Issue Focus AEC Project Webs Geoffrey Moore Langdon and Arnie Williams Feature Review 3D Studio VIZ Release 3 Emmanuel A. Garcia CAD Options Solid Master 9.0 by CADMAX Joe Greco Trial Runs Polhemus 3Space FastSCAN Joe Greco AutoCAD LT 2000 Robert Green Circles and Lines Editing Your Attributes Lynn Allen Tips and Tricks Launching Useful Programs and Lining Up Dimensions George Head Third Dimension Mechanical Desktop Features John Wilson The Support Column Automating AutoCAD with Scripts Peter K. Sheerin EDM Chronicles Installment 3-Evaluation and Cost Justification Robert Green Industry Watch AEC Dot Coms Breed Construction Partnerships Arnie Williams	Geoffrey Moore Langdon, AIA and Arnie Williams A Trend to Be Reckoned With-AEC Project Webs New dot coms are targeting the architecture, building and construction industry like never before with everything from projectmanagement Web sites to bidding and procurement services. The design and construction of a building project is a collaborative effort involving dozens or even hundreds of people, from owners, architects, engineers, general contractors and subcontractors to all manner of workers from all sorts of building trades. Not surprisingly, building projects require a considerable amount of coordination and planning. To help in this effort, builders and developers have used project management and scheduling software for years. On the design side of things, architectural CADD is now firmly established as a standard way of doing building design. And since we have CADD files in abundance, we can now send drawings back and forth to our colleagues instantly on the Internet. With recent improvements to the World Wide Web making it possible to view drawings, to visually select building products and to hold virtual design meetings (net conferencing), a synergy of technologies now exists that allows a coordinated delivery system for design. Add project-management software, a storage area and a private group discussion forum as well as a way to track document revisions and you have the ingredients for a construction management Web site. Add data security procedures, and you have member-only sites referred to as extranets. The way an extranet differs from a usual Web site is that many different people (not just one Web master) can gain access after entering their name and password and are able to post drawings and other documents to share with a project team. Additionally extranet-service providers are starting to expand their array of services to include project bidding and procurement and other e-commerce transactions. Some of the veteran sites, such as Blueline Online, Bidcom, Cubus Corp. and Framework Technologies, have recently been joined by credible upstarts such as buzzsaw.com(an Autodesk-backed venture), BuildPoint.com and Bricsnet.com.   The kind of extranet-based change tracking and audit trail associated with drawing and construction management reduces the risks and liability associated with building projects for Blueline Online's customers. New Century-New Approaches to Construction Management Jas Dhillon, chairman of Blueline Online, notes that the construction industry is finally waking up-and with good reason-to the benefits of managing projects online. "Architects, engineers, contractors and subcontractors are finding that they are saving direct costs associated with their design and construction efforts, irrespective of the additional benefits that accrue directly to the owners. They also reduce risk and liability associated with projects by capturing an audit trail of the entire design- and-build activity, thereby lowering the likelihood of disputes during and after the project," he says. But contractors and subcontractors are also a key part of the equation and a key focus of AEC dot coms. Carl Bass, president and CEO of buzzsaw.com, notes that for firms in the building industry, the sooner they finish a project, the less that project costs them and the higher their profit margin. "Extra days of unplanned work could mean the difference between profit and loss for a subcontractor," he says. And the need to collaborate in order to efficiently manage construction costs holds true not just for mammoth-size construction projects where billions of dollars are at stake, but also for smaller construction projects, according to Joan Allen, a product marketing manager with the newly launched buzzsaw.com. "A lot of AutoCAD customers are working in small work groups and are asking for ways to communicate data without a lot of overhead," she says. "This service is meant to meet those needs."   Customers of buzzsaw.com need little more than a Web browser to get them connected and using a low-cost online construction-management extranet. A Host of Hosting Options Whoever initiates a particular project's extranet ends up with considerable control. The various extranet providers each have strong orientations towards different sectors of the building process. At one end of the spectrum are some of the newer sites that charge no fee or a small storage fee and require users to have little more than a Web browser to participate. These companies hope to make a profit by establishing a critical mass of key construction-industry players that will attract suppliers for eventual online e-commerce and online advertising. At the other end of the spectrum and targeted more toward the owners of large-scale projects are companies such as Framework Technologies. Framework sells a Web-based software package at a pretty substantial price, then helps train customers to set up and run their own project site. "Building owners are driving the demand for project extranets as they seek to stay better informed of a project's status," notes Daniel Slavin, president and CEO of Framework Technologies. The new project extranets cannot disregard the many legal