Dedicated infrastructure engineering software proved decisive in delivering one of the UK's most technically demanding recent construction projects: Everton Football Club's new £800 million home.
The primary contractor, Laing O'Rourke, credits a combination of digital twins and 4D visualization - across the three dimensions of space plus time - for keeping the complex build on schedule and budget.
The new Hill Dickinson Stadium seats 52,888 and serves as the centerpiece of a major city masterplan to transform 60 hectares of former industrial waterfront at Liverpool's Bramley-Moore Dock into a world-class, mixed-use quarter designed to rejuvenate the city and boost its economy.
The site opened successfully in February 2025 after a four-year construction process that the company says went to plan largely through effective use of a digital twin running on SYNCHRO from Pennsylvania-based Bentley Systems.
Building in four dimensions
Beyond digital twins, the project leveraged what Bentley calls 4D capability - integrating 3D models with project schedules to create a simulation of progress through time, enabling real-time planning, tracking, and reporting across all project phases.
Given the project's complex regeneration area and site constraints, this 4D capability proved particularly valuable to Principal Planner Simon Beards.
Extensive off-site prefabrication of building elements combined with real-time digital twin visualization meant every step could be digitally modeled and checked before work began.
Beards says:
A digital-first approach gave us unprecedented clarity and confidence in decision-making. Basically, we wanted to build the stadium virtually and securely in an environment where we could recognize any issues that may present themselves, solve or head them off, and then go ahead and build it successfully.
With a digital twin, we were able to do that. Or as a craftsman might say, we were able to virtually measure twice but only safely cut once, showing that AI and digital twins deliver real, practical value.
Modern methods of construction
Beards has worked for what is now Laing O'Rourke, a £4 billion revenue global construction, engineering, and manufacturing company, for 25 years on projects ranging from cross-country pipelines to nuclear power stations to the rebuild of London Heathrow Airport's Terminal 2 - with a brief detour helping rebuild his family's local hospital in North Wales.
In April 2019, he was assigned to the Everton project, where he became the project's longest-serving project manager, present from start to completion. His lifelong devotion to the football club only solidified his commitment.
Beards says his organization prides itself on modern methods of construction, preparing components in factory-style environments before delivering them to sites for careful assembly.
Hill Dickinson Stadium exemplified this approach. Over 70% of the stadium materials - 13,000 tons of concrete and 6,000 pieces of precast steel - were manufactured in factory conditions for final on-site assembly, LEGO-style.
Other elements requiring precise timing included pre-built terracing from an Irish supplier. The project also involved major work on the old dock, including pumping in 450,000 cubic meters of fluidized sand from the North Sea.
Optimizing logistics and sequencing
Coordinating efficient delivery by road, boat, and rail, alongside on-site work, demanded meticulous advance planning.
Laing O'Rourke built a master federated 3D model incorporating structural and architectural models, steel work assemblies, and prefabricated concrete walls. This was then linked in the digital twin software to the planned construction schedule, with the full model accessible to field teams via mobile apps, enabling them to complete daily activities and provide status updates aligned with the master schedule.
Beards had used SYNCHRO during his Heathrow project days and wanted to leverage it more fully on the Everton build to optimize the process.
He says:
We had experimented with 4D in terms of animation, but by the time of Hill Dickinson we really wanted to extend our digital skills and use the approach as immersively as we could.
This ambition reflects broader industry context. Digital twins and 4D represent the latest in a long line of technological experiments the construction industry has tried - but not always fully leveraged.
Beards adds:
We know we need to plan things better on big projects, but I've been in the industry long enough to have seen all kinds of techniques come and go - we've gone through packs of highlighters, PowerPoint slides, Gantt charts, you name it.
The issue's always been with any kind of technology, no matter how sophisticated, how you deliver any technique to the team and keep it dynamic enough so it involves and engages them enough to use it to its full potential.
High stakes for delivery
Yet there's a significant leap from packs of highlighters to a full digital representation tracking structure assembly at a level of data and analytics capable of spotting dependencies or clashes that could trigger overruns.
No one wanted that scenario. Other high-profile UK stadium builds, like Cardiff's Principality Stadium (originally the Millennium Stadium), suffered design issues that cost a predecessor company of Beards's employer a£26 million financial loss due to problems with the tendering process.
Beyond materials and logistics, Beards and his team needed to address environmental factors, ensuring the waterfront location would be resilient to wind effects, among other challenges.
Next steps
Beards says his proudest moment came when he took his son to a night game with their beloved Toffees.
He says:
To see it all lit up was so satisfying.
Looking ahead, Beards and his company recognize a potentially significant market for similar ambitious football ground redevelopment projects.
Following extensive rebuilding of UK football environments in the 1990s after the Hillsborough tragedy and an enforced move from standing to seating, the 21st century could bring a wave of Everton-like projects potentially including major facilities likeManchester United's Old Trafford or even Hollywood-backedWrexham.
Beards says:
Hill Dickinson was a one-off project, but the new ground has attracted quite a lot of attention, and other UK football clubs seem set for similar improvement and have seen our kind of approach.
Would I love to build them? Absolutely, but the impact of digital twin and 4D planning extends to many other areas we are active in and has been noticed by a lot of our competitors.
Right now, our industry is evolving fast, and use of this kind of technology is in overdrive—I've seen the enhanced visualisation package Bentley's been working on, which I think will become the norm in a few years.
He concludes:
If we hadn't used it, I don't know if there would have been a different outcome, but it gave us confidence throughout the whole journey, and we will definitely look to use it again.