The Changing Face of Information Technologies for the Design Profession
by William F. Blank, P.E.
The business of computer-aided applications for the AEC industry regularly sees trends come, and frequently sees the same trends go. I prefer to use the word "trends" to differentiate these new developments from fads, which Webster defines as "interest(s) followed by a time of exaggerated zeal." Some of the innovations we've seen over the years have made long-lasting contributions to our industry, though they are sometimes slow to gain widespread acceptance.
The promise of the 1980's was that computer-aided drafting (CAD) would revolutionize how architects and engineers design and produce drawings. In my former life, as a technical consultant for a CAD vendor, I tried to temper the salesmen's claims by contending that CAD could be "5 to 10 times as fast as manual drafting" - which could be demonstrated under carefully controlled conditions.
The macro that automatically generated ceiling grids and the function that positioned an entire wall of window symbols on a floor plan were really quite impressive. But how many times did you get to use these tools during the course of a design project? Like many that jumped on the CAD bandwagon in the early 1980s, Buchart-Horn would have been happy if we could have reduced drafting time by just 20 or 30 percent. Instead we sometimes treated CAD files like scrap paper, continually changing and refining our ideas as if we had unlimited time and budgets. With CAD it is so easy to erase, move, rotate, rescale, and even start over. In the pre-CAD era designers were considerably more cautious about making changes, especially once their basic concepts were inked on Mylar. Even so, CAD has had a profound impact on design and construction. Equipped as we are with extensive libraries of details and symbols, level standards, naming conventions, and menu systems for streamlining drawing creation;
Buchart-Horn continues to see improvements in design and drafting quality and efficiency.
In the 1990's CAD software developers were extolling the power of database links, and the ability to integrate specs and automatically generate bills of materials. We were told how we would be able to click in a door symbol, enter a classification code, select a hardware set and finish, and in just a few minutes save our spec writers and estimators untold hours of work. CAD users would create "intelligent drawings" with all the necessary embedded data to generate quantity takeoffs and relevant specifications. Of course, this process required a comprehensive library of standardized symbols, all predefined with every possible combination of size, shape, configuration, and other optional parameter that a designer might want to specify. There were a few CAD products that actually delivered this capability, most notably to those in the home building industry. An architect could draw a simple wall line and the software would locate studs, calculate the amount of sheet rock needed, and produce materials reports detailing the pounds of nails and gallons of paint required. Because of their inherent need to be creative, most engineers and architects won't allow themselves to be constrained by the limits these applications place upon their ideas. I know of few mainstream design disciplines that do.
It seems that design professionals once again failed to see the potential of automation.
If only we would design rectangular buildings, use no more than two types of windows, and make all of our material selections at the same time that we draw that first room layout! Instead, we continue to make steady progress by applying the best-of-breed applications, even if they don't always share data as we once hoped they would. Even though it may not be easy to link MicroStation or AutoCAD data with specifications from SPECTEXT®, estimating tools like Timberline, or Primavera project management capabilities, the advantages of each of these applications in a standalone environment are still considerable.
Now, in the 2000's, the new focus seems to be on improving communication among the various team members, and applying e-commerce principles to "project collaboration." At the 2000 AEC Systems conference in Washington, there was very little evidence of CAD and design-oriented software. Instead, even the leading CAD purveyors of the past were now reinventing themselves as extranet service providers. Now we are being encouraged to make all of our non-integrated project information instantly accessible to any organization involved in the project, from anywhere in the world.
And it no longer matters that the team members don't all use the same software to generate this information. The more advanced extranet applications include all the viewing and editing tools necessary to document and communicate our ideas. Thanks to the Internet and the decreasing cost of network bandwidth, perhaps we'll soon be storing all of our project records at an extranet host site, so we'll be able to work just as easily from our office, hotel room, or from home. It's all about "being connected" (electronically, if not politically).
Early Adopter or Cautious Follower?
At Buchart-Horn, essentially all our professional and technical staff make regular use of design, drafting, planning, accounting, and office automation applications. Every new employee, regardless of which branch office they call "home," is issued a network login, an email address, and access to the Internet. Our wide-area network (WAN) links every employee to the centralized financial database, email server, planning calendar, and standardized forms. Access to these tools is recognized as fundamental in today's work environment, regardless of the individual's job title or responsibility. In most cases time sheets are filled out using spreadsheets, meetings are set up with online calendars, sales performance reports are distributed by email, and project completion estimates ("percent completes") are updated via real-time access to the central project accounting system. Most product information is readily accessible on the web. CAD, design, and analysis tools have been in general use since the early days of desktop PCs, and vendor-supplied product selection and sizing applications are commonplace. Those Buchart-Horn employees who are regularly on the road - business development reps, managers with multi-office responsibilities, and some project managers - also need remote access to server-based email, centralized financial data, and web access.
But the firm is proceeding very carefully when it comes to the issue of home offices.
Not only do they present a number of technical challenges (network security, supporting disparate systems, limited data transfer rates), but they also raise a number of management concerns. We're not quite ready to promote "CAD-at-home" as an effective way to address what is generally taken to be a highly collaborative process.
