Mar 26 2009

2D to 3D: still a work in progress

Estimates regarding the adoption of building information modelling (BIM) vary depending on who you talk to, where they are based, and what kind of role they have. About 18 months ago, for instance, an American survey estimated that about 35% of building owners had tried BIM on one or more projects (see my post), while estimates of UK BIM adoption at an Ecobuild seminar I attended earlier this month were put much lower – mostly well below 10% – by UK industry practitioners, including individuals from some of the UK’s most innovative practices.

Usefully, Cadalyst‘s Robert Green undertook a survey of 600+ CAD managers last year that included a question about firms making the transition from 2D to 3D design. He reports (CAD Manager’s Journey into 3D, Part 1) that the market is still very 2D-centric:

Totally 2D — 19%
Mainly 2D but evaluating 3D — 51%
Hybrid 2D/3D — 24%
Totally 3D — 6%

In other words, 70% of the survey respondents worked in companies that were almost solely producing 2D output, and only about one in twenty were totally 3D (I suspect the figures in the UK would be similar, or possibly even gloomier from the point of view of 3D adoption).

The rest of Robert’s article gives a good analysis of the reasons that 3D adoption is not racing ahead: he mentions: learning curves, training costs, hardware costs, time pressures, legacy issues and user reluctance.

Update (27 April 2009): Part 3 of Robert’s analysis of the survey is, perhaps, even more gloomy, suggesting that 84% of the AEC/construction industry is 2D:

“Very few companies have brought 3D into their workflows, and almost none have made the full transition to 3D. Why so low? Most likely it is because most of the industry still uses a lot of paper and uses 2D DWG files as the primary project documents. It seems that even if you want to be fully 3D in the AEC industry, it is almost impossible to do so because of market factors.”

He continues: “Contract requirements for 2D DWG files mean a lot of AEC companies continue to work in 2D tools even if they might like to move to 3D.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/2d-to-3d-still-a-work-in-progress/

Mar 24 2009

StoreData up for sale?

This morning, UK-based specialist contractor Styles & Wood announced that it “is currently exploring a number of options to strengthen its balance sheet including a potential equity fund raising and a potential sale to private equity.”

Styles & Wood includes a construction collaboration technology business, StoreData – since last year part of the group’s StorePlanning division. Given that merger & acquisition activity can precede an eventual break-up of the target firm, I wonder if the announcement of a possible sale of Styles & Wood might be the first step in a process leading to disposal of StoreData.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/storedata-up-for-sale/

Mar 23 2009

VisualTao: CAD on demand

For the third time this month (following SolidWorks and CADaaS, 2 March, and BIMserver.org: right technology, right time?, 3 March), I return to one of my favourite topics: delivering computer-aided design (CAD) solutions on a Software-as-a-Service model.

I received an email from someone at an Israeli business development group, Trendlines. My correspondent had read my December 2008 post about AfterCAD and urged me to look at VisualTao, helpfully giving some links to a demo of the product (geospatial dataset, engineering details, floor plan), and explaining:

“Unlike AfterCAD which allows you to view an image of the CAD file, VisualTao allows multiple users to collaborate and edit a dwg file in real time using a web browser. As a SaaS, VisualTao doesn’t require any downloading of files to the computer, thereby allowing for the real-time streaming and creating a secure environment.”

Looking at the website and the online tutorial, the solution appears to allow users to collaborate upon, edit and then save AutoCAD files (there was no sign, however, that this was a solution for authoring CAD drawings from scratch).

Largely focused on AutoCAD (no mention of Bentley or other CAD vendors), VisualTao is certainly plugging its SaaS credentials, being hosted on Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Computing platform, claiming 99.95% availability and a total cost of ownership that is a quarter of on-premise solutions (a figure I quoted in February last year). Some of the functionality (email upload, 3D design support) is still in development, and the site is skimpy on details about the company or any deployments of its solution, but I am hoping to get more details shortly. I believe, however, the company was previously known as PlanPlatform, a start-up which closed a $500k funding round in January 2008 (there is also an unrelated PlanPlatform spyware application – maybe this prompted the name change?).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/visualtao-cad-on-demand/

Mar 17 2009

Cloud not benefitting from recession

A Computer Business Review news article, Recession not driving cloud adoption, reports a survey from IT consultancy Avanade (release PDF), showing that, contrary to many people’s expectations, the current economic crisis is not driving the adoption of cloud computing. Instead, most of the 502 company executives surveyed (in 17 countries) are waiting for the cloud model to be proven in the enterprise before diving in, as they believe the risks are too great during the recession. (I am not sure how conclusive the findings can be for the UK given the size of the sample.)

