AECWeekly is a news magazine featuring important industry news profiles, a summary of recently published AEC product and company news, customer wins, and coming events. Brought to you by AECCafe.
AECWeekly examines select top news each week, picks out worthwhile reading from around the web, and special interest items you might not find elsewhere. This issue will feature Industry News, Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements, Announcements, Contract Awards, Awards, People, New Products, and Upcoming Events.
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Industry News
ProjectDox for Construction Project Collaboration
by Susan Smith
Recently Informative Graphics announced ProjectDox, a web based project communication and collaboration software built on .Net that competes head to head with Autodesk’s Buzzsaw and Constructware.
Customers can purchase ProjectDox and put it on their own server in-house and thereby control their own intellectual property, according to Duane Green, ProjectDox product manager. It is not offered as an ASP. Not only does ProjectDox offer unlimited projects for unlimited users, users have their own access to their hard drives, and therefore have unlimited data.
Informative Graphics offers a pilot version of ProjectDox that allows you to get the software up and running on your servers for 25 concurrent projects, unlimited users and unlimited data starting out at $10,000. “We go all the way up about $62,500 for the full unlimited version,” said marketing manager, Bill Gould. “Twenty-five is the maximum number of projects for the pilot version, and you can archive one project in order to bring another online. For the unlimited version, the price is $40,000, then we have a workflow e-forms module that can be applied on top of that for $18,000 that allows you to create business processes or workflows for planned check in or approval, routing or review processes, RFIs, change orders, change requests, bidding submittals, etc. We have an electronic keyform module that allows you to take virtually any paper document you have today and convert it to electronic form that your users can fill out online. The information they fill out will then be stored in a database.”
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Users can share information and do searches. According to Gould, all the customers today that purchase ProjectDox also purchase the Workflow e-forms module as an add-on.
Green said that Informative Graphics has positioned ProjectDox in the construction industry and in the state, city and county government industry. “They’re all in the construction related industry but have two distinct focuses.” said Green. “Right now, city and county agencies have a very big hole in plan check and approval, so if you’re building a new building, there are electronic programs in place to manage or approve that request for city and county. But today they’re still reviewing your drawings on paper. You usually submit 3 – 5 sets of prints. We’ve talked to some city and county agencies that have to submit 12 sets of prints. For one office building, you could do 150 different prints that you have to provide to city or county to review.”
Once these industries can be convinced of the efficiency of getting this paper into electronic form, with ProjectDox they can do plan, check, review and approval electronically. When a permit is created, the user can upload their files into ProjectDox. The city and county agencies can review those documents and mark them up electronically. Notifications go back to the user. The user could then make the changes and upload a new version.
This would change the existing, time-consuming process the city and county have of marking up on paper, calling the developer, who has to come into the agency, pick up the paper, take it back into AutoCAD, make changes and print out new sets, deliver both sets back to city and county to make sure of the changes.
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The ProjectDox software has a side by side comparison tool that allows people to check out changes very quickly.
For those who think that ProjectDox sounds vaguely familiar, it is. It used to be called ProjectWeb, but Gould said that they had a problem trade marking that name so the product got a name change about a year and a half ago. Green said that Informative Graphics will install and configure the software for customers.
What differentiates ProjectDox from other project collaboration solutions on the market?
According to Gould, an 85% majority of construction customers use Buzzsaw or a Buzzsaw-like product today. Those who have bought ProjectDox cite four reasons:
- It is easy to use, designed for subcontractors in the construction world.
- Inexpensive
- Ownership model – can have as many projects or users as you wish. intellectual property.
- Workflow and e-forms
An interesting aside is that Buzzsaw and Constructware are very similar products, according to Green. “Constructware actually has our Brava! viewer built into it. We find it easy when customers go from one ASP service like Constructware to ProjectDox and already know our viewer.” Green noted that right now Buzzsaw uses Design Review 2007 (formerly DWF Composer) to view files and he is not sure that Buzzsaw will put the Brava! Viewer into Buzzsaw.
Originally, Green said they built ProjectDox to meet the needs of smaller architectural and construction firms, but now the medium and larger sized firms want it, as it is easy to put it on an in-house server. “ProjectDox has value through multiple phases of construction,” noted Green. “We will be exploring how our product can work in facilities management.”
What about transitioning to ProjectDox from other project collaboration software solutions? “In a hosted type solution such as Constructware, the original files are still maintained by the developer or architect,” explained Green. “What is being hosted in Buzzsaw are copies. You can easily replicate the same project and same folder structure that are in those environments with ProjectDox and just upload their data into ProjectDox.”
Acquisitions/Alliances/Agreements
Autoweb, a global provider of data exchange and data management solutions for the manufacturing industry, announced they have entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Broadband Media Corporation (BBMC) of Seoul Korea.
BBMC will provide local sales and marketing support for Autoweb in the Asian market. BBMC will function as local Autoweb representation to sell and service Autoweb solutions to key industries in Korea, such as Automotive, Electronics, Maritime, and others. This will allow Autoweb prospects and customers to realize all of the benefits of partnering with Autoweb, including a relationship with a local representative with whom they can interact on a regular basis.
