Engineers bring complex projects to fruition, often facing tight deadlines and dealing with dispersed teams.
Take for example the $4 billion Queens Wharf development along the Brisbane river, which is deep into the construction phase. The massive site will include 12 football fields worth of public space, 2000 apartments, 1000 hotel rooms, 50 restaurants, retail space, a 1000-person capacity ballroom and a casino.
Lead designers of the project, Cottee Parker, had their work cut out for them — merging Brisbane’s unique subtropical living and world class architecture.
Right from the early stages it became clear to Cottee Parker that they needed to implement a digital document review system to effectively manage the vast 26-hectare work site and coordinate between the firm’s multiple offices throughout Australia.
An ideal solution would enable the firm to effectively manage and share documents while also allowing real time collaboration between teams. After due consideration, Cottee Parker made their choice and then moved swiftly to transition their paper-based processes to Bluebeam Revu.
This gave their team of 50 the ability to update documents simultaneously, in real time. With the team working with up to 5000 documents per month, a paper-based process would have been a logistical challenge while also having adverse environmental impact.
By choosing an agile solution, the Cottee Parker team has realised a 50 per cent time saving on reviewing and approving documents.
While often used as construction technology for the vertical built environment, Bluebeam Revu is an integrated software solution increasingly used by engineers and their project teams.
With tablets now a common tool on job sites, a cloud-based solution like Bluebeam Revu does away with the need to carry drawings, hold multiple documents and decipher handwriting scrawled down while on site.
As the single source of truth for a project, the review feature allows the team to include links to supporting documents such as budgets. This saves time if searching for more detail held in separate files when it comes to the final review. The documents can be easily accessed onsite, edits made, and document review completed by a team anywhere in the world before it is electronically lodged with the authorities.
The customisable tool sets in Revu enable standardisation of mark-up tools used across teams. And with the Tool Chest they can be shared, making collaboration on documents while in Studio Sessions even more user friendly. For example, all users employ the same icons to mark details such as plumbing, thereby eliminating any misunderstanding.
It also keeps a record of changes made to project files with simple version control in Studio Projects. Users can be sure they’re always looking at the latest revision of project plans, which comes in handy when dealing with client changes. Engineering brings the creative vision for bridges, roads, and infrastructure to life. By adopting solutions like Bluebeam Revu engineers can ensure that paperwork does not get in the way.
Here are four features to look for when choosing an integrated software solution for engineering:
- Collaboration: A cloud-based solution enables real-time remote collaboration no matter where team members are located – at opposite sides of the building site, the country or the world. A real-time editing capability will allow them to collaborate on projects from anywhere, making the work more efficient by eliminating double handling and multiple versions.
- Speed: Time is precious, and there is nothing worse than wasting it waiting for the computer to catch up with your thought process. A solution such as Bluebeam Revu, with a hardware accelerated rendering engine, is fast to zoom and pan. The work can be completed much faster because the system is fit-for-purpose – and there will be far less user frustration in the process.
- Precision: To prepare your best bid, detail and accuracy are critical. On large projects, even with multiple sets of eyes on a document, the sheer volume could mean that a small but important detail is overlooked at times. For example, a tool with an automatic prompt to set the scale will ensure you put your best bid forward.
- Scalability: Think about future growth of your project team and ensure the system you choose has capacity to grow with you. If you suddenly need to upscale your team for a project, it’s important that you can do so easily and quickly at the touch of a button with standardised configuration options.
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