The degree of efficiency derived from today's information technologies can vary significantly among those firms that choose to adopt them. Gaining a true competitive advantage depends upon the care taken in planning, implementation, training, support, and (perhaps most importantly) the ongoing evaluation of business processes. While we avoid letting systems and software dictate how we conduct business, we also work hard to prevent the replication of the inefficiencies of previous processes. We view any new application as an opportunity to change inefficient behavior, or better still, eliminate processes that don't contribute to corporate objectives. During our implementation of a new project accounting system in 1998, we spent nearly a year analyzing work breakdown structures and how best to organize, track, and report financial information. The result was a much simpler and more consistent approach to budgeting, cost accounting, and profitability analysis - and with greater benefits to the end-users.
The Contractual "Client Requirement"
But of course, this ideal approach to IT management frequently falls victim to that familiar impediment to sound engineering project management - the contractual "client requirement." Rather than using the tools, standards, and procedures we have developed and refined over time, some of our clients ask us to use a specific CAD package, scheduling application, or word processor. In their view, this will benefit them in the long-term use and occupancy of the facility being designed. Theoretically, the benefits derived will outweigh the added costs that may be incurred during design, which can be substantial.
Evaluating the costs and benefits
Too often, rather than evaluating the costs and benefits to both partners in this enterprise, the design professional consents to using a less efficient approach, and then fails to adjust fees and schedule to accommodate this client-imposed requirement. This may explain the opinion expressed by 36% of the respondents to Zweig White & Associates 2000 Information Technology Survey of design and planning firms: that improvements in productivity resulting from IT come at the expense of profitability. Rarely is the client questioned as to just how rigid their CAD or word processing format specification really is.
What Does the Future Hold?
'The current focus of the AEC industry seems to be squarely on universal, Internet-enabled access to information, in a manner that makes software and systems irrelevant to the process. While I don't expect to be red-lining construction drawings on my wireless telephone's LCD anytime soon, in the not so distant future we will be using "Internet appliances" for all sorts of tasks not yet envisioned. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, believes that information should be as easy to access as electricity (except in California), and that we shouldn't have to struggle with "overengineered access devices" (the PC). This point of view is leading many of the Internet-savvy software and system vendors of the 90s to exploit cheap data storage and burgeoning network bandwidth in hopes of coaxing us into scrapping our old-fashioned local-area networks (LANs) and overdeveloped desktop computers.
Why are vendors taking us down this road - did we ask for worldwide, handheld access to all the same information our office-bound counterparts have?
Whether we in the AEC industry feel a need for this ubiquitous connectivity, all those people buying laptop PCs, PDAs, and Internet-ready wireless phones have turned the heads of software and service vendors in all lines of business.
When Buchart-Horn installed their original WAN, we opted for a centralized, star-type configuration, with branches linked only to host servers in our corporate headquarters. This allowed everyone to access a single email server, our centralized project accounting system, and a single Internet Service Provider (ISP) connection. Even our Frankfurt, Germany branch was tied solely to the main office, which seemed logical and more cost-effective given that the WAN was used primarily for email and interoffice file transfers. But as time passes, and the demand for Internet access balloons (for external email communications, product information, and other types of Internet research), we have had to add bandwidth and explore alternatives for diverting Internet traffic to local providers. The use of a local German provider makes particular sense for Frankfurt, due to the higher cost of carrying this traffic back to the U.S., as well as the additional "hops"" (and corresponding degradation of service) needed to reach Internet servers that reside in Europe.
Whereas one of the primary responsibilities of management is to monitor and exploit change, now we also have to cope with the drastic rate of change. We used to worry about having to replace computers every three or four years, just to keep up with software's continuously expanding appetite for processor speed, RAM, and disk storage. Now we also have to keep feeding the growing demand for gigabit LAN speeds and expensive T1 WAN links, just to handle the day-to-day volume of digital information exchange.
Gone are the days of waiting for the overnight express package containing two or three floppy disks.
So are we really ready for mobile computing, home offices, and universal sharing of real-time project data? Although much of the necessary technology already exists, few of us in the design profession have the management policies and liability safeguards in place to deal with such radical changes in operational practice. Synchronizing home and office data, protecting proprietary information, and coordinating workflow present significant challenges in the mobile computing environment. As visual and collaborative as the design profession tends to be, it works best when it involves frequent deliberation among team members and the client. Unfortunately, the current state of data sharing technologies falls short of being able to duplicate the synergy that occurred when participants leaned over the same set of drawings. Even with CAD editing and viewing tools accessible to all Buchart-Horn project managers, we still produce nearly as many check plots as when CAD was the private domain of the technician/draftsperson. As often as contracts call for electronic deliverables, and in spite of the increasing expectation of extranet access, it is still a rare occasion when a project submittal goes out without a full set of hardcopy documents. The paperless, virtual office may come some day, but I don't think we should expect to see it in the very near future!
About the author: William F. Blank, P.E., is Director, Information Technologies for Buchart-Horn, Inc., an international E/A/P firm headquartered in York, PA. He can be reached at wblank@bh-ba.com.
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© Copyright 2008, The Construction Sciences Research Foundation, Inc. Updated August 1, 2008.
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