Productivity or Procrastination?
The future of CAD is MOBILE
Isn’t
it amazing to think that just five years ago virtually all surveyors
took pencil and pad, tape measure or possibly a laser measuring device
out into the field and spent several hours measuring up sites,
buildings and all related detail before returning to the office to
redraw the detail into their CAD package. Or is it? How much has really
changed?
History
Productivity levels and therefore
profit margins are a concern to all, but in an industry where so much
process is manual there only needs to be one error in measurement, or
error in reading a measurement and the entire dimensions of a building
will be inaccurate. The result? A return to site to re-measure and then
back to the office to amend the CAD drawings. This is a huge resource
cost and ultimately vastly decreases profit margins, affects customer
service and increases costs for both the supplier and the client.
Anybody
connected with design, construction, engineering, facilities
management, manufacturing, mapping, real estate and related industries
will know what we’re talking about. Local authorities, hospitals,
schools, surveyors, facilities management companies – any sector
involved in the management of multiple and large buildings that require
compliance with Health and Safety regulations, the Disability
Discrimination Act (DDA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and
those requiring Asset Registry services began looking at how to shorten
the “field-to-finish” time and associated cost.
So, how far has the adoption of
come, and how easy has it been to bring the construction industry into
the 21st century? Has mobile CAD continued with what Blackberry started
– and truly taken the technology out of the office and into the field?
“In
order to tempt the surveyor away from the traditional pen/paper/laser
approach, any solution offered has to be quick, efficient and truly
mobile. To persuade the money men it also has to offer a swift ROI -
laser scanning options were seeing an increase in adoption a few years
back but were still costly, and did not create the “as-built” drawings
and floor plans in the field that would significantly cut design and
planning time and cost.
The answer lies in incorporating
handheld devices, software, Bluetooth and wireless technology – to
produce a CAD drawing in front of your eyes. The measurements taken by
laser meter and sent via Bluetooth into the software installed on the ,
produce a pictorial representation almost instantly. Human error is
completely eliminated – the surveyor can see immediately if he has
taken the measurement incorrectly. The solution also needs to offer the
basics for internal building design, down to such detail as furniture
if required, thereby producing a finished drawing in the field that can
be emailed back to the office.”
But doesn’t all this technology send the average surveyor running for the safety of his pencil and pad?
“Admittedly
the biggest challenge faced will be persuading all involved to undergo
a complete culture change! From our experience this has been less of an
issue in the USA, Australia an the Far East but across Europe those we
see as potential adopters just don't believewhat can be achieved by
implementing
until they actually see it in action, so uptake has been slower simply
because it is harder to get through the door in the first place.
And
surely the age old excuse of months of training staff on CAD related
technology and the affect this has on productivity gives the
procrastinating client an immediate get out clause?
“It
certainly raises its head. They are most surprised when we can
demonstrate that users can be up to speed with our system in 2 days,
and producing plans of the same standard as using traditional methods
within one week. This is a huge cost saving when we look at how quickly
the drawing is produced – using
the
principle within a week the surveyor can be measuring 400-500 square
metres per day, make that 750-1000 square metres in 3-4 weeks and as
much as 1500 square metres per day for super users!”
“The
UK gives us a good example of this. To comply with government
directives, many local authorities are facing a race against time to
ensure they have accurate up to date drawings for premises like schools
and nursing homes as well as offices – a race they can never win using
traditional surveying methods.”
“So much information needs to be
collected by a variety of people – fire inspectors and asbestos
surveyors for example need large amounts of data; asbestos and water
hygiene issues in older public buildings cannot be determined unless
accurate measured surveys exist and are kept up to date. The fact that
many local authorities do not have accurate, (or in some cases ANY),
plans for many of their public buildings, is under the spotlight.”
Fire
regulations and new laws to improve access to buildings for people with
disabilities have also raised the profile of property asset management
in many parts of the world.
“If we say the output is 100% accurate in half the time and at half the cost we’re pretty close. Productivity
in simple terms is increased by 100% - the work is delivered in one day
– therefore the profit is increased by 100%. Mobile
technology has actually been proven to increase productivity by up to
1000% when compared to traditional design methods. And that’s not
mentioning the less tangible increase in service level to the customer.
A return on investment can be seen in some cases on day 1, but we say
on average within 14-15 working days, including the cost of the
hardware, software and training.”
“To illustrate; a subsidiary
of T-COM measured and drew more than 1 million square metres - 13,778
rooms in 1,230 buildings across Germany. The target objective of the
contract was not just measuring the exact area of the rooms with a
tolerance of just 3% but also measuring mixed areas in just one "go".
The project was completed using a team of 25 in just 15 weeks.”
And the future?
“It
is now possible to upload the finished drawing to a portal, and make it
accessible from anywhere in the world, again increasing productivity by
giving the client 24x7 global design capability at minimal cost."
“Sector
wise initial uptake by internal surveyors such as fire prevention,
asbestos, asset management functions and disability access surveyors
has been followed by planners and quantity surveyors needing accurate
“lay of the land” drawings and external building representations in
CAD. We see the internal surveying market continuing to increase, this
is already evident in the USA, and the construction industry as being
key in the future. Public services, as mentioned, and also utility
companies and hospitals are all growth areas, plus banks in the USA as
a result of ADA compliance. Geographically that change in culture is
starting to happen across North America and Europe, and from Germany is
spreading via the existing client base into Eastern Europe.”
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