Data collected year over year shows a continual decline in available skilled construction labor. The construction workforce shortage is one of the most significant threats to the growth and success of the industry as a whole. According to a recent article in the Autodesk BIM 360 Newsletter, a survey conducted …
Imagine No Design Defects
Molly GunnThe quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) process is critical to ensuring that a project is executed properly and meets the standards of both the owner and the contractor. This process can be slow and frustrating due to an overload of notes and changes that must be cross-checked. With Bluebeam …
MEP to the Front, Pt. 3: Doing Things Right vs. Fast
Carol DunnMake sure you’re going in the right direction before you put effort behind getting there quickly. This was the advice from Corey Overton of Chick-Fil-A in the recent AEC Disruptors Podcast about the direction the architecture industry is moving. As the overarching processes of the AEC industry continue to be …
How Generative Design Fits Today’s Manufacturing Processes
Carol DunnIf you work for a manufacturing firm, the term “generative design” may conjure up images of bizarre looking metal-frame specimens with legs that only a machine would think are beautiful or thoughts of multimillion-dollar 3D metal printers. Almost everything about manufacturing automation is already expensive, causing the industry as a …
Software Update: 360 Sync 2.12.0 has Officially Been Released
Michael ReuterThe development team at Applied Software is pleased to announce that 360 Sync 2.12.0 has been officially released to the web (RTW). It can be downloaded from the following link: https://www.asti.com/support/download/. Easy to set up and run, 360 Sync, developed by Applied Software, allows Revit users to automatically update and …
4 Uses for Dashboards in Construction
Carol DunnDigital dashboards are PDF-based document management tools that can be used across the entire construction project – from client presentations to closeout. As described in the Bluebeam StrXur article “A Digital Dashboard for All Phases,” project dashboards can be created that enable anyone on the job to find anything they …
The Joy of Digital Handover
Carol Dunn and Molly GunnThere are a couple of methods for project closeout that general contractors have access to these days. One is “the way we’ve always done it” – rolls of drawings and large notebooks containing warranties, instruction manuals, spec sheets, coffee-stained pages, and sticky notes. Another method is a clean, concise, text-searchable …
Protect Construction Data from the Dark Side
Molly GunnIn today’s world, technology is interwoven throughout our daily life. We are surrounded by smart phones, computers, tablets, electric cars, and smart TVs. As we become more dependent on technology, all of these devices become increasingly connected, allowing information to flow from one device to another. Therefore, cyber security has …
Technology Driven . . . Reality Based
Carol DunnThe process of creating highly detailed digital 3D models of construction projects is a process that’s relatively new – likely less than seven years old. By importing photographs and laser scans into reality capture software, a firm can preserve current conditions of every feature of a jobsite, whether it is …
MEP to the Front, Pt. 2: MEP in Project Planning – Does it Matter?
Carol DunnAs considered in the Applied Software blog article, “Mine All Mine: Can AEC Teams Play Nice?” the collaborative process can deliver profitable projects to satisfied owners ahead of schedule. This reality is driving more and more firms toward involving all project teams from the early stages of a collaborative design-build …
How BIM Could Benefit Your Next Project
Molly GunnIt comes as no surprise that the construction industry has evolved in the last decade and will continue to evolve in 2020 and beyond. One factor in the ever-changing landscape of construction is the growing development and adoption of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) process. BIM adoption has proven to …
The AE Climb: Manual Design to Automated Design to Generative Design
Carol Dunn and Carlos LiceaDesign automation is the ability to script computational processes that reflect the creative and analytical methods of human driven design using specific rules and instructions. That’s a mouthful that boils down to taking a manual process and letting a computer help you do it faster. Time is spent up front …