teams can use the digital twin platform and its proposed designs to highlight risks early so that the project can progress faster.

Minimise the need to travel and visit remote sites. And, when boots are needed on the ground teams can arrive prepared for the environment and know exactly what to expect.

Take your plans from 2D to 3D so you can see if you have clearance over trees in the real world.

 your teams can gain a better understanding of a site from their desktop.

 you and your teams can upload and collaborate over information which others can leverage for enhanced decision-making.

Remove the flicking between different software: 

Use one digital environment to understand different layers of information within the wider context of the project.

What to look for in a digital twin platform for electricity transmission optioneering

: The accuracy of digital twins depends on the quality of the data used to create them. This means that optioneering with digital twins can only be as effective as the data that is put into it.

: There are some concerns about the security of digital twins, as they can provide a detailed view of sensitive infrastructure. Optioneering with digital twins will need to address these concerns to be successful. Any platform you use should be able to detail what security measures are used to keep your data safe such as ISO 27001 (

learn about Sensat’s security credentials)

: The cost of implementing a digital twin is not always viable for smaller-scale projects because of the initial inputs and investment needed to capture data.

Digital twins offer a promising option for optioneering electricity transmission projects. By optioneering with digital twins, it is possible to reduce the risks and uncertainties associated with optioneering in the real world. Where before teams relied on several tools to examine and present consultation, digital twin platforms are one method of bringing people and data sources together to bridge the technical gap and understand projects more intimately.

Learn how Sensat supported National Grid to access a digital twin of their substation. 

How National Grid decides and presents the best options for electricity transmission

We are excited to introduce the state-of-the-art 

 to our industry-leading data capture fleet. We are the first in the UK to invest and possess this LiDAR mapping unit in a bid to translate the world into a digital version. At Sensat, we have always been proud to invest in the most advanced equipment to create accurate representations of civil infrastructure project sites. Today, our accurate and detailed ‘digital twins’ of the world are supporting decision-making by improving teams understanding of their environments.

Highly accurate survey data for your civil infrastructure project

Today teams are using survey data to understand designs and plans in the context of the real world. Using a base layer of reality, teams are overlaying the project data they already have to better understand their project. You and your teams can inspect an advanced digital twin of your site using 

Sensat’s Common Visuslaisation Environment 

(CVE), and using the Leica TRK 700 you can view your base map data with an 11 mm absolute accuracy, straight out of the box. This means engineering-grade measurements between models and the real world can be taken from any device, from anywhere. Putting an accurate view of the real world alongside your technical data means that you can spot constraints and resolve them before more concrete plans have taken place and set back your works plan. The mobile mapping unit will enable teams to better interrogate the data they already have so that rework can be prevented.

Using this level of accuracy teams are using their digital twin to reduce boots on the ground as they can see an accurate representation of their site. For example, using the Leica TRK 700, instead of putting workers on the ground for repeated nights to survey a highway, the Leica TRK 700 mobile mapping unit can be driven without restriction, in one shift,  to create a faster, safer and more accurate survey. This can be captured and processed in hours and days from the safety of a vehicle. In comparison, traditional methods would entail road closures, disturbance to the network and boots on the ground which can be slow, and posses both risk to life as well as a massive impact on project budgets. Using this piece of equipment teams can quickly access data with record-level accuracies without the time, risk or cost associated with traditional surveys.

Why your civil infrastructure project needs Leica TRK 700 data

This advanced LiDAR kit allows you to access engineering-grade accuracy laser scans along with super-high resolution images. Here are 6 reasons your civil infrastructure project needs Leica TRK 700 data:

11mm absolute accuracy without additional ground control, paired with 48mp inspection cameras so you can view an accurate representation of your project.

With the integration of a brand new AI algorithm, the Leica TRK can blur all vehicles and people onboard before human interaction which ensures that this system is fully GDPR compliant as soon as the image is taken.