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/cloud-not-benefitting-from-recession/

Mar 13 2009

Red Nose Day goes Cloudy

Launched in 1985, Red Nose Day is an annual charity fund-raising programme supported by a huge range of UK organisations, schools and offices. It has even worked its magic across Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, numerous blogs and other social media – where numerous avatars, including mine, now feature temporary red noses (courtesy of DigitalRedNose.com). Among other initiatives, Twitter has even been used to help develop, produce and disseminate a RND fund-raising book, published by online company Lulu.com, called TwitterTitters.

Why talk about RND here? Well, Red Nose Day is powered by cloud computing – reports Computer Business Review. This once-a-year extravaganza reaches out to hundreds of thousands of people – the vast majority engaging on just one day (in 2007, over 450,000 people donated money online in just one evening). It’s a great example of how cloud computing can meet a short-lived requirement by Comic Relief for massive processing power without needing hardware that sits dormant for the rest of the year.

Update (13 March 2009): BIW’s hosting partner, Attenda, has also got into the Comic Relief spirit with its own YouTube take on Bohemian Rhapsody.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/red-nose-day-goes-cloudy/

Mar 11 2009

Return to the email argument

More than three years ago, I first wrote (The email argument) about the challenge of managing project-related email. Or, rather, I pointed out that some ‘extranet’ systems, such as [my employer] BIW’s, discourage use of email so that project communications are managed within a self-contained and easily auditable secure repository (see also The email argument (2) and The email argument revisited).

However, some solutions seem intent on retaining email as a core communication channel. The latest to advocate this approach is Cadac’s MS SharePoint-based Organice (see More SharePoint for AEC) which has just released a case study on managing email (see AECcafe.com).

Needless to say, but from a BIW perspective (also shared by several clients I have spoken to who tell their project teams that email will not be recognised – that all project-related communications must pass through the web-based BIW system), it makes bizarre reading – for example:

“Managing e-mail adequately is crucial to properly control the exchange of information in projects. … E-mail is indispensable in exchanging information between internal and external project members.”

NO, IT ISN’T!

There are alternatives – as BIW has demonstrated for several years (however, if you absolutely do want to integrate email into your project collaboration solution, then BIW also has an Outlook Integration tool).

A SharePoint aside

While on the subject of SharePoint (not a favourite application of mine, I must admit), I did see a post earlier this evening that was scathing:

“We went from 5 silos in our organization to hundreds in a month after deploying SharePoint. … There is great information being shared and flowing into the system, but we don’t know it exists, nor can we easily share it, nor do much of anything with that information.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/return-to-the-email-argument/

Mar 11 2009

The power of collaboration in product development

A lot of my time is focused on how teams collaborate during design and construction of new buildings and other assets, and it is easy to forget that collaboration should extend throughout the supply chain, including the manufacturers of many of the components that are used in our projects.

On his PLM and Profitability blog at Manufacturing Business Technology, Jim Brown talks about the top five principles for successful product development revealed by a recent Aberdeen Group report. Best-in-Class manufacturers are apparently:

  • Over three times as likely as average companies to support cross-departmental collaboration
  • Over twice as likely to give third parties direct access to design data
  • About twice as likely to provide visualization of design data to non-engineering organizations
  • Almost twice as likely to store design data in a central location
  • Almost twice as likely to share engineering information with manufacturing digitally (no printed drawings)

From the perspective of someone focused on collaboration technology provision, the fourth point – about sharing design data centrally – demonstrates how ICT solutions can enable superior performance. And the fifth strongly suggests where the construction industry needs to go – towards adoption of integrated building information modelling (BIM), embracing complete supply chains.

BIM was a topic central to discussions yesterday at an ICT and automation workshop I attended at BERR in London yesterday (a follow-up to the scoping study that I helped produce in 2007 – see post). Held in BERR’s impressive Futurefocus complex, a dozen people, including two representatives of technology providers, worked hard to identify future research needs.

