23 June 2022
CAD/BIM Tools: The Huge Impact of Small Differences for AEC Professionals
And What This Means for Your CAD/BIM Design Life
Would it be faster to go down to the river and pound your clothes on a rock or simply run them through the washer and dryer? Sometimes, the smallest differences can dictate a huge variance in outcome. Think in terms of the straw that broke the camel’s back, or the fact that an entire avalanche is impossible without one small flake of snow. For AEC professionals (engineers, architects and CAD designers), it's fundamentally no different. One tiny variance in a plan or design, now, could have a huge impact further down the line. You know, like that time that Bob was off by 1/32nd of an inch and it turned into a variance of almost a foot across the entire distance. Maybe it’s time to talk about CAD/BIM tools that increase accuracy and save you tons of time.
It Couldn’t Happen to Me!
If you think it couldn’t happen to you, well, chances are the guys at NASA certainly didn’t think it could happen to them either, but back in 1999, when the $98 million Mars Climate Orbiter simply disappeared — moments after completing its nine-and-a-half month voyage and finally entering its orbital path — someone realized they’d made a terrible whoopsy. In the case of the Orbiter, it turned out to be an error converting imperial measurements into metric units, and it resulted in the Orbiter burning up in Mars’ atmosphere. A simple, yet disastrously expensive mistake.
A simple error — converting imperial measurements into metric units — destroyed a $98 million piece of equipment.
Not only can details be expensive in terms of the final outcome, but they can also cost you a ton of time. Think of all the items you own that save you a ton of time. Think email (faster than writing letters and licking stamps), vacuum cleaner (faster than getting down on all fours to handpick every piece of fluff, grit, pet hair, and crumbs off the floor), TV remote (faster than dragging yourself off the couch and across the living room every time a commercial comes on), coffee pods (faster than opening the coffee, measuring out a perfect scoop and cleaning up the mess every time you need a caffeine kick) or the dishwasher (no need for explanation on this one, right?), as examples. These things simply make life a little easier and save you time you can spend on better things.
But what’s their equivalent at work? What’s your CAD-platform equivalent of a toaster or Alexa setting your thermostat and playing just the right music for you?
How to Get Out of the Office Earlier (Oh, yeah!)
Whether you’re a MicroStation®, Revit® or AutoCAD® professional, you know that your platform has quirks that frustrate you. Whether it’s repetitive manual tasks, a convoluted process to achieve a simple requirement, or having to spend hours making changes to individual DWGs or DGNs, you know there’s got to be a better way.
While chopping wood and building a fire just to crisp a slice of toast may be comparable, it’s certainly not the most efficient solution. So, what is?
How about a tool that gives you flawless formatting of your Word and Excel imports into MicroStation, Revit and AutoCAD? How about something that literally gives you push-button control of title blocks or translations from DWG to DGN or vice versa? How about a tool that allows you to import multipage PDFs into Revit, all at once instead of one page at a time? How about … well, you get the idea.
Add up all the minutes you can save with tools such as these and watch those minutes multiply into hours and the hours into days — all saved for your use. Even better is waving goodbye to all the frustration and the mind-numbing repetition, while confidently completing a project well ahead of deadline.
Wave goodbye to all the frustration and mind-numbing repetition.
If you’d like to reduce stress and start saving a ton of time, call 727-442-7774 and coordinate with a Service Consultant to determine which tool or tools would be most helpful in your situation and save you the most time. Alternatively, visit us online for more information or a free demo. MicroStation tools are here, Revit tools are here, and AutoCAD options are here.
One last question: What will you do with all that extra time on your hands?