All information is encrypted and won’t leave the Pegasus TRK system, ensuring your data is safe from the get-go.

A SmartFusion ‘butterfly’ camera system with up to 120MP integral view. Boosted with add-on front, side and rear pavement cameras, the additional cameras multiply the resolution, creating data-rich imagery.

Enhanced calibration delivers true colour imagery according to the CIEDE2000 colour-difference formula so that your scans can be visualised with best-in-class colour truth to bring your site to life as it is in reality.

6. Location accuracy down to the centimetre

The sophisticated integration of IMU and SLAM technology in Pegasus TRK’s sensor architecture enables georeferencing in challenging GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) denied environments. Precision RTK positioning gives location accuracy down to the centimetre, in real-time. The trajectory is improved when optical DMI accessories are installed on the back of the vehicle to measure the travel distance in GNSS challenging conditions accurately, avoiding the traditional slip error of wheel-based DMI.


Looking forward, Sensat’s aim for the Leica TRK 700 is to have it nearly constantly running as we digitise the UK.

If you are interested in learning more about our data capture service to support your next civil infrastructure project, get in touch below.

6 reasons your civil infrastructure project needs Leica TRK 700 data

In 2017 from a kitchen in Islington we founded Sensat. And like many founders, we had big ideas for what was then a passion project. Five years on we are proud to announce that 

Sensat has raised $20.5M (£16.7m) Series B

, one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world.

The funds will help us scale our sales and engineering functions and help drive digital automation in infrastructure projects in energy, rail and telecommunications. Sectors which have traditionally lacked the productivity gains that have been a by-product of the rapid digital adoption that has occurred in other sectors.

Sensat helps Infrastructure owners and their construction partners to deliver Infrastructure programmes on time and on budget by uncovering hidden risks. Our software powers teams to manage and visualise live construction information so they can plan, coordinate and track project performance for better, faster, more data-driven decisions.

This is a story of adventure, curiosity and exploration - as much as it is about technology. But it doesn’t start in the campuses of Silicon Valley as you may expect, it begins in a leafy borough of north London in 2017, where we were working late nights from a kitchen that doubled up as a bedroom…

Sensat has shifted and evolved during our 5 years and don’t get us wrong, we have made mistakes and learnt along the way. However, our intentions have remained tied to making the world a more sustainable place.

Sensat’s mission is to automate the way civil infrastructure is planned, built and managed with the aim of reducing costs by 5x, opening access to fundamental infrastructure to billions more people and ending devastating environmental practices.


Our idea (a platform that transformed large datasets into representations of the physical world) put the real world into a computer's language for the first time ever. Soon after, the project was named Sensat. Over the next few months, Sensat caught the attention of not only the academic community but London’s tech investors as well. In May 2017 we gained our first investment of £300,000 which we used to hire a small team and made the upgrade from an Islington kitchen to our first office—a 6-person suite at Moor Place, London.

Once we found our feet and began securing customers, Sensat outgrew the old space and moved to a 100-person office in Old Street, London. There we celebrated our Series A funding of $10M in 2019, our first $1M deal as well as 200% team growth during the pandemic. All of which have been celebrated with legendary Sensat parties (and the odd bout of sing-a-long karaoke) which carried us into the early hours of the morning.

The relentless search for better answers continues to be at the core of everything we do. Today over $150bn of Infrastructure is planned, built and managed through Sensat around the world. As the bedrock of society, we want a greater proportion of the global population to have access to fundamental Infrastructure (without wrecking our planet in the process). Although we’ve grown, our passion for building technology has stayed with us from the bedroom in Islington right to this very day.

The term startup is almost synonymous with growth. Growth metrics of sales, revenue, and quite frankly anything else that demonstrates a solid upward trend to share with the world. However, the one thing we have been very mindful of is our team growth and how we go about it. We knew from day one that our people were the foundation of Sensat, and they needed care, time and resources.