Announcements
Meridian Systems, provider of enterprise project management software for optimizing capital projects, programs and facilities, announced successful market adoption for Prolog software within the Chinese construction and engineering industry.
Meridian authorized reseller ProjectAIMS has jointly developed with Meridian a Chinese localized version of Prolog Manager and Prolog WebSite. ProjectAIMS has successfully implemented Prolog at several major Chinese firms, allowing them to embrace these market leading project management and collaboration solutions in their native language.
CraigMichaels, Inc., the leading producer of senior level business summits, announced further details regarding the 4th annual K12 Facilities Summit.
The three day summit, to be held October 8-10th at the Woodlands Resort & Conference Center in Houston, TX, will bring together a high ranking national assembly of K12 administrators responsible for overseeing the planning, design, construction and operations of K12 school buildings. The confirmed speaker panel for this year’s summit represents a who’s who of administrators responsible for from the nation’s largest and most prominent school districts.
For additional information and to view the full summit agenda, please visit the website
Availl Inc., a leading WAFS vendor and provider of real-time data and storage software, announced that V3/Landmark Engineering resolved team productivity and CAD file access performance among remote branch offices over their wide area network (WAN) by using Availl WAFS software. With 90 percent of its 500,000 computer files being AutoCAD – files that are often slow to access and problematic to share – V3/Landmark deployed Availl software on its branch office Windows servers. V3 gained LAN file access speed across the WAN at each office. In addition real-time file locking, file coherence and continuous file backup consolidation were included.
GiveMePower Corporation announced the company's new PowerCAD® SiteMaster™ 3 building surveying and information management solution now supports "anytime and anywhere" creation of 100% precise building floor plans, instant area, inspection and construction estimation reports and web-ready real estate presentations in less than 1/2 the time and 1/2 the cost of traditional measuring tape and paper methods using Leica Geosystems' new DISTO™ A6 Bluetooth® handheld laser and any Microsoft mobile computing system.
Contract Awards
Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) has selected Bentley InRoads as its new transportation design software. In addition, MTO has joined Bentley's Enterprise Training Subscription (ETS) program, which entitles the ministry to unlimited professional training by Bentley Institute.
Awards
Intergraph Corporation announced that its Power, Process & Marine (PP&M) division has been recognized with the PELC 2006 Award at the Plant Engineering Life Cycle (PELC) Conference, held at the World Forum Convention Center in The Netherlands. The award recognizes Intergraph as the best supplier of life cycle data management solutions based on top performance in the following areas: strategic alignment, information sharing, design and engineering, operation and maintenance, and data integration.
Deltek, provider of enterprise management software for project-focused organizations, announced that its management team has been recognized as the most visionary, innovative and results-driven by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) Hot Ticket Awards. In a year with a record number of nominations for the awards, Deltek was selected as one of five finalists for the Hottest Management Team award, and was recognized as the winner at a July 13th gala.
Oce Imagistics Inc. has been awarded three "Pick of the Year" awards from Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI). BLI, the leading independent office equipment test lab and business consumer advocate, honored Oce Imagistics performance with three Spring 2006 "Pick of the Year" awards covering high-speed black & white and color:
-- im9220: "Outstanding Segment 6 Multifunctional Imaging System"
-- cm4520: "Outstanding Color Multifunctional Imaging System"
-- cm2520: "Outstanding Color Multifunctional Imaging System"
Primavera Systems, Inc., announced that it has once again been recognized by the Omega Management Group for outstanding customer satisfaction. Omega's prestigious NorthFace ScoreBoard Award(SM) was presented to Primavera at the recent SCORE Conference in Boston.
New Products
Deltek, provider of enterprise management software for project-focused organizations, announced the release of Deltek MissionFirst(TM), the first complete financial software system for grant-based nonprofits. Created specially for federal grant recipients, MissionFirst provides integrated, easy-to-use software that eliminates multiple spreadsheets, automates key business processes, and facilitates government compliance. With MissionFirst, nonprofits can for the first time effectively manage their grants, contracts and accounting information with a single integrated solution.
Seemage™, a company that focuses on facilitating communication by making product data interactive, announced that it is releasing a plug-in for 3D PDF. Seemage will support not only the current Adobe 3D PDF activities but also the “future” of 3D PDF.
With this release Seemage users have the option of publishing 3D PDF files in either Adobe’s u3D file format or Seemage’s .smg file format. 3D PDF files published in the Seemage format provide up to a 10X performance improvement over u3d. As well the Seemage PDF Plug-in provides additional tools.
ArchVision, Inc. announces the immediate availability of a new RPC (Rich Photorealistic Content) library, Casual People Volume 10. Featuring casual summer styles, this RPC collection will further enhance your entourage choices. With a sundry of different poses and expressions, this new collection is designed to add variety and realism to 3D renderings and animations. As with all RPC Content, users of these new collections can take advantage of RPC Platform Tools for ease of placement and editing. Features such as Mass Populate and Mass Edit make placing entourage a snap.
