AEC Tech News #199

Change Management in DWF

Autodesk Design Review fosters paperless collaboration sessions.

Over the years, assistant CAD manager Mark Douglas has become one of the gatekeepers of engineering redlines at MKM & Associates.

MKM, a structural engineering firm, keeps electronic DWF stick sets, or the digital equivalent of printed project racks, just a few mouse-clicks away from the staff. By hyperlinking the annotation callouts on the sheets to the actual detail views on other DWF sheets, MKM has found it easy to address the questions of those in the field right from the comfort of an office workstation.

“We want to limit the amount of paper prints we generate,” said Douglas, "so we send our staff engineers DWF files for them to review and comment. Sometimes, when a field technician or contractor calls, the engineer receiving the call will immediately open up the relevant DWF file and log the conversation with notes.”

Usually, during the review cycles, various annotations from the staff engineers, field technicians and architects funnel through Douglas and several others. Douglas has the unenviable task of consolidating all the markups. To make sure nothing is inadvertently omitted, he relies on his diligence. But that’s clearly not enough. The human eye can discern only so much; it can only detect a finite number of circles and lines at a time. He’s now getting some help from the free software utility Autodesk Design Review. Read more>>

AEC in Focus — BIM and the Building Information Model

By H. Edward Goldberg, AIA

Recently, I was interviewed by an analyst researching the building information model concept for the AEC/FM (architecture/engineering/
construction/facility management) industry. This analyst asked experts what they thought BIM (building information modeling) meant. Here in the United States, groups such as the National BIM Standard and the AGC (Associated General Contractors of America) have their own definitions, as does Autodesk, Bentley and Nemetschek. I have my own definition, which I believe is a compendium of some of their definitions as well as my own take on the subject. Read more>>

AEC Technology Strategies 2007 Conference
June 7-8, 2007
Las Vegas, Nevada
ZweigWhite's AEC Technology Strategies 2007 Conference is the eighth annual information technology conference for business and IT leaders in architecture, engineering and construction. This event brings together all the AEC disciplines, gives equal time to the business and design issues driving technology, and involves both technology managers and business managers from AEC firms. Read more

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