We figured out pretty fast that values are way more important than culture. There is this illusion that “startup culture” is all beers, pizza and table tennis, but it’s the winning together and “us against the world” mentality that keeps everyone motivated to work with each other every day. When you can win together working from home in a pandemic, you know you’re onto a good thing. If anything, the pandemic fired us up more!

As we have grown, especially over the past few years, we couldn’t not mention the dreaded C word… covid. When news first broke and our teams had to leave our 160 Old Street office we had recently moved into, we were adamant that we did not want this to affect our momentum or growth. We had planned to double our team by the end of 2021 and planned to stick to this.

While we believe in growth, we also believe it should never be at the expense of our team’s values. Our team, and the relationships within them, are the foundation of Sensat. We work together and win as a team. Subsequently, we have always been very attentive when hiring. We can say hand-on-heart that 95% of the time one of us will be a part of the interview process. We have found this so important. Not only do potential candidates get time with us to buy into our mission but also to check cultural fit within the organisation. We look for team players who are not afraid to go against the status quo.

Through the pandemic, as we all worked and onboarded team members remotely, we had to find a way to stay tight-knit, despite growing hard and fast. We arranged virtual coffee mornings, quizzes and drinks which helped to keep the team feeling alive. And it seemed to have worked, despite our nearly 100-person-sized operation we maintain a small team mentality. Why is this so important? It means that communication and willingness to help each other are baked into our values.  ‘Winning Together’ means the team can support each other, brainstorm ideas and bring their whole selves to work.

Our team are experienced operators who have built, led, contributed to and learnt from some of the most well-known scaling success stories in global tech. Our management team has led multi-billion dollar exits in the construction/tech sectors at companies such as Google, Amazon, Oracle, McKinsey, Microsoft and Palantir. We're aligned by purpose, equipped with transparency and enabled by agency.

Today it is clear that individuals who come to work at Sensat are not just looking for ‘a job’, but looking for a purposeful place to spend their time. Our culture is bound by people on a mission to make the world more sustainable.

Following the pandemic when Sensat was forced to adopt a hybrid work approach, it made us reassess how we approached the norm of a 9-5. As the office reopened and we adopted a more hybrid approach, we realised that our team knew how they worked best, and we trusted that. Some would come into the office every day, others would be in for just collaborative sessions and face-to-face client meetings. Every day we could see our people naturally adapting the way they worked to suit how they can best create value.

For our people, purpose and meaning matter, so we wanted to redesign the way we build and operate Sensat to best support them, so that we could succeed together. We no longer believed that time spent equals value created. Rather, creating the right conditions for people’s success leads to our ability to outcompete, which equals outsized value created (by every measure). To be intentional about this, we moved to a 4 day week, redesigned our office and kept a flexible hybrid structure. These compounding effects of wellbeing, inspiration and reflection, combined with clearer prioritisation are creating a virtuous cycle that is setting Sensat apart, generating significant momentum and helping us to achieve our ambitious mission.

Sensat’s scaling and growth has been quite a mission. And do not get me wrong we have not always got it right-first-time. Here are our top 3 lessons we learnt the hard way through scaling:

We ruffled a few feathers… and perhaps not in the best way

When we first started it was an uphill battle to try and win customer confidence back in 2017, especially when you’re the new kid on the block in an industry such as Construction. I think it’s ok to admit at this stage that we probably got our value proposition wrong at the beginning. We may have ruffled a few feathers trying to convince a “laggard” industry that we knew what was best for them and I think some in the industry still remember this side of us. Finding visionaries to risk their reputation was a big ask of them but I think it’s paid off for those who did. We wouldn’t be where we are today without our early customers and the invaluable feedback loop we have with them.

