The Tunisian group, also present in Burundi, plans to export its know-how internationally. As one of the pioneers of BIM in Africa, it invests heavily in its training policy where the use of BIM plays a prominent role.
AMA GROUP’s won bet
AMA GROUP is not yet a “zero paper” company, but the objective does indeed exist in the mind of Anis Mahmoud, the founder of this Tunisian company which focuses both on the know-how of a design office, a construction company and facility management services. “We digitize our processes as much as possible. When we started this transformation a few years ago, my contacts did not really believe in my vision”, explains the manager.
Today, the facts speak of the Tunisian entrepreneur. Founded in 1994, this engineer’s company has gone through French, Spanish and Canadian construction majors. It currently has 100 employees. It experienced spectacular development between 2016 and 2019, hence its turnover, which was multiplied by six. “This growth is the direct consequence of the management of our international construction projects in BIM mode via Autodesk solutions. What was an intuition for us has turned out to be a market requirement”, develops Anis Mahmoud.
Digital model TCE phase EXE – AMA GROUP
To date, a third of AMA GROUP’s workforce is trained in BIM technologies. The approach of the Tunisian company is both transverse and vertical since it covers as much the fields of competence related to the design of the 3D model under Revit, as the synthesis under Navisworks or the facility management with CMMS tools compatible under the COBie repository, among others. Anxious to maintain a high level of requirements in this area, the company now devotes 5% of its turnover to training. For this, it does not hesitate to have its executives trained on a work-study program abroad. This is particularly the case of Mondher Kacem, BIM Manager at AMA GROUP, holder of a specialized BIM master’s degree co-delivered by the Ecole Supérieure des Travaux Publics and the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech. “I started my training by working on Revit within the company, but it seemed to me that to understand the BIM process as a whole, I had to take more advanced training. This made it possible to adapt everything I learned in France to the reality of our business”, he describes.
3D modeling and digital management of buildings have become so strategic for the Tunisian group that it has created a BIM cell, dedicated to the outsourcing services it provides from Tunisia and “AMA BIM Academy”, a training structure piloted by an engineer, Amira Dahmani. “We actually run two academies: one in Tunisia and the other in Burundi. This is a year-long e-learning program where our employees take 2-hour courses, twice a week,” she explains.
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