How VINCI automates their crane foundation designs.

• Design time cut from days to 15 min
• ~300 engineering days saved yearly
• Covers ~70% of foundation designs

VIKTOR.AI was selected because it let VINCI's own engineers build a custom application rather than depend on an external software vendor. The platform integrates the tools the team already used, including Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis, Grasshopper, Rhino, Excel, and Python scripts, into a single, user-friendly web app instead of forcing engineers to work across disconnected programs.

That flexibility mattered because crane foundation requirements change often, from last-minute project changes to shifting soil conditions. VINCI needed a solution that let engineers react quickly and rebuild a design in minutes rather than days, without waiting on multiple specialists to coordinate their input.

According to Alexandre Cousin, Head of Generative Design at VINCI Construction: "VIKTOR is the only product that empowers our own engineers to create user-friendly applications and seamlessly integrate all our software packages. With VIKTOR, we have the flexibility to develop anything we need."

VINCI's crane foundation team faced two compounding problems: coordinating multiple specialists across disconnected software, and reacting to constant change. With roughly 225 crane foundations to design each year, every 3-to-5-day cycle added up to a significant drain on engineering time.

Because different specialists had to wait on each other's input, delays compounded easily, and because soil conditions or project requirements could change at any point, foundations frequently needed to be redesigned from scratch. That combination made it difficult for VINCI to keep pace with its full workload without adding headcount or accepting slower project timelines.

Before automating with VIKTOR, designing a crane foundation required 3 to 5 days of manual work spread across project planners, structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, and designers, each using separate tools such as Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis, Grasshopper, Rhino, Excel, and Python scripts.

Because each specialist depended on the others' input and availability, the process often took even longer than that estimate, and any late change to project requirements or soil conditions meant redoing much of the work.

By building a VIKTOR.AI application that automates crane foundation design end-to-end, including geotechnical checks, structural calculations, reinforcement sizing, 3D modeling, and production drawings, VINCI cut what used to take 3 to 5 days of coordinated manual work down to about 15 minutes per design.

The application now handles roughly 70% of VINCI's crane foundation cases. By automating around 100 of the approximately 225 foundations the company designs each year, VINCI saves close to 300 engineering days annually. As Alexandre Cousin, Head of Generative Design at VINCI Construction, put it: "By automating the design of 100 crane foundations per year, we save approximately 300 engineering days annually. The impact on our efficiency and productivity is immense!"

Beyond the raw time savings, the automated workflow gives VINCI's engineers the flexibility to respond quickly when project requirements or soil conditions change mid-project, avoiding the delays that used to come with re-coordinating multiple specialists for a redesign.