A startup always has the odds stacked against it – grit is not a key trait, it’s essential. One of the largest challenges we had overcome is one I think is rarely discussed but super common in Europe; building products with non-technical co-founders. We spent over two years incorrectly building (research, product, engineering) because we didn’t really know how, and in the end, we threw everything out and started again. Sure it cost us a few million pounds (expensive school!) but we learnt so much about not only our customers but how not to build a product, which means we’re now much better equipped. Failing dramatically and learning quickly from it only made us stronger as we now knew what not to do and we carry these lessons with us every day.

We have two ears and one mouth for a reason

Although you may approach an industry with a set idea, you shouldn’t be afraid to pivot and shift once you get to know your customer better. Listen to your potential customers, they will be the ones who are best able to share their problems. In our case, we cannot just show potential customers all the amazing things Sensat can offer, but we have to educate an industry that there are improved efficiencies to be gained through technologies like our own. When you educate and people connect the dots themselves, they discover their issue has a solution, and you are there to swoop them up when they are ready.

 which has quickly become our key revenue stream.

We have introduced some ground-breaking new features including CCTV feeding live information into the platform, 

, going hybrid and empowered our people with autonomy.

 with National Grid Partners, one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world.

We have moved out of our 160 office into a space which has been reimagined to fit the way our people work with more collaboration spaces

Our employee engagement has never been so high with an eNPS (Employee Net Promotor Score: how likely our employees are to recommend Sensat as a place to work) at 62 (anything over 50 is considered ‘excellent’ and the tech sector average is 26

The one thing that you can be sure of in a start-up is change. We learn and grow from our customers, what is going well and what changes need to be made. Today more than $150bn worth of Infrastructure is planned, built and managed through Sensat worldwide. The investment from National Grid, one of the world’s largest publicly listed utilities, adds significant credibility to the future of our technology and the prominent role it will play to safely and sustainably transition critical energy Infrastructure to support renewables. There is currently a once-in-a-generation shift away from centralised power generation towards more distributed renewable power. Sensat’s technology has a crucial role to play in Net Zero objectives.

National Grid will also facilitate the launch of Sensat into the US market, where the vision is to eliminate fossil fuels from the US gas and electric systems.

“The backing of National Grid brings additional credibility for the business to both customers and industry players. We welcome their participation in helping us expand into the US and beyond to help Sensat underpin Infrastructure automation at such a pivotal point in world history. Their investment will help make renewables ambitions a reality, powered by our technology to enable the modern societies of tomorrow to take shape.”—Sensat CEO James Dean

Our journey to Series B

The team have been working on some exciting new updates last quarter. Hear from Product Manager, Aifric, who gives a roundup of our customers' favourite Sensat releases.

At Sensat we are all about getting more from the data you already possess to help teams make better decisions. So, during the past quarter, we looked into new ways to enhance interactions with your data.

Walk around your site as if you were there

Our new 'look around' camera mode allows you to explore your project from a first-person perspective. Using this option you can walk around your site as if you were there in real life. Teams are finding this new camera mode particularly useful for viewing terrestrial captured data up close, and for navigating around indoor or enclosed spaces. For example, an engineer could remotely  ‘walk through’ a tunnel and look up and all around them, inspecting every aspect of the tunnel as if they were there in person. Using this mode to survey, engineers can identify signs of wear and tear such as cracking or water ingress, all while taking boots off the ground and keeping personnel away from danger.

Right-click to reveal the layers you are looking at

You can now quickly identify exactly what files you are looking at using a single right-click on your mouse. We understood that when multiple layers are turned on it is not always clear as to which files are showing. Now using your right-click you are able to seamlessly interrogate your project to reveal what is showing under your cursor. 

Take accurate measurements between your designs and models and the real world

Previously you could only take measurements or markup your survey data. Using this update you can now take accurate measurements between your survey data and your georeferenced design files (e.g. BIM models) or measure and markup the design files themselves. This is helping teams to better explore how models and designs would interact with the environment, plan around the asset and spot potential constraints before they impact the schedule of works. And, for teams using specialist software with expensive licences for their design work, this feature is helping to democratise data so that more users can unlock learnings from it.

 to Primavera P6 Schedule Integration. Now you can visualise the schedule on a Gantt chart, link the activities to models to set their schedule dates, and step through the sequence manually or via ‘smart jump’ arrow buttons.

