Higgins Bitumen Plan Digital Twin

Discover how with the Bruce technology, Nextspace have built an “As Built and As Maintained” cloud-based digital twin of the Higgins Bitumen Plant. It is located in Napier, New Zealand.

Higgins grew from a small, contracting business established in the Manawatu by Irish immigrant Dan Higgins.

Like all true pioneers, Dan’s arrival plan was to find his own slice of land in New Zealand and start farming. He initially found employment on others’ farms but the depression put a dent in any thoughts of owning his own. With shovel in hand, Dan took on any work he could and eventually found employment with British Pavements. Excelling in roading and drain-laying, he took these skills to Palmerston North.
It was the mid-’50s and Dan set up his own drainage and road repair business in loose partnership with others. In 1958 eldest son Pat joined, Dan and Higgins was born.

Over time, Higgins became more of a family affair as sons Michael and Bernard joined during the ’60s and ’70s. These two decades were a time of rapid expansion as Higgins grew into the areas of civil construction, the manufacture and supply of aggregates, concrete and bitumen. In addition, Higgins developed expertise in pavement construction, spray sealing, asphalt paving, drainage, traffic management, road marking and road maintenance.

Over the last 60 years Higgins has been at the forefront of building New Zealand’s infrastructure and is now one of the leading roading civil and road construction companies in the country. Higgins now employs over 1600 people throughout New Zealand and in Fiji.

In 2016 Higgins was purchased by Fletcher Building and is now part of the iconic Fletcher Construction family of brands. 

Digital Twin for the Bitumen Plant

The Digital Twin allows to create a marketing and training video of the actual process flow through the plant. It is shown on the below video.

The 4 main use cases for the digital twin are:

  • Asset and work management
  • Health and safety training and monitoring
  • General operational training
  • Sales and marketing promotion

Whether on site or based remotely, Higgins and their partners can access markup and collaborate on the same data simultaneously.

The 3D model is fully interactive and provides a simple to use interface to anyone seeking to understand the facility at any level of detail. Asset data, plans, P&IDs, training videos and manufacturing information is all linked and accessible from a single model.

It is also possible to link live sensor and performance data into the model so that real-time remote monitoring can be made possible.

For more details, contact us.