CYPE has entered the building materials distribution sector after developing the OMEGA2 program that the company Saint-Gobain Distribution is using in the regional technology centres (RTCs) of its POINT.P brand in France, to carry out the structural analysis, the quantities and the cost estimate of concrete and masonry structures of single-family dwellings, as an additional service to professional customers who shop at the company’s stores.
With more than 800 stores, Point.P is the leading company in the distribution of building materials in France, with a wide range of products for structures, brickwork, plaster, insulation, trusses and roofs, external and internal carpentry, floorings and facings, electricity, plumbing and more.
Among the professional services that POINT.P offers to its customers, the creation of optimised cost estimates and execution plans for concrete and masonry structures in single-family dwelling projects stands out. In France, this is known as “major construction work”, which includes slabs, load-bearing walls, columns and foundations. These studies carried out by the RTCs are adjusted according to the location of the shop where the customer buys and the materials stored locally.
It is in this field that CYPE has contributed its knowledge by developing an analysis, quantities and cost estimates tool for single-family dwellings with structures consisting of one-way joist floor slabs and hollow block slabs. As Carlos Fernández, Technical Director of CYPE explains, the development and adaptation of the software tool to the needs of Point.P and the French market have required a considerable amount of effort and, more particularly, to the needs of specific types of construction in France, since the signing of the collaboration agreement between CYPE and POINT.P (Saint-Gobain Distribution France) in 2017.
For Baudouin De La Bretesche, Director of the division of concrete and masonry structures, public works, carpentry, facings and finishes, “CYPE has been able to meet our specific needs and has been the best option when it comes to renewing the tool we have been using over the last 15 years, which needed to be updated in terms of codes and techniques, as well as to be connected with the new information systems we had internally developed, such as product databases.”
More than 15,000 studies have already been carried out from June to December 2019, the year in which the application was launched in POINT.P’s technical services. “In addition to its simple and modern graphic interface for modelling, the OMEGA2 program has enabled us to be more productive and draw up more accurate bills of quantities based on structural analysis and quantities”. The collaboration continues to progress, as POINT.P has asked CYPE to add new features to the tool for a new version that will be available in spring 2020.
Finally, another important point of the program, developed by CYPE, is that it allows users to work directly within a structural digital model, and will have a connection for Open BIM collaborative work with the IFC exchange format. The use of this technology and work methodology opens up a new communication channel with single-family dwelling constructors, architect offices and project managing offices.
POINT.P, leader in the French building materials distribution market
POINT.P is the leading company in the distribution of building materials in France, with a total of 851 points of sale in the country and approximately 11,000 employees. The POINT.P Company has been a part of Saint-Gobain since 1996, a world leader in sustainable housing with more than 170,000 employees in 66 countries. The SAINT-GOBAIN group is one of the 100 most innovative companies in the world.