This is allowing project managers to visualise their programmes of work within the context of an up-to-date digital twin of their site—facilitating stakeholder communications and 4D planning activities. Having all of this information in one place makes it easier to present the construction schedule and gives team members an easy-to-understand visual format of plans to aid execution and streamline issue identification & resolution. 

In the past it has been frustrating not being able to share exactly what you are looking at in the platform to convey ideas, comments or concerns. Now by saving a viewpoint, you can save exactly what you see on your screen for another user to also view and interact with. This stores your camera angle, layer and markup visibility, and timeline settings so that others can jump to where you are, helping keep everyone on the same page.

Learn how Octavius has been using Sensat’s tool to make better, faster, more data-driven decisions.

Top 3 feature releases from Q3

Check out Sensat’s new scheduling tool and enable 4D planning, with Oracle Primavera P6. Connect your schedule gantt to your wider project information so you can spot potential risks before they become an issue on site. Keep teams aligned and keep projects running on time using Sensat’s latest feature release.

Sometimes, when teams are using different applications, crucial information and insights about their work can remain locked in those tools, hidden from other teams and project managers.

 can now incorporate schedules to enable 4D planning, beginning with support for Oracle Primavera P6. This is allowing project managers to visualise their programmes of work within the context of an up-to-date digital twin of their site, step through phased models, and collaborate across teams to identify and resolve issues in sequencing or designs.

Aligning different teams and the realities of working on site to project schedules is a challenge at the best of times. Project managers should be able to rely on their planned schedule of works, however it’s often difficult to get a holistic view of upcoming activities in the context of the real world and foresee potential risks.

Designs are often created without full insight into the wider construction sequence, parallel activities on site, and specific site restrictions such as health and safety, operational, environmental or social requirements. It is a multi-disciplinary job to review, identify, and eliminate (or mitigate) risks. Existing 4D solutions are designer-oriented, lack context outside of CAD models, and are often limited to a small set of users. The complexities behind creating a workable schedule also make it difficult to present the rationale for timelines and sequencing to stakeholders in an easily digestible way.

Sensat’s latest scheduling feature is changing this. For the first time, we are allowing all team members to have access to schedules in an easy-to-understand visual format to streamline issue identification & resolution.

Above: Octavius partnered with Sensat to deliver the A46 Binley flyover

Sensat’s latest feature is empowering project teams with 4D project management. By visualising your construction sequence aligned with BIM models, your Gantt chart from P6 and your next-level digital twin, you can ensure teams are able to execute effectively on scheduled activities. Minimise any unexpected risks preventing teams from getting a job done, now project managers can plan ahead in even more detail to ensure a smooth running of activities across a project site.

This latest development will give you more visibility and alignment with your construction planning. Sensat allows you and your team to make more informed decisions, improve communication and collaboration between disciplines and avoid potential delays. By synchronising schedules with Primavera P6 you can bring all of your planning information into Sensat, providing clarity for everyone involved. This means now you can spend less time hopping between tools, asking for updates or searching for the latest versions of files, and instead spend more time de-risking your project.

To get started, have your Primavera P6 file uploaded to Sensat along with your phased BIM models from your designers. From there you should be able to log into Sensat and view your Gantt chart of the programme schedule.

Once you have uploaded your BIM models for each part of the sequence, simply ‘link’ them to the relevant activities and dates in your schedule. Now as you select an activity within the schedule you will be able to see what your site should look like at that stage.

3. Walk through your sequence using smart jump

Once the Gantt chart and BIM models have been linked you can easily click through your timeline. The models will automatically appear on the map on the date specified by the activity they are linked to.

