CAD Tech News (#43)

▶ Implementation Tips for the United States National CAD Standard (NCS), Version 6

What is the NCS — and should your organization adopt it for building design?

By Greg Jordan

The United States National CAD Standard (NCS) is a standard that classifies electronic building design data consistently for use throughout the building design and construction industry. It's a product of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) buildingSMART alliance, with contributions from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI). Adoption of the standard is voluntary, but can yield multiple benefits, as NIBS asserts:

The United States National CAD Standard (NCS) streamlines and simplifies the exchange of building design and construction data from project development throughout the life of a facility. It coordinates the efforts of the entire industry by classifying electronic building design data consistently allowing streamlined communication among owners and design and construction project teams. Use of the NCS can reduce costs and produce greater efficiency in the design and construction process.

Implementation of the newest version of the NCS, which was released in September 2014, can benefit your company in multiple ways. Version 6 eliminates the development and maintenance of a unique office standard or multiple interoffice and multidiscipline standards, and minimizes the cost of downtime by reducing staff training. This nationally recognized standard also has the potential to reduce errors, improve consistency, facilitate quality assurance, and refine quality control processes in your organization. You may also gain additional marketing opportunities by promoting the benefit of your implementation of this national standard to prospective clients.

To identify the need for one concise standard, ask yourself these questions about your company's workflows: How much time is spent converting multiple CAD files to a single standard? How long does it take to prepare one discipline's file to be used as background for another discipline's design work? How much time and how many materials are wasted plotting with the wrong plot configuration? Once you've identified how much time is wasted, multiply that by the number of projects your company designs per year. Now ask yourself this question: Does your company need one concise standard? Read more »

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Greg Jordan is the secretary of the NCS Steering Committee.

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