Dec 13 2006
Kenneth Wong has provided another interesting review of the “The Contractors’ Guide to BIM: Edition 1,” a 48-page treatise from the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). Read How Many Contractors Does It Take to Scale a Wall? at Cadalyst here (see also: previous post).
tags: US, AEC, BIM, AGC
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/bim_some_backgr/
Dec 11 2006
I wrote 10 days ago on this topic, and Ralph Grabowski has also been watching developments. In his latest article on the topic, About DWFx, he talks about the limitations, and links to an article, Does Vista really open DWFs?, on another interesting blog, Owen Wengerd’s Outside the Box (Owen’s lates post concerns The secret world of file formats).
For a good summary of the DWFx situation from the perspective of an Autodesk blogger, read Kean Walmsley’s article DWFx and FreeWheel at Through the Interface.
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/microsoft_vista_1/
Dec 08 2006
Amid the stream of blog articles discussing Autodesk University 2006, there has been very little about construction collaboration technologies. I had hoped that this major US event, which attracted 7,500 people this year, might have been the platform for Autodesk to make some major announcement, perhaps regarding its Constructware product (following the acquisition earlier this year), but there was very little noise about either this product or Buzzsaw. Lachmi Khemlani noted this too, in the latest AECbytes newsletter:
“… not much was said about Autodesk’s in-house design collaboration solution, Buzzsaw, or Constructware, the contractor-focused collaboration solution which it acquired earlier this year. In contrast to the late 1990s and early 2000s when the buzz in the AEC industry was all about project collaboration solutions, also know as the AEC dot-coms, the focus is now on BIM to such an extent that project collaboration seems to be falling on the wayside. The challenge before solutions such as Buzzsaw and Constructware—which were really designed on the basis of drawing-based design and construction processes—is how to integrate with BIM solutions and processes as they go forward. Even with the use of BIM, projects still have to managed and AEC professionals still have to come together to collaborate on design and construction, so we are definitely going to need BIM-based management and collaboration solutions. It will be interesting to see how Buzzsaw and Constructware—or perhaps an integrated version of the two in the future—shape up to the task.”
Indeed, Constructware hardly seems to have been mentioned at all since the acquisition was completed and Constructware was re-branded an Autodesk product. At the time, I (and other commentators) had assumed that Autodesk would look to offer both its collaboration products to slightly different markets (ie: Buzzsaw playing to its strengths among designers and small house-builders, and the more process-rich Constructware being delivered to contractors and project managers), but perhaps I was wrong. Maybe the intention is to take some of the powerful functionality in Constructware and add it to Buzzsaw – as Lachmi suggests in her final sentence? A brief remark when Autodesk made its financial statements last month (see my 24 November post) seemed to suggest this was the case, with Carl Bass talking about the “additional capabilities brought into the Buzzsaw as a result of Autodesk’s acquisition of Constructware”.
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/autodesk_univer/
Dec 04 2006
At PodTech, there is a podcast of former BuildOnline CEO Mark Suster (see previous post) talking about Koral and his “past life” at BO. However, Robert Scoble, the interviewer, corrects himself to say BO “is still your present life as you’re on the board of directors,” to which Suster responds: “that’s true” (interpretation: Suster is now a non-executive director).
About three minutes in, there’s a frank admission that BO managed to raise $16.5m in 2000 “without even having a product” [laughter]. He then says BuildOnline:
“… has merged with a US player and is now a global operation, it’s operating in nine different countries, we have projects in 19 different countries, seven different languages, it’s become a global business. We have operations in India, China, US, central Europe, everything….”
However, this just leaves us with the question. Who? Which ‘US player’ did BO merge with? I’ve had a quick flick through the websites of some of the more obvious potential AEC candidates – Citadon, e-Builder, Bricsnet, etc – and a few of the generic collaboration vendors, but no one is owning up… yet.
(For those interested in seeing Koral in action, there is also a fascinating podcast demonstration by Tim Barker.)
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/buildonline_has/
Dec 04 2006
Following my earlier post about UK-based collaboration vendor BuildOnline CEO Mark Suster and his US-based Koral venture, I now wonder if I should perhaps refer to him "as the former BuildOnline CEO". In the 3 December post to his Koral blog he twice mentions being Koral’s full-time CEO:
We [Koral] will hopefully close on a $2-3 million financing round at some point in January and I can get back to the full time work of running my business. … The venture capital process is a necessary and informative experience that is not for the faint hearted. It helps one refine your business focus and share ideas with some of the brightest minds in the industry and be challenged by people who have seen every eventuality in the type of business you want to build. But … I sure will be glad to get back to being a full-time CEO.
BuildOnline’s international websites, however, still insist that Mark Suster is CEO. The Koral blog shows this to be fiction, unless being BO CEO is a very part-time or non-executive post. And if he’s not running the BO show, then who is? Surely their customers and the rest of the UK market deserve to know!