contractual obligations and responsibilities in the construction process; to survive and be successful will mean accommodating these unique needs for control. "Our policy as a facilitator of document sharing is to stay out of the issues of document and drawing ownership," says Framework's Brian Giuffrida, director of marketing. "We remind clients that all of those issues should be set up in the contracts up front, and we give them the customization and configuration tools they need to reflect the right relationships. We find that, whereas architects were the original ones who picked up this technology, now it is primarily construction managers and the building owners who start and run most of the extranets. The owners stand to reap the greatest rewards from the extranet; projects get done faster, and the same benefits can be applied to the process of managing the facility after construction closeout. The building owners essentially will want to keep the extranet going on forever to allow for more efficient facilities management." While a company such as Framework with its orientation toward the owner and construction manager emphasizes longer-term project management and provides the collaboration tools to match, other dot coms are targeting architects and offering a slate of design software tools as part of the mix of collaboration and hosting services. "We find that it is primarily the architects who are really jumping in and starting the project extranets," says Bill Tucker, vice president of Bricsnet. "They tend to be more technically savvy and comfortable with computers and the Web than the contractors or owners. On smaller projects, the owners look to the architects for advice and suggestions on this kind of thing and want the architects to just set it up for them. We have been very successful working with the AIA to develop features. We find that most building owners don't have FM software to make continuing the extranet worthwhile, so they usually just archive it all onto CDs." Being Co., Ltd. president Yoshishige Tusda has tried multiple services and uses the collaboration service offered by Cubus Corp.. "We evaluated several collaboration solutions and selected Cubus because of its unique approach to the collaborative process and its high-performance technology." Gwendolyn Marker, senior marketing manager of Cubus, notes that education and training are also important in implementing a successful collaboration solution.   Framework Technologies customers, generally building owners or owner representatives, run their own extranets using Framework's ActiveProject technology. As Easy As Checking Email Most AEC dot com vendors agree that these tools have to be easy to use to encourage busy architects, owners, engineers and contractors to adopt them. "Our model for ease of use is the airport kiosk where someone can check on any aspect of a project very quickly with no help whatsoever," says Ian Howell, vice president of Blueline Online. "When people need to look at composite documents (for example, a drawing file containing xrefs), we want to turn that task into a no-brainer. They won't have to even think about individual drawings and whether they actually need to load such and such file as an xref; the system will just show them the various plans as needed. One of the ways we make the interface easier is to allow drag and drop in a Windows Explorer interface where ProjectNet Neighborhood shows up just like any other system icon on your Network Neighborhood. You can use ProjectNet Neighborhood to schedule and automate work activities during off-peak hours." Site vendors are utilizing leading-edge Web technology to "personalize" site visits so that once they get the attention of an AEC user, they keep it. In the very near future, says Tucker, "when people log onto Bricsnet, they will get a site with an interface personalized and even localized for them. Thus an architect will see a different set of tools than a contractor or owner; California suppliers will show up on CA projects, and customers in France will see their services in French-something that emphasizes the global nature of Bricsnet as a company." "Our software is very easy to use," says Framework's Giuffrida. "We provide drag-and-drop publishing that automatically checks xrefs, direct viewing of drawings and easy set ups for Web conference net meetings." Vendors are also attempting to shore up the ease-of-use hook by ensuring that their services are comprehensive and flexible enough to offer easy access to information once a customer is into a project. Says Cubus Corp.'s Marker, "Graphical indexing takes the review experience one step further by integrating every message and attached file with its associated view on a project drawing. ReviewIt users can be absolutely sure they are looking at the exact view of the drawing and its associated discussion that the original user had in mind." Bidcom CEO Daryl Magana notes that its system "focuses on intelligent data work flow for process management (www.bidcom.com). We use business-process modeling, which anticipates to whom documents should go and prompts users with what the next step should be." buzzsaw.com, though one of the newest start-ups in the AEC dot com arena, draws upon its connection with Autodesk to tap into a customer base schooled in AutoCAD and DWG for design and sees its viewing technology as an attractive extra. The site will soon offer a full redlining version of Autodesk's deluxe viewing product, VoloView Express, to its slate of services and product offerings.   