In this article, Daniel Bévort, CEO of ADEACA, describes how Project Business Automation (PBA) can be used to integrate the fragmented array of business applications used by construction companies, giving them better insight and allowing them to manage their business in real time, instead of through guesswork and outdated data.
Plaza Construction one of the foremost construction management and general contracting firms in the US, shares its perspective on AEC technology in this Firm Profile.
URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/profile/2019/FirmProfile-PlazaConstruction.html
Visicon is a new solution in the AEC technology field which, at first glance, seems to be entering into an already crowded field of BIM viewing, model checking, coordination, and collaboration solutions. On a closer look, however, I found that it not only has a unique mix of capabilities that span model viewing, data visualization, model interrogation, and design coordination, it also has a fresh take on many of these features, the benefit of being built from scratch. The ultimate objective, however, remains the same—to create an accurate design model that meets quality control standards, which allows the data needed for downstream processes to be easily extracted from it, and which can be reviewed by anyone (for free) without requiring the original authoring application.
LandDesign, an award-winning design firm offering urban design, planning, civil engineering and landscape architecture solutions to public, private and federal sector clients across the US, shares its perspective on AEC technology in this Firm Profile.
URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/profile/2019/FirmProfile-LandDesign.html
In this Viewpoint article, Graham Twigg, CTO of Multivista, emphasizes the importance of integrating visual as-built data directly into the BIM models created for a project by the design team for real-time validation and a more accurate representation of the building through each phase of construction. Integrating data from different construction solutions with BIM models allows a true digital twin of the completed building to be created, which would be a valuable resource throughout its lifecycle.
This article provides an overview of the technology applications for architecture that were exhibited at the annual AIA conference last month. Broadly speaking, they fell into the categories of BIM, performance analysis, project information management, specifications, model checking, and, of course—this being an architectural conference—visualization. The products covered include ARCHICAD 23, Twinmotion, OpenBuildings Designer, Vectorworks 2019, IESVE 2019, PlanIT Impact, TonicDM, Newforma Project Center, Deltek PIM, Layer, Overtur, Solibri, Unity Reflect, VIM AEC, and IrisVR Prospect.
GRAPHISOFT’s 2019 KCC event, that was held earlier this month in Las Vegas, included updates from GRAPHISOFT, the global launch of ARCHICAD 23, and presentations from several firms across the world on how they are using GRAPHISOFT solutions. Dubbed the “Reimagine” conference, this event was the first to also introduce GRAPHISOFT’s new CEO, Huw Roberts, an architect and AEC industry veteran who was with Bentley Systems for 18 years. (GRAPHISOFT’s former CEO, Viktor Várkonyi, has moved on to head the Planning and Design Division at GRAPHISOFT’s parent company, Nemetschek.)
The KCC is a small invitation-only event rather than a user conference as such—this year’s roster included about 400 attendees—and it provided me with the opportunity to learn in depth about GRAPHISOFT’s current outlook, upcoming releases, future plans, partner products, and implementation stories. The smaller setting also enabled me to get a better understanding of some of the more technical aspects underlying AEC technology solutions such as the APIs that are used to integrate different applications. I will cover this in a later article, as well as the customer implementations that were presented. For now, a broad overview of the event and the main updates from GRAPHISOFT are presented here.
While the AEC industry is more than amply served by solutions for project management (PM), construction management (CM), and team collaboration for our increasingly complex buildings and infrastructure projects, the field of project information management (PIM) has, until now, been relatively sparse. However, the need for a good PIM solution has intensified, and one of the new solutions that has emerged in this space is TonicDM.
While organizing project information so that it is easier to find and eliminating duplication is the basic function of a PIM solution, it can further streamline many common PM tasks such as creating and tracking submittals and RFIs. While TonicDM provides all these capabilities, what sets it apart is its strong focus on ease of use and the use of smarts to automate many routine tasks, minimizing the work users would have to put in towards managing project information.
This article, which was originally published in the Q3 2014 issue of AECbytes Magazine, looks at the AEC technologies implemented at Nikken Sekkei, a 2,400 person firm providing architecture, engineering, planning, and construction management services around the globe. Ranked as the fourth largest design firm in the world, Nikken Sekkei is headquartered in Tokyo, with additional locations in several cities in Japan as well as in cities throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
Paul Seletsky, AIA, an independent Digital Design consultant who was one of the pioneers in the application of AEC technology in architectural practice, shares his experiences and insights in this Profile.
URL: http://www.aecbytes.com/profile/2019/PeopleProfile-PaulSeletsky