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/following_my_ea/
Dec 04 2006
On the excellent EatYourCad blog (see December 2005 post) Nigel Davies has had an irreverant look back at 2006 and made some awards for ‘“things that should not be”, things that have drawn a wry smile or things that have been plain crazy’.
And ‘The Cart Driving The Donkey Award’ goes to … Avanti. Nigel writes:
Anyone remember Avanti? Anyone heard of it in the first place? Avanti was the Department of Trade and Industry-backed “last ditch” attempt to address waste in the construction industry. Literally hundreds of thousands of sponsor companies’ pounds and something like three-quarters of a million of tax-payers’ hard-earned cash was ploughed into meeting after meeting, lunch after lunch, pilot study after pilot study ad infinitum to demonstrate “better ways of collaborating”. If anyone out there has actually seen this demonstrated (outside of the original handful of teams involved) we’d love to hear from you. You can sum the initiative up by its best example of “Babbage-ism”: the extranet-led naming convention.
There is a problem raised time and time again when working with extranets: how time-consuming it is re-formatting, renaming and uploading data, and how every system is different. Well, in common-sense circles, you’d think it would fall into the hands of the extranet providers to look at how designers work and redesign their software to suit. Oh no, not so. What we had instead was an extranet service provider-led committee put together to produce a standard naming convention which all designers would then need to follow. That doesn’t sound too bad does it? It does when you then consider that the idea was to produce a single document naming convention for all digital file types, including spreadsheets, correspondence, schedules and drawings, not forgetting 2D and 3D CAD models, visualisations and so on. What you ended up with was a lot of effort to produce a lot of characters – something like 32 for a typical file name. Of course you can see the architect sitting down to start the scheme stage, reaching for his glossy copy of the document naming standard and filling out each character just so that in two years’ time, after stoppages and restarts, the extranet system will be able to accept his file. Get real!
We’re sorry Mr Egan and Mr Latham, perhaps we are fighting a losing battle after all.
I know Nigel was being a bit light-hearted but I am not sure he should blame the extranet service providers for whatever standard naming convention emerged from Avanti.
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/eatyourcad_babb_1/
Dec 01 2006
A new name to me since I started watching developments in the US market (in addition to that in the UK) is ConVisia.
Founded in July 2005, this business initially said it was specialising in “instant wireless collaboration of complex documents … hosted wireless solutions [for whom] the initial audience … is the architecture, engineering and construction industry,” while its technology was described as “100% portable and scalable to all devices over wireless, from handhelds, PDA’s, laptops and graph pads, as well as workstations in the office.”
However, by the time it launched its ConVisia Design Collaborator hosted software product in August 2006, the word “wireless” appeared to have been dropped, making only a fleeting reappearance in an October release about the product’s update – and then it only suggests users can access the system via wi-fi (hardly ground-breaking these days).
The early releases had raised my hopes about a company delivering an application that was highly mobile and accessible across multiple devices and operating systems, but Convisia now appears to be just another on-demand, web-based AEC project extranet system (and one with less track record than some of the longer established US systems such as Autodesk Buzzsaw and Constructware, e-Builder, ProjectTalk, etc).
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/convisia/
Dec 01 2006
In May and October, I noted developments relating to Bentley’s entry-level collaboration system, ProjectWise StartPoint. The latest release from Bentley (see AECcafe.com), says that StartPoint will now connect to and extend new capabilities in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/bentley_project/
Dec 01 2006
Autodesk has announced a collaboration with Microsoft to integrate DWF technology with the Windows Vista operating system (released to business customers today – see BBC news story). Vista users will be able to view and manage DWFs without additional downloads of plug-ins or special viewing software.
Viewers are a feature of all construction collaboration technologies, or ‘project extranets’ at present, with third-party viewers such as Cimmetry’s AutoVue and Informative Graphics’ Brava!, or integrated viewers such as BIW’s own, widely used – at least in the UK AEC market – in addition to those produced by the CAD vendors.
DWF files published to Microsoft’s XPS specification can now apparently be automatically opened and viewed using the XPS viewer built into Windows Vista. XPS is an open, platform-neutral format for digital paginated documents, much like Adobe’s PDF format (Microsoft will also release a stand-alone viewer for use in Windows 2000 through Vista, and for Mac, Linux and Unix platforms). XPS supports only 2D DWF files in the initial release of Vista, according to Autodesk. (For more information from an Autodesk insider, see Scott Sheppard’s Beyond the Paper blog).
“Together with Autodesk, we are bringing the powerful capabilities of Windows Vista and XPS to the CAD software space, expanding our customers’ horizons when it comes to sharing and collaborating on design information,” said Microsoft’s Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president, Developer and Platform Evangelism Group.
