‘We believe that BIM can’t exist without openBIM and transforming BIM into openBIM is our mission’: Guido Cianciulli, CEO of ACCA software

ACCA software is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of software and services for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector. ACCA is an industry leader in Italy, but it also has a very consolidated presence in the rest of Europe, including Spain, Portugal, France, and Germany. The company is also well-positioned in the Brazilian and Indian markets.

ACCA’s three offices are located in Italy (Bagnoli Irpino and Milan) and Brazil (Sao Paulo).

The Silicon Review reached out to ACCA’s Bagnoli Irpino headquarters and spoke with Guido Cianciulli, who serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Here’s what he said.

“The needs of AEC professionals are at the heart of our activities and we offer simple to use professional solutions on the market to help them achieve their goals. In addition to these solutions, we respond to the growing needs of professionals by offering them a whole range of information and knowledge that can support their success.”

With a range of unparalleled solutions and applications that have become real standards in just a few years, ACCA has become a reference point for the construction sector and for all the professionals who work are involved in the sector, including engineers, architects, surveyors, industrial experts, plant engineers, design firms, construction companies, public bodies, etc.

Reshaping the Construction Industry

ACCA’s first software CoMet was founded in 1989; the first software for cost estimating. It was revolutionary, practical, and well-made software that had only one objective—to be a professional alternative but easy to use to the existing difficult programs for design firms. It is with the same mentality that ACCA over the years has managed to make a mark through a suite of software, including PriMus, the software for construction cost estimates, cost management mostly used by Italian surveyors; CerTus, the software for building health and safety and the first Italian BIM (Building Information Modeling) authoring for the ergotechnical studies related to construction sites; Edificius, the architectural design software that integrates architecture, interior design, outdoor design, systems and all other areas of building design into a single BIM software designed to change the world of design; EdiLus, the software that has completely revolutionized structural calculations; TerMus, the leading software for building energy performance certification for the past 20 years, the top solution for simplicity, technology, and reliability.

ACCA’s innovative approach has not stopped at these extraordinary achievements. It continues to lead from the front with a clear mission—to make BIM democratic.

“We want to make BIM more democratic with open collaboration spaces and tools that work on standard formats, simplicity of use, and with costs, which are accessible to everyone and everywhere in the world.”

The desire to overcome this challenge was the engine that led ACCA to create usBIM, a completely new BIM management system for the management of BIM processes and 100% openBIM workflows. usBIM offers free storage space of up to 10 GB and 12 specific tools to address the fundamental activities of the BIM process. It’s a highly efficient and streamlined tool, equipped with an innovative distribution system that can certainly increase the knowledge of BIM technology among all AEC operators at an international level.

“usBIM is one of our most recent solutions: a BIM management system created to manage the fundamental activities of the BIM process and integrated with a free BIM viewer able to open and manage numerous 3D file formats (both proprietary and openBIM formats), such as IFC, DWG, RVT, DXF, EDF and SKP without the need to have specific software (Revit, Archicad, etc.).”

“More importantly, we are convinced that openBIM will dominate the way the AEC industry works in the not-too-distant future and that is why the next goal of ACCA is to spread this approach more and more.”

“We believe that BIM can’t exist without openBIM and transforming BIM into openBIM is our mission. We are working to fundamentally change the BIM process, to focus on the use of the information model and not software as is currently the case. We want to make BIM more democratic with open collaboration spaces, tools that work on standard formats, simplicity of use, and costs accessible to everyone in all countries of the world.”

Deployments and Recognitions

As noted above, the future of construction is openBIM. Today, ACCA presents itself on the international market as the company that intends to transform BIM into openBIM^®. Over the years, ACCA has been actively engaged in this mission and has been able to boast a series of incredible successes and advancements such as the below.

In 2018, ACCA became a stable member of buildingSMART International, the organization that operates at a worldwide level for the dissemination of the IFC format and openBIM standards. Towards the end of the same year, ACCA could also boast the largest number of IFC-certified BIM software in the world, including the first BIM collaborative platform, usBIM.platform. In 2019, ACCA won the ‘2019 buildingSMART International Award’ in Beijing in the ‘Professional & Student Research’ category with the Structural E-Permit project. In 2020, ACCA went on to win the ‘buildingSMART International Award 2020’ in the ‘TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP’ category with the usIFC.server project. In 2022, ACCA becomes a ‘Multinational Member of buildingSMART’.

All these business advances have enabled ACCA software to gain an increasingly active role in developing and deploying open standards and software solutions in the following chapters.

Among the most recent innovations brought by ACCA in this area is usBIM.bSDD—one of the first solutions based on buildingSMART Data Dictionary that allows you to classify the elements of a BIM model in IFC format according to the bSDD standard. The bSDD is an online service that hosts classifications, standards, dictionaries, and their properties, allowed values, units, and translations. It is used to identify objects in the built environment and their specific properties regardless of language. The bSDD is open and international and allows designers, builders, and owners on the one hand and product manufacturers and suppliers on the other, to share and exchange product information.

Another novelty of the company concerns the development of the new IFC 4.3 standard for the infrastructures it is testing through a viewer, usBIM.infra, which allows it to manage large linear infrastructures such as railways, roads, bridges, tunnels, and ports.

Guido Cianciulli | Founder & CEO

Guido Cianciulli was born in 1959 in the Island of Capo Rizzuto. After his birth, the family returned to Montella, the town of origin in the province of Avellino, where Guido studied and graduated as a surveyor. As a self-taught student, he began to learn programming languages and developed his first program, CoMet, in 1989. CoMet was later rebranded as PriMus.

Guido today has the ambitious goal of spreading the use of the most advanced technologies and openBIM methodologies throughout the world. He is convinced that just as PriMus was able to revolutionize the way technicians worked back in the 90s, today openBIM will radically change the construction sector too. His vision is that openBIM is the future of the world of construction and infrastructures.

“...we are truly impressed by the strong commitment that ACCA is giving to the openBIM program and we are amazed at how Guido is transforming his company to have openBIM at the center of its activities.” -- The buildingSMART International delegation