The timeline highlights when changes are occurring on site, allowing users to quickly zoom in on the schedule and the 3D map to inspect the site for any potential issues and risks. Once identified, our commenting feature is the perfect tool for teams to flag and discuss resolutions.

Integrating your project schedule with an enhanced digital twin of your project will allow your teams to simulate the build first to uncover hidden risks before getting to site. The 4D models visualised in the context of the real world will help your teams to identify errors and risks, mitigate costly delays and rework, and highlight opportunities to optimise construction.

Sensat is offering a step-change in what can be identified and resolved ahead of time by using our common visualisation environment

to link a construction schedule to BIM alongside survey and other geospatial data. This will also significantly aid in communicating plans, and the impact of changes, to the entire construction team without the need for in-depth technical knowledge or access to specialist tools.


To get started contact your Customer Success Manager or

It’s here: Integrate your schedule of works with Sensat

If your project has just signed up to Sensat, welcome to the team! But what is Sensat, what’s next, and how can you get the best from us? Here is your quick guide as to what you can expect as you get started with Sensat.

Sensat is a visualisation and collaboration platform. It enables you and your teams to access and utilise data in the context of what's actually happening on site. By collecting and delivering infrastructure data, the platform translates the real world into a digital twin that is easily digestible by all.

Where the industry today often relies on applications that are technical, expensive and interoperable, Sensat is designed with all project members in mind. We allow for easy access, quick collaboration and usability of all project information.

Together with the likes of Aecom, Connect Plus, Heathrow & Kier, we are unlocking the value of real-world data. This enables our clients to analyse and understand their built environments and make smarter decisions reducing project risks.

While your team might be crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s of any paperwork as you begin with Sensat, your customer success manager will be introduced to you alongside your account manager. We’ll set up a call with your team and establish what you want to achieve in the coming months and years for your project.

Your customer success manager will be your main point of contact throughout your relationship with Sensat. They will initially be on hand to manage your project is set up so that you can start benefiting from the Sensat platform. And after setup they'll be available to all of your project team, to help with further training, support and helping users of the platform to achieve their objectives through using the digital twin.

As soon as you're signed up with Sensat, implementation begins. Our first step is to make sure that we're aligned with your project, and have set up how we'll stay in touch and track progress during set-up.

During this alignment stage, we want to make sure that we understand what you want to achieve through working with Sensat. Your customer success manager will start to build up a detailed account of your project and will begin to pull together recommendations on how you can maximise usage of Sensat to support your goals.

 for regular, real-world updates we will also begin our content capture ready to be fed into Sensat’s platform. This will help to give the information you already have real-world context. If you haven't organised this yet you can 

Ok, the groundwork is done, now the fun stuff can begin! During the onboarding stage, your customer success manager will work with you and your team to aggregate and organise all the data that is available (and relevant!) to your project in Sensat. We'll check in regularly during this phase, keeping you well informed of how things are going as we move towards rollout.

We'll also be looking for opportunities to support further use cases: our customer success managers will bring their experience from working across other major infrastructure projects to make relevant recommendations on how you could go even further with Sensat.

Once all your project has been set up with all of your data, we'll give you a full run-through to make sure that you're happy everything is ready for rollout to the wider project team. We'll also work with you to build a training schedule to make sure that your colleagues are taken through the information in your project in a way that's relevant to them.

This is the point where we welcome the rest of your team!

By this stage, you will already have an assigned customer success manager, overarching goals set out and a project to log into. Now it's time to begin training your wider project team on how they can use Sensat to support their day-to-day roles, keeping in mind the broader objectives set during the previous alignment stage.

Your customer success manager will run 'targeted training' for the user groups we identified with you, making sure that they have all they need to get going, as well as creating a feedback loop in case anything is missing that they might need to achieve their goals.