Customers of Bricsnet.com can order DWG-based architectural software by subscription basis online and subscribe to a project management extranet. A Range of Pricing Models Arguably one of the most slippery aspects of AEC dot coms for potential customers is determining what exactly needs to be budgeted for project extranet usage. Some of the newest sites offer "free" hosting up to a target megabyte threshold and then modest storage pricing from there. Others provide a range of services at a range of costs. "Our pricing model of charging only by the project with an unlimited number of users is better for the projects and collaborators since it is inclusive-you can feel free to invite all your subcontractors and everyone on the design team to participate," says Ian Howell of Blueline Online. The company charges $1,250 per month per project with unlimited users; pricing for the LT version has not been set. Typical projects, notes Howell, need at least 12 collaborators and about 1,000MB of storage. He cautions that extranet providers with pricing schemes that charge by the person or by MB or that start out free (for a smaller amount of space) may not be the bargains they seem at first. "We have a number of revenue streams that help support us," says Bricsnet's Tucker. "Banner ads, company sponsors, software sales, the ProjectCenter extranet, the online store, the online catalogs (we have entire 800-page catalogs) and AIA documents." The ProjectCenter Web site (formerly EVOLV) is $259 per month ($199 for AIA members) with storage space up to 200MB; up to 2,000MB for $489 per month. "In the future we intend to add bidding, Palm hand-held support and product-procurement services." Bricsnet will also offer architectural software for subscription at its site, including Bricsnet Architecturals, a DWG-based architectural design product; Bricsnet Structurals, a suite of products for the structural engineering of frames, beams and plates; and Briscnet IntelliCAD 2000 (available in the first quarter of 2000). The company also plans in the first quarter of the new century to have a Japanese portal site as well as portals in key European languages, including French, German and Dutch. Framework Technologies, with its emphasis on building owners and longer-term, larger-scale building projects has a different pricing model altogether than the new AEC dot coms. "We feel strongly that it is building owners who will want to own their own building data on a permanent basis, and we can customize links to other in-house databases that the services cannot," says Giuffrida. ActiveProject ranges in purchase price from $30,000 for 30 users (unlimited viewers) as an add-on to Microsoft Access to $89,000 for 100 users for Oracle databases. Cubus concentrates on design drawings and documents-not e-commerce-and offers its ReviewIt extranet service for $1,500 per month per project with unlimited users or $150 per month per user with unlimited projects.   Cubus Corp.'s extranet service at www.cubus.net provides the ability to associate views of a project drawing with an attached file and related team-member messages. From Early Adopters to Industry Standard It took CADD almost a decade to become a standard way of doing business in the construction industry primarily because it had a high cost, a steep learning curve and caused a fundamental change in the way we work. Fax machines were integrated into our work environment much faster because the cost was far lower, there was no learning curve and very little changed in how we approached work-except for the added convenience. The acceptance of extranets among CADD users will likely be more analogous to the fax scenario than what we went through with the introductions of computers or CADD. Already for many, Web-based construction-project management is becoming a preferred approach. With the explosion of dot coms in the closing months of 1999 (one industry expert has identified more than 80 AEC-industry-focused extranets), vendors are obviously jockeying for position in a market that tips the scale at more than $3-plus trillion worldwide and more than $670 billion in the United States. Will a selected few of these AEC dot coms, like the key carriers in the airline travel market, emerge as the extranet-providers-of-choice? It's too soon to say. But they obviously bear watching-and sampling-as they solidify their products and services. As with most every other discipline, the building industry will doubtless see more and more of its transactions move online as we move further into the new digital century. Geoffrey Moore Langdon is a registered architect and is the principal of Architectural CADD Consultants, a firm that specializes in helping architectural firms with computing and CADD. He has taught design, solar energy and architectural CADD at a number of colleges in the Boston area. Reach him at glangdon@shore.net. Arnie Williams is editor in chief of CADENCE. Reach him at awilliams@mfi.com.    Bidcom's project-management services draw upon artificial intelligence to anticipate user needs. The kind of extranet-based change tracking and audit trail associated with drawing and construction management reduces the risks and liability associated with building projects for Blueline Online's customers. Customers of buzzsaw.com need little more than a Web browser to get them connected and using a low-cost online construction-management extranet. Framework Technologies customers, generally building owners or owner representatives, run their own extranets using Framework's ActiveProject technology. Customers of Bricsnet.com can order DWG-based architectural software by subscription basis online and subscribe to a project management extranet. Cubus Corp.'s extranet service at www.cubus.net provides the ability to associate views of a project drawing with an attached file and related team-member messages. Bidcom's project-management services draw upon artificial intelligence to anticipate user needs. Home | Current Issue | Back Issues | News | Advertise | Code Archive | Contact | CADShop | Subscribe for Free | © 1997-2000 Miller Freeman, Inc. All rights Reserved.