A monthly newsletter about document management, digital print technology and printing.

Real-World Integrated Project Delivery: AIA Releases Case Studies

January 2010

IPD Studies AIA

The holy grail of killer workflows in the building community has shifted considerably over time. Once thought to be CADD, later it was 3D visualizing, which sort of morphed into building information modeling (BIM), and right alongside it, came integrated project delivery.

Even the people who are the greatest advocates of these panaceas sometimes disagree on what’s what, but often that’s because these systems are somewhat speculative. In other words, it’s hard to find someone who has actually used the thing in question.

As if in answer to that conundrum, a new publication from AIA California Council and AIA Integrated Practice Discussion Group takes a look at real-world, completed building projects that used Integrated Project Delivery (IPD).

According to the AIA website, “The projects studied show the successful application of IPD in a variety of building types and scales and in diverse regions of the country.” They also claim that this is the first installment of an ongoing evaluation of the procedure and it will be supplemented in the future.

Curious? We were, too. You can download the publication from the AIA here.

Comment on this Article »

White Paper: 10 Strategies for Managing Your Firm in Uncertain Economic Conditions

December 2009

White Paper

Over the past 18 months, our sister division, RCMS Group, has conducted strategic planning discussions with many of its clients, partners and analysts with the goal of attaining visibility into both specific markets and business concerns.

Given how closely their BIM services dovetail with productivity, efficiency and workflow in their customers’ businesses, RCMS executives have a unique point of view into architectural firms and how they run their businesses.

Through their ongoing study, they uncovered key commonalities and gleaned insights into how successful architectural firms plan on managing the near future and published their findings in a whitepaper available from their website. (Download the white paper here.)

The key strategies described are all driven by the measurement of costs and flexibility applicable to your own business model. These strategies require little investment of capital, but rather an investment of management’s time and consideration. Firms that are employing these strategies have built businesses that can either take advantage of hyper-growth, or significantly reduce their risks during a stalled economy.

RCMS gathers data from  its clients across a wide spectrum of architectural segments, including large government agencies, commercial developers of all kinds, institutional owners and project managers, as well as a healthy portfolio of industry specific architects in healthcare, education, retail, and residential.

The whitepaper (link) boils their findings down to 10 key strategies to help architectural firms not only weather recent economic storms, but position themselves for growth and opportunity when the market recovers.

The 10 Strategies are as follows:

1.    Focusing on core business competency
2.    Understanding the success-drivers to a firm’s cost and operating model
3.    Aligning vendors with costs and service delivery
4.    Shifting capital intensive IT deployments to “on-demand” services
5.    Understanding prospects by project backlog and building type
6.    Partnering for scale and specialty
7.    Attempting to better-understand unresponsive clients
8.    Benchmarking and tracking core productivity metrics
9.    Crafting compensation plans to drive firm goals
10.    Ranking, stacking and cross-training employees

(Download the white paper here.)

RCMS provides three- dimensional modeling and analysis of construction projects on an outsourced basis to AEC clients throughout the industry. Deeply embedded in the practical evolution of BIM, and relied on for expert opinion, RCMS provides a valuable point of view on managing projects and business practices to reduce risk for design and construction firms, and create more efficient and more competitive organizations.

Looking for more in-depth information on how partnering with technology service providers can improve your business? Contact us to learn more!

Comment on this Article »

Our London Division Reaches Into Europe And Beyond

December 2009

London-US Poster

London has suffered under the ongoing recession along with the rest of the world but it remains a global hub of finance and business for business and projects of all kinds.

Reprographics Warehouse, the ARC division located in the heart of London’s business district, is playing its part, relaying jobs from around the world to far-flung destinations in Europe, Canada, the U.S., China, and many places in between.

Fast, international turnaround often comes by way of a mistake – the file was produced incorrectly by another vendor, a typo was found, as package was lost or the file was corrupt. In cases like these, our team in London locates and fixes the problem on the spot and sends the project on its way.

In other cases, it’s all about speed. In concert with other ARC companies around the world, Reprographics Warehouse has sent files of fine art from London artists to New York galleries, project plans from Las Vegas to Dubai, and promotional flyers from Belgium to Beijing, all in a matter of hours, with no stops at international distribution centers, or delays in customs.

The key to all these globe-trotting documents is ishipdocs™, our “digital shipping” Web application that allows our customers to send documents to hundreds of print partners around the world.

Rather than printing, packaging and shipping via an overnight or international shipping company, we can send your documents close to their final destination before the documents are actually printed, and then deliver locally. The savings in time are dramatic, and we can often cut your shipping costs by half.

If you’re next job needs to get to London – or cross-country, or anywhere else in the world – drop us a line or give us a call about ishipdocs. We’ll show you how we can save you time, money and headaches by shipping digitally, and printing locally.

Shipping work digitally is becoming easier every day, whether it’s around the corner or around the world. Contact us to learn more about how to improve your project distribution practices.

Comment on this Article »

October/November 2009

November 2009

The past 30 days have seen the introduction or update of three of our technology products, the addition of a new sister company in Shanghai, China, and the acquisition of a BIM technology services company by our corporate parent, ARC.

To get more details, click on the links below:

Finally, we’re not the only ones moving and shaking these days. For those of you keeping track of the digital printing market, Canon announced their intention to purchase Océ in the near future, and Océ appears to be embracing the offer. We’ll let you know more about the deal as we learn about it ourselves.

Comment on this Article »

A Closer Look at PlanWell DataBridge

November 2009

PW DataBridge

If you use Prolog® or PlanWell Enterprise® to manage your projects, you’re definitely going to be interested in what follows.

Introduced last month, PlanWell DataBridge automates the exchange of construction information between PlanWell Enterprise planrooms and Prolog® from Meridian Systems. PlanWell DataBridge eliminates redundant data entry, automates project updates, and boosts efficiency and communication within construction project teams.

Kumar Wiratunga is our corporate director of technology and, along with our technology team in Silicon Valley, has been working closely with Meridian to make the two applications speak the same language.

He said, “The great thing about synchronizing project data between document management and project management systems is that it eliminates the manual, redundant and error-prone processes that most of our customers use when they manage project management and document management separately. But when a project manager can enter information in one application, and the information is updated in both systems within minutes, they can realize significant increases in productivity.”

PlanWell DataBridge allows Prolog users to:
•    Share common data between applications
•    Synchronize project information, bid packages and contacts
•    Maintain current document sets and contacts
•    Easily start up projects by leveraging indexed data in PlanWell Enterprise.

We’ve heard estimates from some of our customer that they are saving hours, and sometimes days of time in data entry for a given project or project module. These are managers using the new synchronization application on their projects, all without any investment in additional hardware or dedicated infrastructure to run. Data synchronization occurs entirely over an internet connection and is updated dynamically within minutes of data entry.

Like Director of Business Applications at Adolfson & Peterson Construction told us, “In today’s economy, we are required to do more with less. Planwell DataBridge eliminates the manual entry of data into Prolog, allowing our construction teams to be more productive.”

Using Prolog? Using PlanWell? You owe it to yourself to talk to us about how much you can increase your accuracy, reduce redundant effort, and boost productivity with DataBridge. Ask your local representative or contact us today.

Comment on this Article »