CMiC, the enterprise resource planning software engine for project-based companies involved in the building process, unveiled solutions that help emerging firms better compete with larger rivals through fully integrated financial, human capital and project management capabilities. CMiC's financial, operational and project tracking features provide the necessary visibility to eliminate risk and increase profitability, allowing even the smallest company to better compete in an increasingly competitive, global business environment.
PROCAD announces the release of 2D DESIGNER V2007 compatible with AutoCAD® 2007. The new release will feature the following improvements:
A new Standards Manager to replace the Project Manager. This new interface simplifies the management of different standards used for different clients or projects Streamlined installation program for standalone and network setups
IMSI/Design, leader in retail CAD, announced the release of FloorPlan(r) 3D Version 11, a leading software application for home and small structure design and remodeling.
FloorPlan 3D Version 11 contains dozens of new features and performance optimizations, including photorealistic rendering, customizable windows and doors, curved driveways, and enhanced lighting options that let you set light position and time of day.
Autoweb, a provider of engineering data management and exchange services, has unveiled a new, significantly improved version of Workwise(CX), its online collaborative exchange utility.
Workwise(CX) now offers pre-configured virtual “rooms” that compliment natural work processes used by team members working at locations around the globe.
Upcoming Events
| Z-DAC 2006 Americas | |
| Date: | July 21, 2006 |
| Place: | Hotel Contessa
San Antonio, TX USA |
| The conferences will appeal to all audiences in the EDA environment, with a wide variety of sessions addressing all the elements you have come to expect from a Zuken conference including; industry speakers discussing the hot topics and the latest methods for improving design processes through methodology and software.
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| GeoWeb 2006 | |
| Date: | July 24 - 28, 2006 |
| Place: | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Make plans now to attend GeoWeb 2006, the premier conference for Web-based geographic information systems--the meeting point of consumer location services and professional geographic information technologies: Geography Markup Language (GML), KML, MapPoint, LandXML and OGC Web Services for GIS.
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| SHIFTS: Zaha Hadid | |
| Date: | July 25, 2006 |
| Place: | Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY USA |
| Participants in the event include the senior curator of the exhibition Germano Celant, architects Patrik Schumacher and Peter Eisenman, as well as assistant professor of architecture Sarah Whiting from Princeton University.
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| Webcast: Making the Move from 2D to 3D | |
| Date: | August 1, 2006 |
| Place: | USA |
Log on to these webcasts when our experts discuss
common considerations regarding a move from 2D to 3D design and data
management. Participants will learn:
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| The Tenth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction (EASEC-10) | |
| Date: | August 3 - 5, 2006 |
| Place: | InterContinental
Bangkok, Thailand |
| Conference Theme
" Reaching the World " The areas of special interests include the following: - Analytical Methods - Design and Real Structure - Structural Materials - Computer-Related - Wind and Earthquake - Constructionbr> - Experiment and Maintenance - Professional "All papers published in the Proceedings are peer-reviewed and refereed. The refereeing process involved external assessment by an expert board with broad national and international representation."
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| 2006 ESRI Education User Conference | |
| Date: | August 5 - 8, 2006 |
| Place: | Marriott Hotel & Marina
San Diego, CA USA |
| The conference provides a forum for members of the education community to come together and share their experiences and knowledge. The EdUC covers everything you need to know to start or to grow GIS activities and programs. Held in conjuction with the ESRI User Conference (UC), EdUC registration includes attendance at the ESRI UC Plenary Session and Map Gallery Opening and Evening Reception.
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| Energy 2006 | |
| Date: | August 6 - 9, 2006 |
| Place: | Hyatt Regency Chicago
Chicago, IL USA |
| Energy 2006 is the premier energy workshop and expo. Find out from industry and federal experts how to design and achieve your energy goals. Our theme this year is a Roadmap to Energy Efficiency and a Brighter Energy Future, and more than 80 sessions will focus on timely topics and key issues of energy efficiency in the following five areas: building strategies, management, operations and maintenance, procurement and practical application.
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| A Principal's Guide to Managing Overhead | |
| Date: | August 8, 2006 |
| Place: | Internet
Anywhere, CA USA |
| There is a gap in financial and accounting software commonly found between growing architectural and engineering (A/E) firms and more established A/E firms. Often, these growing firms get lost in the search for a new solution and don't get the advice and direction they need when investing in financial and accounting software. Client's Bill of RightsAxium recognized this gap and initiated an effort to help these firms; providing them with Ajera - an innovative, easy-to-use software that empowers them to grow and succeed. Each year, the number of Ajera clients grows as firms continue to see the benefit of using our software. At Axium we believe the key to bridging the gap between generic software and enterprise software is letting firms know what they should expect from their software; a Client's Bill of Rights.
In 2006, Axium will highlight and explain 10 rights you have and should be aware of in purchasing a financial and project management software. We will focus and discuss in detail your rights in a series of webinars throughout the year. So, watch for our next mailer, register for our upcoming webinars and learn what to look for in a financial and project management software.
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| International Solar Energy Society Summer Workshop | |
| Date: | August 11 - 19, 2006 |
| Place: | Freiburg, Germany |
The International Summer Workshop is an 8 day practical and technical training workshop in English focusing on solar and low energy housing examples from Europe relevant to temperate and cold climates.
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