According to Gisela D. Wilson, director of IDC’s Product, Project and Portfolio Management Solutions service: “This is a significant development for the manufacturing, engineering and construction industries’ supply chains. No doubt, DWF is emerging as an important standard for new product development and introduction workflows. With today’s announcement, the DWF platform will become more accessible for secure team collaboration among globally dispersed manufacturers, suppliers and customers.”
“Working with Microsoft, we’re liberating our customers from paper-based sharing and proprietary software that might otherwise limit use and cause costly project or product delays due to lack of clarity or insight,” said Amar Hanspal, vice president, Autodesk Collaboration Solutions. “In effect, Windows Vista and XPS’s integration in DWF technology democratizes access to CAD data, by making it possible for engineers and designers to share the right information with the right people at the right time.”
In addition to automatic DWF file viewing, the Windows Vista desktop search function will make it easier and faster for customers to find relevant design files with Live Icons and Preview Pane features. For example, a product designer can search for files based on specifications, designs, or any piece of related data such as an address or supplier’s name. Regardless of where the information is stored, Windows Vista returns Live Icons — thumbnail images of files retrieved — that let the designer see files’ general content at a glance and choose the right one, without scrolling through a conventional text directory and checking large files that can take as much as several minutes to open. The designer might choose to search for meta-data tags instead, and use the search function’s preview pane to confirm which file is the one sought.
At AECnews.com, Randall Newton opines:
“Autodesk has scored a coup by becoming the native design file technology in Windows Vista. This puts 2D DWF on a part with JPG or TIFF or the other graphics file formats supported by Windows. … This development gives DWF a big boost in its rivalry with Adobe PDF. With no need for a downloaded viewer or driver, it becomes much simpler to share drawings and models saved to the DWF format. But it doesn’t need to stop with designs. DWF can store text documents as well as graphics. Microsoft now has a digital publishing technology inside Windows that can—to some degree—replace Adobe PDF.”
At WorldCADAccess.com, Ralph Grabowski says:
“A coup for Autodesk? No, a PR blunder. Because until now, the company could always boast about the number of downloads (10, 12, whatever million) of its DWF viewer. Now it won’t be able to, anymore. Sure, they’ll boast that DWF is now pervasive because it’s in the OS, and so “everyone” has access to it . But we all know the truth: few will run Vista, and even fewer will use DWF because it’s in Vista.”
To some extent, Ralph’s final comment reflects my own initial reaction. Thinking back to the last major launch of a Microsoft OS, there was a time lag before many users switched to the latest Windows platform so that any major bugs could be identified and fixed first (and AEC firms are perhaps even more likely to adopt such a conservative approach to upgrading their systems). It may, therefore, be a few years before Vista is the default operating system (admission: one of my home PCs is still Windows 98!).
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/12/microsoft_vista/
Nov 27 2006
After last week’s Construction Computing Show (see previous post), I have finally got round to reading the show edition of Construction Computing magazine (November/December 2006), which incorporates CAD User. In the latter, there is an article (not yet on the CAD User website) from Mervyn Richards, which I think gives a good, if ultimately somewhat depressing, overview of the business process challenges we face in introducing the building information model (BIM) into mainstream activity within the architectural, engineering and construction market. He writes:
“The change in business process will need to cover most of the current activities in the delivery of the project namely:
- Collaborative Contracts
- Greater definition of the roles and responsibilities of the supply chain
- Changes to the professional designers appointments
- New processes for Construction Management
- New processes for Contractors Design Management
- New processes for the Contractors modelling needs
- Full involvement of the manufacturers and fabricators at an early stage
- Education and training for the construction team in process and enabling technologies”
As if this wasn’t daunting enough, he continues:
“Change will also impact upon the traditional social and cultural habits of the staff and project teams and their resistance to change. … Taking BIM to its ultimate conclusion, the industy will have to change its dependence on the use of CAD, 3D or otherwise, in the delivery of a project.”
Mervyn and I had a brief chat at the show last week – he was particularly interested in a section of my presentation which covered some of the social and cultural issues (also described in chapter 8 of my book), but I talk about them in relation to general collaborative working within the AEC industry – nothing perhaps so profound in its implications as BIM.
While on the subject of BIM, I notice that Asite’s latest news concerns its collaborative BIM product, which it discussed in the US at the start of November (see BIM – Asite targets US). If you read this latest ‘press release’ (full of un-journalistic marketing ‘puff’ and hype), you might think the Asite solution is the answer to the industry’s problems, but, as Mervyn Richards has described, it will take much, much more than a technology offering to bring about wider adoption of BIM approaches. The AEC industry also has to tackle the much more fundamental people and process issues, and on past form these issues may take some years to overcome (see also BIM – some background reading).
Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2006/11/bim_bims_or_sbi/
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