A recurring theme throughout both the initial study and yesterday’s workshop was the need to link technological developments with appropriate changes in people and processes. New hardware and software, faster telecoms links and more software standards alone will not resolve industry problems. In many cases, organisations throughout the supply chain – while potentially convinced of the value of collaboration – still have concerns about risk, liability, intellectual property, and training/education that make them cautious. There is also a fundamental need to demonstrate and communicate the business case for BIM, particularly to UK clients and construction supply chain businesses that have, so far, ignored or overlooked the evidence emerging in the USA and Scandinavia.

Just as reports like the Aberdeen Group’s can identify the advantages of collaboration, we need clear and unequivocal statements on the benefits of BIM that will help persuade clients and supply chains that they need to start investing money, time and people in this more collaborative technology – and in making the equally necessary changes to procurement routes, contracts, insurance, IP, management, education, etc.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/the-power-of-collaboration-in-product-development/

Mar 06 2009

A new blog, a new direction

Sharp-eyed visitors to this blog may have noticed a new RSS feed in the side-bar – from pwcom. This is my new blog focused on PR, marketing and Web 2.0, with a strong bias towards how these are used in the architecture, engineering, construction and property sectors. I have discussed Web 2.0 a lot in this construction collaboration-oriented blog over the past couple of years (I was writing about blogs and wikis back in 2005, and remain an enthusiast for these as well as tools like Twitter and Ning), and the frequency has increased in recent months – not least because of my involvement with Be2camp. So It was about time that I created a separate blog to discuss social media (and avoid alienating readers who are more concerned about construction-specific technology-related issues).

The new blog also reflects a new direction in my career. After nine fantastic years working for BIW Technologies I am re-establishing the specialist consultancy I ran during the late 1990s, but will hopefully be remaining on amicable terms with my many friends at BIW and elsewhere in the construction technology market.

ExtranetEvolution.com continues

However, even though I will now be a little more separate from BIW and from day-to-day developments in the Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration technology market, I will continue to monitor the sector and to blog here. As regular readers will probably recognise, I believe what we used to call ‘extranets’ or ‘document management systems’ have started to change. The leading systems are now becoming less document- or drawing-centric and beginning to focus on managing construction workflow-type processes (contract change management and project financial control being just two). The development of building information modelling (BIM) is also going to have a major impact on the industry as a whole and on the collaboration technology market in particular. Couple these changes with the deepest construction recession most of us can remember, and I believe we will also see a growing emphasis on richer communication – and I think this is where Web 2.0 thinking may yet still have its place.

So keep an eye on the pwcom feed. It will still be strongly influenced by my work in the construction industry, and there may be issues that are covered in both places. And if you are not involved or interested in PR, marketing and Web 2.0 issues yourself, please recommend the blog (and maybe me!) to any colleagues that are.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/a-new-blog-a-new-direction/

Mar 05 2009

Information modelling for greener buildings

Information modelling for greener buildings was the title of an excellent seminar at Ecobuild in London yesterday afternoon on building information modelling (BIM). Well chaired and introduced by Richard Saxon (ex-BDP), the session also featured presentations from:

  • James Warne (environmental engineering director, BDP) on BIM and sustainability
  • Nick Nisbet (AEC3) on BuildingSMART, IFCs and SMARTcodes
  • Rob Annable (director, Axis Design Architects) on the future of BIM and social media.
  • Adrian Dobson (director of practice, RIBA) on BIM and architects

Rob’s presentation was, for me, the highlight of the seminar. Rob described how Axis encouraged local residents to give feedback about a new neighbourhood scheme via blogging, phonecams, RSS and other user-generated content. Last week, with Slider Studio they launched YouCanPlan – a web-based interface that allowed individuals to give detailed feedback on design proposals, even to chat with the designers online. Rob showed a photo of a 14-year-old boy getting involved with BIM processes and said teenagers (a key target for the consultation, and one often ignored by conventional consultation processes) were quick to adopt the online tools, then helping their parents/carers to follow suit. Talking about social media, Rob described Pachube, Twitter and OpenStreetMap initiatives, including the use of GPS-enabled Moblogs to help populate local maps with user-generated data. (Update (09 March 2009): Rob also talked about combining Pachube and social media for climate change competitions – see pwcom blog.)

