René Wolf is the CEO of RIB Software program and a former gross sales govt at Siemens. On the primary day of AVEVA World 2025, he joined me to debate RIB’s function throughout the Schneider Electrical umbrella of corporations and the way the software program improvement firm is reshaping the engineering and building trade. René impressed me along with his vitality, enthusiasm, and fervour for RIB as a catalyst for enhancing effectivity and sustainability in these sectors.
Building corporations are grappling with inefficient workflows in an trade with stagnant productiveness for over twenty years. RIB goals to vary this by using its suite of software program options to seize whole constructing lifecycles digitally, from planning to building, thereby bettering mission effectivity and sustainability.
To begin our dialog, René defined how RIB’s software program is used in the course of the preliminary mission stage—planning. After the architect creates a 3D mannequin, RIB’s software program can course of it by including particulars corresponding to supplies, time, and labor, in the end producing a exact value estimate. This consists of every part, from normal paint on home windows to luxurious golden door handles, making certain that each element is accounted for.
As soon as the preliminary estimates are produced utilizing 3D modeling, RIB’s software program can successfully monitor and handle the end-to-end workflows of tasks. This encompasses mission security, value management, and the variety of subcontractors concerned. RIB’s software program suite eliminates guesswork and minimizes human error. It delivers real-time digital twins based mostly on high quality knowledge inputs, leading to high-quality outputs and improved effectivity all through the mission’s lifecycle, giving purchasers complete management over their money flows and prices.
Digital instruments for managing complicated end-to-end processes are extra essential than ever within the building and engineering sectors; nevertheless, these instruments usually are not extensively adopted. René identified that “80% of all non-residential building tasks expertise value and time overruns of as much as 40%.” He emphasised the pressing want for options like these supplied by RIB, stating, “Most tasks are by no means accomplished on schedule or inside funds, which presents a major drawback.”
The development trade faces challenges because of its outdated practices, significantly the reliance on paper-based processes, which hinder effectivity. RIB gives instruments that assist digitize these paper trails, enabling building stakeholders to handle their end-to-end workflows in real-time successfully. Synthetic intelligence (AI) is a beneficial software that may improve the effectiveness of those processes. Nonetheless, it’s important to establish the enterprise use case earlier than integrating it, as René firmly identified:
“You may’t simply apply AI and hope for the most effective — it’s about figuring out particular, repeatable use instances that resolve actual enterprise issues, save time, and scale throughout prospects. That’s the place the worth is, and that’s what makes it a product, not a science mission.”
Within the building sector, AI gives the potential to ship vital worth. Nonetheless, to understand this potential, high-quality structured knowledge units should be established to create digital twins. At the moment, the development trade lacks these knowledge units in comparison with different sectors, corresponding to automotive, which have already constructed them. Subsequently, RIB and its companions should begin from scratch to develop high quality knowledge units that may present significant insights by way of digital twins and AI.
“In building, we don’t have the luxurious of many years of unpolluted, structured knowledge just like the automotive sector — so earlier than AI can ship worth, we have to digitize, construct correct knowledge units, and create digital twins that present what was deliberate versus what was constructed. That’s how we get from guesswork to automation,” defined René.
To finish our dialogue, we mentioned RIB’s future targets in regards to the growing integration of AI. He emphasised the event of a real cloud-native Software program as a Service (SaaS) platform that’s user-centric and simple to undertake. Designed for the way forward for building, not the previous, RIB goals to create a SaaS platform designed to make the development and engineering sectors extra digital, environment friendly, and sustainable.
In what felt like a quick five-minute dialog—although it lasted over 45 minutes—we sadly needed to carry our dialogue to a detailed. René’s information and fervour for RIB created an insightful dialogue that broadened my consciousness of how building may gain advantage from digital transformation and allowed me to achieve a brand new trade pal throughout our brief time collectively.
