Professional Engineer at AZTEC uses Toolkit
to keep costs down and production levels up.
 |
| Mark Chase, Professional Engineer for
AZTEC Engineering |
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, USA
— Recently, MicroStation Today had the opportunity
to speak with Mark Chase from AZTEC in Phoenix, Arizona about
how he and his group of talented engineers streamline their projects
with MicroStation Productivity Toolkit. Here's what Mark
had to say about his career, some of the projects he has worked
on and how he uses Axiom utilities to obtain maximum results for
AZTEC and their clients.
MicroStation Today: Tell
us a bit about yourself.
Mark: I am a registered Professional Civil Engineer in Arizona
and California and I have been working in the transportation structures
discipline for over eight years. Throughout my career, I have
used CAD to produce a number of bridge designs ranging from small,
single span canal crossings to large, multi-span freeway interchange
overpasses.
MST: Tell us about your success
with Axiom utilities.
Mark: AZTEC uses Axiom's MicroStation Productivity Toolkit.
The two products that get the most consistent use are FileFixer
and Microsoft Office Importer. One of these two products
is used nearly every week to some degree.
Our team has instituted a protocol that routinely executes FileFixer
to maintain our working design files in top shape. FileFixer
provides our team with the confidence that our working design
files do not contain design file corruptions that will inhibit
achieving our group's focus — efficient productivity.
In the time-crunched project world, most schedules do not provide
extra time to manually fix file corruptions, or worse yet, redraw
corrupted files.
Our team has found two distinct uses for the Microsoft Office
Importer: 1) fast presentation of screed and falsework plan
sheets [Editors note: A "screed machine" is used to
level and smooth the concrete surface of a bridge deck. "Falsework"
is the temporary structure that is built to hold the wet bridge
concrete in the air until it hardens and can stand by itself.
The plan sheets contain the design calculations for these.] and
2) assurance of consistent table information between plan sheets
and the quantity calculations that are prepared in a spreadsheet.
For people unfamiliar with bridge plans, many agencies or contractors
require the inclusion of screed and falsework elevation tables
in the contract documents. [Editor's Note: An "elevation
table" is a spreadsheet that contains, among other things,
the slope and height measurements of something ¾ in this
case, of a bridge deck]. This information typically occupies multiple
plan sheets and is contained in large tables full of numbers.
Microsoft Office Importer allows the information, which
is typically calculated in a spreadsheet, to be efficiently and
accurately presented on the plan sheets without the need for hours
of text editing or formatting. Similarly, bridge plans often contain
a quantity summary table that restates the information that is
contained in the bid schedule for the bridge. Preparing the information
in a spreadsheet, and then using Microsoft Office Importer
assures us that the information shown on the plan sheets matches
the information presented in the other contract documents.
MST: What impact have Axiom tools
had on your company?
Mark: FileFixer and Microsoft Office Importer have
both benefited our company. These simple-to-operate tools provide
tangible benefits in the form of saved time, money and resources.
The benefit of using FileFixer is difficult to pinpoint
because the fatal corruptions that lurk in the dark corners, waiting
to pounce on us at the worst times, are handled before they attack.
However, the time saved running FileFixer rather than manually
operating EdG is significant. The benefit of using Microsoft
Office Importer grows exponentially with the amount of data
that is imported. The largest screed/falsework elevation tables
that we import with Microsoft Office Importer contain nearly
a thousand numbers per plan sheet and the plan set will often
contain several of these sheets. The intangible savings of these
benefits are re-invested by allowing our cutting-edge staff the
opportunity to focus on what we do best — designing
innovative and complex projects while taking the time to find
ways to add value for our clients and our company —
rather than fixing corrupt files or manually editing pages of
tabular information.
MST: What do you do with
your time outside of work?
Mark: My hobbies revolve around spending time outdoors in a wide
range of activities. Though not as much as I'd like, I annually
spend much of my free time either hunting, fishing or hiking.
When free time is less prevalent, I enjoy spending time entertaining
my four-year-old chocolate Labrador Retriever with a game of fetch.
Call now!
For more information on Microsoft
Office Importer or FileFixer
contact an Axiom MicroStation Consultant today! Call 727-442-7774
extension 9476 or e-mail 9476@AxiomInt.com.
« Back
