IMPROVING TEAMWORK AND COLLABORATION IN DESIGN ENVIRONMENTS

Transcription

1 IMPROVING TEAMWORK AND COLLABORATION IN DESIGN ENVIRONMENTS A WHITE PAPER PREPARED BY ZIFF DAVIS MARKET EXPERTS PREPARED FOR

2 IMPROVING TEAMWORK AND COLLABORATION IN DESIGN ENVIRONMENTS A WHITE PAPER FOR B ENTLEY S YSTEMS, INCORPORATED INTRODUCTION It goes without saying that design and engineering staffs are often the most critical and precious resources for AEC firms and owner-operators. The ability to improve the productivity of the team and its supporters can often mean faster time to market, quicker revenue generation, or lowered costs, all of which translate into better bottom-line profits. This White Paper will examine the impact of new capabilities that are now offered by Bentley s MicroStation. These new features will materially impact efficiency in the design process. Bentley s offering has two new primary benefits that should be attractive to AutoCAD and MicroStation users. These benefits include: The ability to natively support DWG files with full consistency and fidelity A new version management capability that makes it far easier to track changes, modifications, and individual contributions to the design effort This White Paper will provide the details of rigorous testing by etesting Labs that shows the fidelity and consistency that Bentley provides in saving, modifying, and writing AutoCAD files. In addition, it will provide the reader with a number of the benefits that can be realized when utilizing the unique version management that is found in the MicroStation product. CREATING NEW EFFICIENCIES FOR MIXED DESIGN SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS ALLOWING INDIVIDUAL CHOICES IN SINGLE DATA STRUCTURE ENVIRONMENTS One of the realities that managers often face is that individual designers or engineers may use different tools, or prefer different design tools, based on the activity that they are currently engaged in. Despite any data or reviews that we might have, it s generally simpler and more expedient to allow the individual to use the incumbent tool. Forcing immediate change often does not work, as the designers may rebel openly, rebel subtly by slowing down their work, or claim that tool inefficiencies or lack of knowledge is the problem. The balance to the individual view of things is the management view. Clearly, a single environment provides a number of benefits that are critically important and highly valued. For example, a single tool provides consistency at the data level that makes it far easier to assemble the work of a group or work team. There are also licensing issues, single-vendor relationships, and the benefits of a simple support environment for IT to consider. Management or support teams are also the ones who have to create order or at a minimum, integrate all of this disparate work and often bear the brunt of dealing with work done in two different environments. Most significant is the interaction between collaborating organizations. While an organization may generally use one tool or another, any substantial AEC project requires interaction of many firms and therefore very probably would benefit from the capability to support the interchange of DWG and DGN files. VISIT BENTLEY ONLINE AT: 1

3 CREATING NEW EFFICIENCIES FOR MIXED DESIGN SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS (CONT.) In the absence of such interoperability, to avoid problematic translations, many projects otherwise tend to resort to the least common denominator in their project deliverables paper drawings or raster images thereof, which provide no opportunity for e-business efficiencies. An AEC environment dominated by two principal formats is an inescapable fact. For this reason, Bentley s new paradigm which allows the cross-use of AutoCAD and MicroStation files without loss of data or functionality is an incredibly important breakthrough. This ability for collaborating firms to move files seamlessly between MicroStation and AutoCAD breaks down many of the barriers between workers and organizations, and provides for a level of design management efficiency that can and will have a real bottom-line impact for many firms. "CLEARLY, A SINGLE ENVIRONMENT PROVIDES A NUMBER OF BENEFITS THAT ARE CRITICALLY IMPORTANT AND HIGHLY VALUED." In this environment, fidelity of the file contents and attributes is extremely important. Based on the work conducted by etesting Labs, it is clearly evident that Bentley has delivered the level of capability that is necessary for this approach to provide real value. The new release of MicroStation changes this situation by raising interoperability to an entirely new level. Bentley s solution is focused on a high level of interoperability between the native file structures of MicroStation and AutoCAD. This entails a number of key capabilities, which include: Visual fidelity Element fidelity Order fidelity Data integrity The facility for this seamless integration is called DWG Work Mode in MicroStation. This mode allows the designer to open, modify, and save a drawing that s in DWG format within MicroStation and without translation at any point in the process. The file itself is not converted or translated between the two environments, which is a principal reason why problems are kept to a minimum. The value of this approach is very obvious to any customer of either product. This new capability breaks down the barriers to working together, and dramatically simplifies a number of issues regarding the sharing of work and the integration of contributions to project work. To ensure that this capability worked as promised, etesting Labs (an independent unit of Ziff Davis Media) performed a series of technical tests to determine the level of fidelity achieved when using this new DWG Work Mode, as well as the level of consistency achieved among file elements used in this manner. These tests were conducted in May 2002, on two identical Pentium 4 systems running Windows XP. A copy of MicroStation V8 was installed on one system, and AutoCAD 2002 was installed on the other. All standard default settings were used. VISIT BENTLEY ONLINE AT: 2

