Success Story: Britex
Since 1938 Britex has been a leader in the design and manufacture of commercial stainless steel and plumbing fixtures, supplying high-quality, Australian-made solutions to healthcare, education, corrections and public infrastructure projects across Australia and beyond.
With the increased utilisation of Revit and adoption of BIM workflows among architects and designers, Britex saw an opportunity to strengthen their market position, improve specification accuracy, and drive business growth in new markets.
In this Success Story, we’ll explore:
- The challenges Britex faced in developing BIM content
- The solutions provided by IGS Group
- The outcomes and benefits of the partnership
Background & Challenges
Proudly Australian owned and operated, Britex has always been closely connected to the A&D specification market, with a steadfast objective to be known as ‘The Specifier’s Choice’ for high quality commercial stainless steel and plumbing fixtures, particularly among Architects, Hydraulic Engineers and Interior Designers working on Commercial projects.
Their early investment in BIM was driven by requests for BIM content from specifiers who had moved from using AutoCAD to Revit, a desire to achieve ambitious business growth targets, and an objective to lead their category in digital specification tools, ensuring their products were as easy as possible to integrate into modern design and delivery workflows.
There were several challenges Britex needed to consider and overcome to ensure their BIM strategy was a success:
- Ensuring BIM Content was High-Quality
Britex’s initial foray into BIM involved both attempting to develop internal BIM content creation capabilities and engaging multiple external providers to create Revit families for selected products. Despite having a highly skilled in-house CAD and Design team with extensive experience in AutoCAD, SolidWorks, Inventor, and 3DS Max, Britex soon realised that developing high-quality, project-ready BIM content required a deceptively specialised skillset and a deep understanding of how Revit is used to design and coordinate project models – far beyond traditional 3D modelling or CAD knowledge.
Similarly, the external BIM content providers Britex worked with delivered varying levels of quality, but none of the Revit content truly met the needs of their customers in order to use it in a project environment. The feedback from specifiers was difficult to decipher, often using unfamiliar technical language and, at times, seemed contradictory, making it unclear what adjustments were needed.
This left Britex in a challenging position, unsure of how to move forward in developing a BIM strategy that would truly add value to their customers and drive specification growth. Equally, Britex recognised the scale of the opportunity if they were able to get it right.
Above all else, Britex came to realise that to provide value to their customers and drive business outcomes, the quality of their BIM content was the primary variable to making it a powerful tool for driving specification growth and generating ROI.
- Meeting Specifier Demand for Flexible, Configurable Revit Families
Many of Britex’s products are highly customisable, requiring different configurations to suit specific project environments. The BIM content needed to provide this flexibility while maintaining ease of use, ensuring designers could efficiently modify product parameters without exceeding real-world manufacturing constraints.
- Expanding Market Share in Competitive Regions
In certain geographic markets, Britex faced ongoing challenges breaking into established project pipelines where specifiers traditionally defaulted to more familiar brands. Britex recognised that BIM capabilities could provide a competitive edge, offering digital tools their competitors didn’t – giving specifiers a reason to switch to specifying Britex products as they moved towards adopting BIM software and workflows to deliver their projects.
- Showcasing Complete Product Solutions
Britex saw BIM as an opportunity to increase adoption of full system solutions rather than just individual products. By integrating auxiliary options like Tapware, Flushing Systems and Accessories into their BIM content for products like basins, drinking fountains, sinks, urinals, toilet pans and wash troughs, they could encourage specifiers to select complete Britex packages rather than mixing and matching from multiple suppliers.
- Streamlining Internal Processes & Project Accuracy
Britex wanted to ensure that project specifications created with their BIM content were accurate and aligned with their real-world product offering, making it easier for their sales, estimating, and project delivery teams to quote and fulfil orders efficiently.
- Expanding into New Geographic Markets
Britex sought to grow their presence both across Australia and internationally by leveraging BIM as a cost-effective way to expand market reach. Rather than investing heavily in new ‘bricks and mortar’ offices or sales teams, Britex saw BIM-enablement as a way to reach and engage with specifiers in new regions digitally, allowing them to cost-effectively gain traction in new markets before making more significant capital investments.
Britex:
“We understood early on that BIM was becoming essential for architects and designers, but creating high-quality BIM content that supported their workflows was more complex than we initially expected. While we had explored different approaches, we realised that to fully capitalise on the opportunity, we needed a BIM strategy that was developed with a high level of expertise and reflected our commitment to quality in everything we do.”
Solution
- Development of an Advanced Revit Library
Britex’s investment in BIM has resulted in one of the most extensive and advanced Revit libraries in the world commercial stainless steel and plumbing fixtures. Where applicable, the library is structured to support model customisation and associated products, ensuring specifiers can configure solutions to suit specific project needs whilst maintaining accuracy and efficiency in documentation and procurement.
Key features of Britex’s BIM library include:
- Highly Configurable Revit Families – Specifiers can easily adjust dimensions, configurations, installation types and accessory options that align with real-world constraints, ensuring Britex products seamlessly integrate into project models.
- Embedded Product Data – Each Revit family contains detailed metadata, including product names, codes, material data, compliance certifications, and MEP connections ensuring placement of Britex Revit families in project models result in accurate specification, model coordination and procurement.
- Best-Practice Modelling Techniques – Optimised, native Revit 3D modelling ensures lightweight, high-performance Revit families that function efficiently in large commercial projects.
- Level of Detail (LOD) Settings – Families include adjustable Levels of Detail (LOD) to balance lightweight model performance with high-quality visualisation where required.
- MEP-Ready Families – Families include built-in, defined plumbing and electrical connection points where applicable, ensuring efficient and accurate MEP systems creation and coordination for engineers and contractors.