We find the targeted training approach to be really useful. As you can imagine, a Traffic Management team is going to come at this from a very different angle than an Earthworks team, so it pays for us to treat them differently when we train them!

Once the project team have been trained you should continue getting used to working in the platform, collaborating with other teams and accessing and uploading data. At this point things are only just getting started! Your customer success manager will maintain regular check-ins to ensure that you're getting the expected value from Sensat, as well as keeping you up to date on any exciting developments on our side. And when you have questions, issues or suggestions for new features they will always be on hand to help and find the quickest possible solution for you.

Newbie to expert: Getting started with Sensat

Today eye-watering amounts of time and money are still being lost to avoidable disputes around project interfaces. For any given large-scale project, interfaces bring substantial risk. The risk of cost overruns and delays, misalignment of works, and conflict all pose a threat to the smooth runnings of a construction project. It can be said that interface management has emerged from the millions lost from projects misaligned or ‘gone wrong’.

Interface management aligns and oversees contracted teams and their respective work packages in the planning and execution of large-scale projects. It aims to bring together effective contracting, coordination, risk allocation, conflict resolution and decision-making within projects, helping to ensure smooth running with minimal errors and disputes.

Robust interface management processes are key to assuring that contractors align. Learn about the pains of managing interfaces in construction and three things you should consider when dealing with interface management.

Project interfaces are where emergent risks form, however bringing everybody onto the same page is difficult. As a result, interfaces tend to be 

 of delays, disputes and claims during the build phase of any large civil infrastructure project with multiple stakeholders. Whilst asset owners reasonably manage the risk of large projects by contracting different organisations to different roles this also creates a new area of practical risk. The practicality of where one organisation's contract ends and another begins must run seamlessly for a successful project. However, bringing together million-pound equipment and structures is by no means an easy task.

Project interfaces can be anything from the hard interface of where one pipe meets another, to the soft interface of the flow rate through water pipes. Regardless, every detail needs both ownership and consideration for them to align. If interfaces are misaligned or incompatible the repercussions can cost both millions and cause years' worth of delay or rework. Therefore, decisions need to be made right the first time.

Until recently there has been a lack of recorded evidence to support the benefits of interface management systems. In a study, the 

Construction Industry Institute (CII, 2014)

 sampled over 45 mega-projects to explore the effects of interface management systems. They found that the complex and large-scale projects using mature interface management systems suffered only a 4% cost rise on average, while similar projects without mature interface management systems experienced 18% cost growth on average. Ultimately interface management is the cheapest insurance you could ever buy for a project.

3 steps to improving interface management

On multi-million-pound projects, the best way to avoid interface disputes is through the early implementation of interface management, tackled in a multifaceted approach. From day one, having a clear and concise contract that defines the roles and responsibilities of each contractor is the first step. This will help to hold teams accountable.

Meanwhile, the implementation of a straightforward process as to how interfaces should be managed across the different contractors needs to be defined. For example, an interface management plan which outlines how the participants should behave can provide a single source of truth as to how queries should be managed. This might also mean assigning an Interface Manager or having Interface Management Teams liaise on behalf of their contract. Clearly stating how interfaces should be managed will help all teams to communicate with one another. Regular meetings and updates between teams will help to ensure that everyone is working from the same page with defined responsibilities across the project lifecycle.

2. Unlock interface management with people, process and technology

When establishing how interface management is to be handled on a construction project, people, process, and technology are core to resolving queries quickly. The investment in this triad, championed by its people can ultimately save millions on projects.

Many project teams have decided to move away from the traditional, lengthy and complex spreadsheets managed by one person. Instead, resources are being funnelled towards Interface Management Teams and more appropriate technologies. Such software can seamlessly integrate interface control forms, communicate the queries between the requesting party and responding party whist logging the resolution. Teams are utilising Common Data Environment’s (CDEs) to remove the need to manually log interfaces identified and decisions made. It creates a direct channel between the parties involved, resulting in more transparent and rapid resolution and implementation.