Adrian briefly mentioned the recently-launched RIBA knowledge communities (but missed the opportunity to show a weblink to it; Claire Sinclair blogged about this development on the Be2camp website in December. It’s http://www.riba-knowledgecommunities.com/).

I used the Q&A session at the end to ask if the recession posed a threat or an opportunity to the adoption of BIM, and the consensus was that it was very much an opportunity (in line with my own thoughts: some “may take the view that now is exactly the right time to invest so that they will be ready when the recovery comes“). Memorably, Richard likened the reaction of some architects to that of “a deer caught in the headlights of a fast approaching vehicle – all they can do is stand still, making a strange mewing noise, refusing to believe this is actually going to happen to them.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/information-modelling-for-greener-buildings/

Mar 03 2009

BIMserver.org: right technology, right time?

David Harrison’s latest StressFree blog posting talks about BIMserver and the potential of server-side BIM. It is a fascinating post, describing how the University of Eindhoven-based BIMserver.org project combines building information modelling (BIM) software and open source server technologies, rather than being reliant upon workstation-based CAD software. And this is no blue-sky project – it is, David says, “(almost) ready for production deployment within AEC organisations”.

Open source

However, deployment is unlikely – at least in the short-term. Currently, most AEC design organisations are dependent upon standalone workstations, and only enable collaboration on a model by locking-down or checking-out the relevant area so that a single user can work on it. And, to date, BIM centralisation in a client-server environment has just proven too complex.

However, the open source approach adopted by BIMserver offers a (potentially less expensive) alternative to the closed source licenses and high per-user licensing costs typical of current AEC BIM software. The code is written in everyday Java making it more accessible to businesses and casual programmers, with ample operating systems and server products to support it. Moreover, these technologies, as David points out, are:

“all vibrant, open source projects, allowing the BIMserver team to effectively ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’. This makes the tasks of development and support simpler because there exists an extensive knowledge base around the server’s fundamental components. Also from a business standpoint it is reassuring that if BIMserver or one of its dependent projects should cease to exist, the organisation can continue to operate and extend upon the existing open source code.”

But this is no guarantee of success unless one or more of the major BIM vendors decides to support the BIMserver approach. This would then allow users of that vendor’s BIM products to adopt the centralised model-sharing approach without having to significantly change the tools they currently use – assuming, of course, that they’ve even begun to make the transition to BIM!

Right technology, right time?

I met with Vedran Zerjav, a researcher from Croatia, last week and, among other things, we debated the impact of the recession on BIM technology investment in AEC design practices. Broadly, we felt there might be two mindsets – one pessimistic and short-termist, the other more optimistic and long-term in perspective – dictated by their experiences and resources during this construction downturn. Firms with dwindling workloads and who may be laying off staff may be reluctant to invest in new technology, while others, if cash reserves, etc, allow, may take the view that now is exactly the right time to invest so that they will be ready when the recovery comes (Vedran and I also discussed issues relating to people and processes, including intellectual property and contracts – BIM, as I’ve said before, is not simply about a technological change). And with the major software vendors facing shrinking revenues as AEC demand for the existing products dwindles, there may never be a better time to bag a BIM bargain (or to lobby a BIM vendor to back BIMserver and create a new differentiator)!

Like David, I think the open source BIMserver approach has the potential to revolutionise collaboration and BIM in the AEC industry, but it probably needs product support from at least one major BIM vendor (if BIMserver integration proved a powerful competitive edge, others would either need to do the same or develop competing BIM server products of their own). Industry professionals also need to be aware that there is an alternative to mainstream workstation-centric approaches that would enable improved collaboration among the fragmented, dispersed teams typical of AEC projects.

I hope the open source software community realises what an opportunity it has to overhaul software practice in a major sector of the economy.

I also think there is potential for existing Software-as-a-Service collaboration software developers to add their expertise. After all, they have extensive experience of managing server-based environments, with full redundancy and back-up capacity, etc, and of providing secure web-based access to users spread across multiple organisations. Their business models are also based on hosting software applications (and therefore shouldering the risks that would otherwise be borne by in-house IT departments) and spreading their substantial fixed infrastructure costs by charging subscriptions across multiple customers. With support from forward-looking investors, they may also be more prepared to take the risk of developing such a new product/service as they will not be cannibalising license revenues from selling conventional on-premise systems. (Yes, BIMaaS again).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2009/03/bimserverorg-right-technology-right-time/

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