- A Revit ‘Virtual Showroom’ File – A dedicated Revit project file (.RVT) allows designers to easily download and browse Britex’s complete library of Revit families in a single ‘container file’, test product configurations, and perform quality assurance assessments before inserting families into their design projects, or integrating Britex’s Revit families into their firm-based Revit library.
Britex Marketing:
“We knew that for our BIM strategy to succeed, it had to be more than just a basic Revit content library. By making our BIM content highly functional, intuitive, and valuable to specifiers, we’ve seen a significant increase in engagement and specifications, helping drive business growth.”
- BIMcontent.com Partnership
To maximise the reach and usability of their BIM content, Britex integrated their library with the BIMcontent.com platform, ensuring:
- Syndicated Content Hosting & Downloading – Specifiers can easily find, download, and integrate Britex BIM content into their projects via the Britex website, the BIMcontent.com website, and the BIMcontent.com Revit Plug-in. This ensures the library reaches a wider audience and that designers always have immediate access the most up-to-date content, wherever they access it from.
- Marketing Support – marketing activities promoting the Britex BIM library have allowed Britex to reach an expanded audience of specifiers through marketing content creation and communications activities.
- Live Analytics & Engagement Insights – Britex’s sales and marketing teams can track BIM content downloads and usage trends via a live dashboard allowing them to refine strategy and future investment decisions.
- BIM Library Updates – The content remains up to date with new Revit versions and any changes to the products covered in the library. Update notifications are also sent to users who have previously downloaded Britex BIM content, ensuring their clients always have access to the latest Britex BIM assets.
- Proactive Sales & Marketing Engagement to Promote BIM Solutions
Britex’s sales and marketing teams played a crucial role in maximising the impact of their BIM strategy. Britex took a proactive approach to promoting their BIM solutions directly to specifiers through targeted outreach, digital engagement, and industry events.
IGS supported Britex by providing various digital assets, including:
- BIM Library Overview Presentations – Showcasing the quality, breadth, and usability of Britex’s BIM content.
- Custom Marketing Collateral – Highlighting key benefits of Britex’s BIM solutions for specifiers.
Britex distributed these materials both digitally and through in-person presentations, ensuring specifiers could easily access the information they needed to understand the value of Britex’s BIM offering and incorporate it into their workflows.
To further strengthen their position as a leader in BIM-enabled specification workflows, Britex actively participated in A&D and BIM industry events where they showcased their BIM solutions. In some cases, IGS co-presented with Britex, providing additional technical insights and reinforcing Britex’s commitment to delivering industry benchmark BIM solutions.
Britex Marketing:
“The success of our BIM strategy hasn’t come from just one element—it’s been the combination of having high-quality BIM content, strategic content distribution, and proactive sales and marketing engagement initiatives. Each of these elements has played a crucial role in making our BIM strategy a real driver of business growth over an extended period.”
Outcomes
- Increased Specification & Growth in Market Share
Britex has secured more project specifications in key markets, particularly in regions where they previously gained limited traction. By offering high-quality, easy-to-use BIM content, Britex provided specifiers with a reason to switch from competitors, leading to stronger and faster market penetration and overall business growth.
- Improved Collaboration with Specifiers
With accurate, well-structured BIM content, Britex has strengthened relationships with architects and designers, making it easier for them to select, document, and specify Britex products with confidence and accuracy.
- More Efficient Sales & Project Delivery
With accurate specifications, Britex’s sales and estimating teams receive project quotation requests with more detailed and complete product information, reducing errors, RFIs, and manual adjustments, leading to faster project quotation and manufacturing turnaround times.
- Positive Specifier Feedback
Britex has received consistent praise for the quality and usability of their BIM content, with specifiers highlighting how it saves time, simplifies workflows, enhances project coordination, and is widely seen as an industry benchmark for how manufacturer-based Revit content libraries should be developed.
- Expansion into New Geographic Markets
Britex’s BIM-enabled digital strategy has allowed them to expand into new regions without significant capital investment, ensuring specifiers in previously untapped markets can access and specify Britex products easily and intuitively.
- Increased Adoption of Complete Britex Project Solutions
Britex’s BIM strategy has helped to significantly increase the specification of complete system solutions over individual products. By integrating configurable options for auxiliary solutions like tapware, flushing systems and washroom accessories, their BIM content makes it easy for specifiers to select fully coordinated packages rather than mixing components from multiple suppliers. This has helped drive revenue growth, improved design consistency, streamlined procurement processes for their customers, and strengthened Britex’s position as the go-to supplier in the product categories they provide solutions for.
- Improved Project Design Accuracy
Many of Britex’s products – such as hand wash troughs, drinking troughs, surgeon’s scrub troughs, urinals, and laboratory sinks – are often custom manufactured to suit specific project needs. Prior to offering a BIM content library, specifiers often documented these custom products incorrectly or outside the bounds of standard manufacturing capabilities, leading to inefficiencies, costly adjustments, and delays in project delivery.
Britex’s BIM content that includes various customisation constraints now enables specifiers to configure products within set parameters, ensuring all design selections remain within the Britex product offering. This balance between flexibility and control allows designers to configure solutions that suit their projects while preventing errors, unnecessary cost implications or unfeasible specifications.
Britex Marketing:
“The response from the market has been overwhelmingly positive. Specifiers appreciate the time and effort we’ve invested in getting this right, and we’re seeing the benefits in both the frequency and total value of project specifications we’re winning in new and existing markets.”
What Did The Client Think?
Britex Marketing
“Our BIM strategy hasn’t just provided benefits to our customers —it’s also been a game-changer for our own internal efficiencies. The improved accuracy of specifications has streamlined everything from quoting and manufacturing products to project delivery, allowing us to provide faster, more efficient service and better value to our customers.”
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