Tekla Structures for the self-employed: Patrice Hélie's experience

A freelance draughtsman for three years, Patrice Hélie has chosen Trimble's Tekla Structures software for his professional activities. It's a solution he's happy to recommend not only to his customers.

After working as a metal welder in the metallurgy industry, as a design technician in a rebar manufacturing company and finally as a draughtsman in various design offices, Patrice Hélie decided to leave in search of freedom. For the past three years, this experienced professional has been working on his own as a freelance draughtsman. "In a design office, you're just an executor, doing what you're told. You're somewhat subject to the deadlines of the trade, and as an employee, you can't spread yourself too thin," he explains. "So I decided to go into business for myself, to have the freedom to choose the customers I want to work with

An enthusiast in search of the "five-legged sheep

For Patrice Hélie, this freedom of choice goes hand in hand with the search for projects that are out of the ordinary: the designer calls them his "five-legged sheep". "The more technical projects are really more interesting, including financially, because not everyone knows how to manage them". Among his favorite projects are engineering structures, but he also has a particular fondness for marine structures.

"To work on this, you need the same skills as for housing. It's all about formwork and reinforcement. But there's still a special kind of thinking required for this type of work. Often, we train for things that are a bit classic, but when the five-legged sheep comes along, you need to have a bit of bottle to adapt."

Experience is undoubtedly essential when it comes to tackling complex, even unusual projects. But it's also essential to have the right tools for the job.

Tekla Structures, the preferred solution

Patrice Hélie knew Trimble's solutions from his years in the design office. "I had attended a presentation. Tekla Structures seemed interesting to me, but at the time, it wasn't the solution of choice for my company." During his years as a salaried employee, he worked with various software packages, such as AutoCAD and Revit. "I found it tedious," he sums up. "When I went freelance, I took the time to experiment with other solutions available on the market. And there are a lot of them!"

For a time, the designer used a combination of AutoCAD and a tool called Armatures GCA, created by an independent developer. But this solution soon showed its limitations, with its notorious "five-legged sheep". Finally, after many trials, he turned to Tekla Structures. "I was looking for a solution that was as well adapted to formwork and reinforcement as Tekla Structures, without the need to install plug-ins, which can quickly add up

Before purchasing the software, Patrice Hélie asked Trimble for a demonstration, to make sure that Tekla was capable of meeting his sometimes surprising demands. i wanted a demonstration on a project that was out of the ordinary," he says, "because all software publishers know how to make a demo on a classic building. I gave them the data for a civil engineering structure in an oil port in Djibouti. I wanted to find out if it was possible to make formwork and reinforcement quite simply and quickly, i.e. in the space of just half an hour."

The demonstration, led by Alexandre Vaillant and Alexandre Colin from Trimble, convinced Patrice Hélie.

"What interests me in Tekla is that I have concrete and reinforcement, but I also have the steel part, because I need it for marine structures. And Tekla Structures also integrates 3D modeling, which is starting to become more and more common in projects."

Growing business with Tekla Structures

For Patrice Hélie, working with Tekla Structures not only enables him to deal with conflicts right from the start, but also saves him considerable time in managing his projects. "As a freelancer, I need to be profitable. My goal is to save production time, both on simple projects and on more complex projects, which can be very time-consuming."

Tekla Structures enables him to meet this need: "I reduce my production time and improve its quality in the process. I don't have to spend my nights pulling out drawings, because by 6 p.m. my day is done."

Using Trimble's tool enables the draftsman to reach different types of customer, such as concrete design offices, concrete precasters and reinforcing steel manufacturers. "I'm able to link different customers with the same software," he sums up. "I recently discovered that Tekla Structures is capable of transforming an IFC file, if it's clean to begin with. It's the only software that does this at the moment, to my knowledge. This is useful, because if my client is working on Revit, and the model is well modeled, I can import it into Tekla and work on it. This means I'm not closing myself off to customers who use Revit

Nevertheless, Patrice Hélie admits that he is increasingly recommending Tekla Structures to his customers when they hesitate.

"My goal is to have 70% of my production on Tekla Structures by 2024. I still have some production on other software. But in the end, I hope to be 100% on Tekla."

"There's so much to discover"

Although he chose a training organization external to Trimble to master Tekla Structures and be able to use his CPF, Patrice Hélie is, today, in constant contact with the publisher. "I'm in regular contact with Guillaume Nivet, who manages onboarding at Trimble

In 2023, the draughtsman took advantage of several videoconferencing sessions, during which he was able to ask the expert questions and discover new uses for Tekla Structures.

"Recently, I contacted Guillaume to set up an internal modeling process in Tekla, to save time in my production. I discovered, in this way, that I wasn't necessarily using the right tool, and without him, I'd never have known and would have lost a lot of time."

This privileged relationship with Trimble onboarding enables the designer to expand his skills and knowledge of the software. "On Tekla, there's a lot to discover, and you can't know everything. So this kind of visio gives me a good basis on which to work."

Tekla Structures, "the best tool for my job"

Patrice Hélie sometimes suggests Tekla Structures to his customers. On social networks, the designer also frequently talks about the software, and posts videos presenting certain functions on YouTube. Enough to arouse the curiosity of other professionals.

"I get calls from engineers and draughtsmen asking why I use Trimble. I tell them quite clearly that it's the tool that's best suited to our trade, in this case for concrete and structural steel workers. For me, it's the only tool that really fits the bill

However, the freelancer denies being an "influencer": "I let people make up their own minds. I just show them, through my videos and my personal expertise, that it's easy to evolve with this dedicated tool. It's possible to use other software to tinker for hours on end, or to add plugins on top of that. Does it pay off in terms of time and expense? I don't think so," he concludes.