I'd be interested to see what the differential between 2D and BIM projects is.
Let me give you a concrete example; a hospital here in SF that is building a new facility has spent 30+ million dollars on coordination and constructability issues between all the trades.
There was far less printing of plans than there was hours spent coordinating the BIM model for changes.
Now, granted, this wasa project where there was an oversight in the design as it pertained to the owners intent and a number of critical technology spaces required were left out of the design.
This resulted in many hours of coordination efforts from all the trades to get these spaces into the facility, but a fraction of this was in printing.
If you can help with this problem, coordination, you have a much larger market.
The current industry trend is to err on the side of digital design and coordination meetings with IPD models, and reduce printing and field interference issues.
What might be an interesting opportunity for your service is to notify trades when changes occur that may affect them. THEN show them the new, updated PDF.
I don't know how this would occur -- other than the pushing of a constructability log or something....
Also, it would make sense that your app is much more focused on a the smaller project (HUGE market) of residential, smaller commercial etc..
Trying to force yourselves into solving the issues of massive scale projects may be suicide.
I agree that BIM is totally transforming constructability reviews and massively reducing MEP conflicts with clash-detection etc.
The problem is, after all this 3D BIM work, how does that information get to the field? What are the actual workers building off of?
Paper. Outdated, expensive, paper. THATS the problem we are solving. Big projects, little projects, they all use paper, they all pay waaaay too much for paper, and they all have trouble keeping it up to date.
Sure, but do you expect the 500+ builders onsite on any given day to have a fragile $800 device with a screen size less than 8.5x11" as their primary interface to information?
I don't think that is realistic.
Others are working on augmented reality interfaces to provide that updated information. Where a set of glasses connected through the construction wifi network would provide the needed updates.
Sure, there is a much larger technical issue there WRT engineering a solution, but the fact of the matter is that paper is actually a cheap way of conveying a vast amount of information VERY efficiently.
They can write and scribble and troubleshoot on the plans.
There is a LOT more information to present on 30x42.
Their batteries wont die.
Training people to absorb information off plans is thousands of years developed, efficient and CHEAP.
I think that granularity of message is important - and I think you can really excel here.
Rather than presenting the whole plan on PDF - tell them EXACTLY what they need to know BY ROOM/BY LOCATION that pertains to them at that moment.
I'd like you to see the Inspection Request Module that we have to understand this; where on a PDF/Visio of a plan an inspector can just trace out the walls that they inspected in the field at that time. This finger-trace gets captured and recorded. Then synthesized into the colorized maps I showed aboved so that the whole project team can run reports on status of the project (you can also run reports that show which trades are succeeding and which are behind in every aspect of deliverables... sometimes you just need to fire a plumbing contractor because they keep failing inspections)
Anyway - paper is not always bad. It is an extremely efficient method of conveying information.
You need to preempt the NEED for paper, not reduce it on the back-end. This is what BIM and coordination and IPD are all about. Reducing back-end paper and change-orders.
Paper is not what is bad, bad information is what is bad. Eliminate bad information you eliminate waste.
>I think that granularity of message is important - and I think you can really excel here.
>
>Rather than presenting the whole plan on PDF - tell them EXACTLY what they need to know BY ROOM/BY LOCATION that pertains to them at that moment.
>
This.
In my former life as an architectural designer and project manager for a design-build firm, we experimented with creating document sets that provided this level of room-by-room information. The documents were color printouts on 11x17 sheets, folded and contained in a binder. 160,000 SF remodel. Labor intensive to say the least, and only possible at all because we were doing mostly finish work.
But an app could make this level of granularity practical. The advantages to all stages of construction are numerous, from takeoffs to punch lists and inspection.
Let me give you a concrete example; a hospital here in SF that is building a new facility has spent 30+ million dollars on coordination and constructability issues between all the trades.
There was far less printing of plans than there was hours spent coordinating the BIM model for changes.
Now, granted, this wasa project where there was an oversight in the design as it pertained to the owners intent and a number of critical technology spaces required were left out of the design.
This resulted in many hours of coordination efforts from all the trades to get these spaces into the facility, but a fraction of this was in printing.
If you can help with this problem, coordination, you have a much larger market.
The current industry trend is to err on the side of digital design and coordination meetings with IPD models, and reduce printing and field interference issues.
What might be an interesting opportunity for your service is to notify trades when changes occur that may affect them. THEN show them the new, updated PDF.
I don't know how this would occur -- other than the pushing of a constructability log or something....
Also, it would make sense that your app is much more focused on a the smaller project (HUGE market) of residential, smaller commercial etc..
Trying to force yourselves into solving the issues of massive scale projects may be suicide.