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Small Texas civil engineering firm saves
50 hours per project using Axiom software.
BEAUMONT, TEXAS, USA — If you go east from Houston
on Interstate 10, about two hours into your journey you'll
come across the City of Beaumont. Beaumont is a city of about
114,000 people, and is a part of the area known as the "Golden
Triangle" — an area of Southeast Texas rich in petroleum
and natural gas bordered by Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange
- due to the economic prominence of the petrochemical industry
in the area. Beaumont has a rich history (Beaumont was the
site of the first major oil-field discovery in the United
States in 1901, and in the 1920s, they overcame a bout with
the Bubonic plague and survived a crippling flood) and a culturally-diverse
atmosphere (equal parts Texan and Cajun cultures).
This month's MicroStation Today user spotlight shines
on a resident of this land of crawfish and crude oil.
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| Mark Kelly, Drafting Supervisor for Mark W. Whiteley
Associates |
We'd like you to meet Mark Kelly, Drafting Supervisor for
Mark W. Whiteley Associates, a five-person a civil engineering
firm in Beaumont. He took some time from his busy day to chat
with MicroStation Today about his background in CAD
and his successes using Axiom tools.
MicroStation Today: Mark, please tell you a bit
about your CAD background and your everyday duties.
Mark: I started out drafting on a drafting board in
1981. I began using AutoCAD version 9 in 1987 and have since
progressed to AutoCAD 2006. I started using MicroStation in
1995 with MicroStation 95 and I now use MicroStation V8.
I convert field notes from the survey crews into MicroStation
drawings. The types of projects that I work on are highway
right-of-way drawings, pavement designs, highway designs and
real estate surveys. Our clients vary from private citizens,
to petrochemical plants, to state and municipal governments.
MST: Who are your biggest clients?
Mark: Some of our biggest jobs are Texas Department
of Transportation (TxDOT) highway designs, which include right-of-way
acquisition drawings, adjacent property parcels, pavement
design, storm sewer design, water design and sewer design.
MST: Can you tell us about your successes using
Axiom's time-saving tools?
Mark: A set of plans for one of our recent projects
had approximately 150 sheets. When we received comments from
our client, we had to renumber the sheets individually. That's
when I started looking for a program to do this automatically
and found Title Block Manager. What had been taking
me about three hours to complete now takes 15 minutes.
Another time-saver is RefWriter. It is great to be
able to go in and edit a reference drawing without having
to get out of the original drawing and then get back in to
the drawing. Also, it is great to be able to see the master
drawing behind the reference drawing when you're editing the
reference file.
MST: If you had to quantify how much time
you saved using Axiom software during one project, how much
would it be?
Mark: On this one TxDOT highway design project alone,
Axiom products saved us approximately 50 hours of drafting.
That's pretty typical.
MST: What is your favorite TV show?
Mark: "American Chopper" [Editor's note:
"American Chopper" is a documentary series on the
Discovery Channel about the goings-on behind the scenes at
Orange County Choppers, a custom motorcycle fabrication company
located in Rock Tavern, New York.]
MST: What is the one thing we should know if we
ever visit Beaumont, TX?
Mark: Try out the seafood. It is some of the best you
will ever eat.
MST: What would you do if you won $10 million in
the lottery?
Mark: If I won $10 million, I would pay all my bills
and take a long, long vacation.
Call now!
For more information on Title
Block Manager and RefWriter
contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774
extension 9339, e-mail 9339@axiomint.com
or visit Axiom on the Web at www.axiomint.com
now!
Visit the Mark W. Whiteley
Associates on the Web
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