As a step on from this, teams are taking their interface management processes to the next level by integrating interface management queries with visualisation technology. Using platforms such as

 Sensat’s Common Visualisation Environment (CVE)

 today project teams are viewing queries in the context of the real-world environment. Using up-to-date digital twins of a project site, users can visualise exactly where the interface issue is in relation to the contractor's progress on-site and the surrounding environment. This eliminates the back and forth trips from office to site for interface assessments, whilst giving an in-depth understanding of a query from anywhere. Using visualisation tools teams are benefitting from a rapid loop between interfaces by accessing the right data in order to make the right decisions and deliver the right outcome.

When assessing investment in interface management one thing is clear: the cost of something going wrong on a project by far exceeds the cost of investment in interface management. Managing Director of Amodal for British Land, Thomas Whitting explains,

“I pay Sensat for cost certainty. And it doesn't matter because the cost of reworks and mistakes would far exceed the initial investment… It’s much better to mitigate those risks by having better information earlier on.”

Using interface management platforms in conjunction with Sensat’s CVE is not only helping to proactively prevent reworks later down the line but also bolstering decision-making.

Directing resources towards the appropriate management of communications, relationships, and deliverables among stakeholders is integral to project success. Only by trying to reduce risk can projects improve certainty and reduce the risk contingency. By making all of this information accessible and easier to comprehend for everyone working on the programme teams can collaborate to make the best decisions using data-driven insights.

Being proactive and taking the step towards investing in interface management will be far less expensive than the cost of reworks.

Sensat’s platform is supporting projects across the asset life cycle. Learn how 

Sensat, British Land and Amodal created a “digital twin” to speed up the planning of the Canada Water Masterplan

Interface management is costing you millions, here's what to do about it

Safety is the most important aspect of any project, particularly when visiting construction sites. However, ensuring that everyone goes home safe requires a considerable amount of reporting and administration. While site safety inductions and risk assessments are completely worthwhile, this time can add up to a significant portion of the design schedule over the course of a project. If there was a more efficient way to gather site information, this time could be saved and redirected to other value-adding activities, such as additional planning.

The current process for most projects is to visit the site numerous times in order to collect information to inform the project design and planning. Prior to every visit, visitors must undertake rigorous safety precautions, such as preparing site risk assessments or method statements and attending inductions. In some instances, additional safety measures are required, such as traffic management or a second person attending site to avoid lone working.

All of these measures are designed to ensure that staff are kept as safe as possible every time they visit site. However, there are also situations where accessing a site isn’t straightforward. There may be limited access, or the site may be impractical to visit due to the distance or amount of time required. In some cases, the safety risks posed – such as confined spaces, for example – may also make it difficult to access the site on a frequent basis.

Irrespective of whether a site can be easily accessed or not, according to the risk reduction hierarchy, we should always strive to remove the risk completely before implementing control measures. In the case of site visits, if staff are able to obtain all the information they require from the safety of the office, then there is a two-fold benefit: improved safety and increased efficiency.

While there will almost always be a need to attend site, reducing the frequency of site visits by making site information available in a usable format makes sense. With 

Sensat's Common Visualisation Environment (CVE)

, achieving this goal is simple. The CVE brings all the project and site data together into one platform that can be quickly interrogated to obtain the desired information. It acts as an up-to-date digital twin of the site, increasing the understanding of any potential constraints and site features.

Using Sensat's CVE platform, it is easy to get data such as site measurements, schedule information, or a visual update on current site progress which teams can explore in great detail. If any information has been forgotten, there is no need to visit the site, saving the time of both the site visit and the preparation of adequate safety documentation.

The CVE can also enable better planning when site visits do have to take place. For example, a platform like Sensat allows markups to be made, which can be used to highlight any risks that have been identified on site. No-go areas can also be marked out, or accesses can be planned before attending site in person.

Efficient site visits mean better planning

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