How the City of Newcastle accelerated 20 years of engineering technology change in just 4 weeks

The Challenge

When Richard Clarke, Senior Civil Project Officer, joined the City of Newcastle after working at a major tier one consultancy, he quickly recognized that the council’s engineering design environment was well behind industry best practice. Change was difficult, budgets for innovation were limited, and traditional approaches to project data management remained in place.

That became a serious issue in early 2020 when staff needed to work from home. For the engineering design team, remote work was not a simple transition. Large and complex datasets raised immediate concerns around speed, data integrity and version control. Working over VPN was too slow and unreliable, while duplicating files to local drives created major risks around multiple copies, lost files and inconsistent project data.

The team needed a better solution that would support remote work without compromising performance, data integrity or governance.

The Solutions

The City of Newcastle implemented 12d Synergy as a best practice data management system for engineering projects. Because of the urgency created by the pandemic, the council was able to move quickly, completing approval, installation, customization, testing and rollout in just 4 weeks.

12d Synergy gave the team a safer and more effective way to manage large engineering datasets remotely. Its integration with 12d Model, version control capabilities and flexible hosting options made it especially well suited to the council’s needs. It also met the council’s data sovereignty requirements by allowing data to be hosted on its own infrastructure or within a New South Wales-based data centre.

What began as an emergency response quickly became a broader transformation in how the team managed project data.

The Result

• 12d Synergy was fully implemented in just 4 weeks.
• The engineering design team transitioned to remote work without losing a day’s work.
• Large, complex datasets could be managed more effectively outside the office.
• Version control and rollback improved confidence in project data integrity.
• External contractors and consultants could collaborate with controlled access.
• The platform evolved from a remote work solution into a broader engineering Common Data Environment.

A crisis-driven rollout became a long-term digital transformation

The City of Newcastle’s implementation of 12d Synergy was driven by immediate necessity, but its impact extended well beyond the early pandemic response. The urgency of the situation created an unusual alignment between management, IT, end users and vendor support, allowing the council to move much faster than normal.

According to Richard Clarke, the 4-week implementation covered everything from management approval and server installation through to initial customization, user testing and full rollout to the design and survey teams. What would normally have taken far longer became a clear example of what can be achieved when teams work together toward a shared goal.

Improving remote work and project data control

12d Synergy enabled the City of Newcastle to work remotely with large engineering datasets by reducing the amount of data that needed to be transferred. Rather than repeatedly moving full project files, the platform only transferred changed data, improving speed and making remote work far more practical.

The platform also gave the team greater control over shared project data. Managed Folders supported file-based engineering workflows, while check-in/check-out, version control and rollback reduced the risks associated with disconnected local copies and inconsistent data. Richard Clarke said 12d Synergy helped create “one source of truth” by ensuring local copies were locked unless checked out.

Expanding from design data to a full engineering Common Data Environment

What began as a response to remote working quickly evolved into something much broader. Once implemented, the team realized 12d Synergy could support far more than just 12d Model workflows.

The City of Newcastle moved all active and new project data into 12d Synergy, including engineering models, CAD drawings, emails, reports, plans and supporting documentation. This created a more connected and consistent environment for managing information across the full lifecycle of a project.

The platform also improved collaboration with contractors and consultants, who could now be brought into the system with controlled access and permissions rather than working in isolation and delivering information only at fixed points in time.

Supporting everyday efficiency across engineering workflowst

Beyond remote access and version control, 12d Synergy also improved several day-to-day processes. Outlook integration made it easier to store emails and attachments directly against projects in a consistent structure, while MicroStation workflows benefited from version control, centralized templates and improved file handling.

For MicroStation workflows, Richard Clarke noted that 12d Synergy had become his preferred platform, thanks to its version control, file check-in, naming rules and smoother day-to-day performance.

Positioned for a more resilient future

For the City of Newcastle, 12d Synergy became more than a short-term solution to a crisis. It created the foundation for a more modern, flexible and resilient approach to engineering data management.

By enabling remote work, improving collaboration and bringing project data into one controlled environment, the platform helped the council accelerate a generational shift in how its engineering team works. What started as a response to disruption has become a long-term step forward in the council’s digital evolution.