4 CREATING NEW EFFICIENCIES FOR MIXED DESIGN SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENTS (CONT.) The tests were conducted on the example files provided with AutoCAD to demonstrate the most advanced AutoCAD capabilities in the context of representative project data. These files included the following: Opera.dwg MKMplan.dwg R DWG Truckmodel.dwg The files were first opened in both MicroStation V8 and AutoCAD 2002 and visually inspected to find out if there were any display differences. Based on the tests, there were no discernible visual differences found in the files working in either product. "THE ABILITY TO WORK NATIVELY WITH DIFFERENT SOURCE FILE FORMATS IS EXTRAORDINARILY VALUABLE..." The test then used an AutoCAD add-on tool (Compare DWG 2000 from Furix BV) to examine the database-level definitions of each entity in the original DWG file, and the file opened and saved in DWG format in MicroStation. While there were some initial reports of differences among arc angles, these discrepancies turned out to be of no consequence. Changes as indicated by the test software (the value of the angles differ by exactly 360 degrees) were due to the direction (clockwise) in which the angle was created. There is no actual difference visually or in the value of the angles represented in the files. The next test involved taking sample files that were shipped with MicroStation V8 and converting them from DGN format to DWG, and then opening them in AutoCAD. This test demonstrates whether MicroStation supports two-way fidelity. A visual inspection of the drawings proved that there was no discernible difference between the original DGN version and the new DWG version. The drawings were then analyzed using the Properties tool in AutoCAD and the Element Information Tool in MicroStation. Although both tools use slightly different terms and approaches for this task, most functions are reasonably parallel. Again, there were no discernible differences found in the files. Finally, the last test checked the layers of the drawings to ensure that full fidelity was achieved. Using the Layer Properties Manager in AutoCAD and the Level Manager in MicroStation, etesting Labs checked for parallelism in the two corresponding structures. The tests found no differences in the number of layers or the properties. It is clear from these tests that the necessary levels of fidelity, interoperability, and consistency exist when DWG files are used in MicroStation V8, and when the DGN files are saved as DWG for use with AutoCAD These capabilities provide an extremely valuable and cost-effective facility for enhancing the interaction of designers and their support teams. The ability to share work created in either application creates incredible flexibility for the customer where none existed previously. The goal of complete DWG fidelity in MicroStation has been met based on the results from etesting Labs. VISIT BENTLEY ONLINE AT: 3

5 THE VALUE OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT What other endeavor has as many changes, modifications, and iterations as a large-scale engineering or architectural project? In reality, such a process is actually designed to create change. Therefore, the ability to create an audit trail as well as generate a clear understanding of what has changed, and when, is a boon both to designers and the management team that is using their work. The ability to see what specifically has changed based upon a timeframe, an individual contributor, or as the result of other feedback, creates the kind of information and diagnostic environment that can save an enormous amount of time and money in the event that rework is needed. Further, having a standard method for maintaining an as-built record and managing change is a great advancement, as many prior efforts consisted of policies as simplistic as daily save, or admonitions to designers to save major versions with little if any definition of what constituted a major version. This created a problem when a team had to go back for any reason and manually compare electronic or printed drawings to attempt to understand what had changed and why. "THE KEY IS FILE FIDELITY AND CONSISTENCY, WHICH MICROSTATION V8 ALONE DELIVERS." While the value of this capability is fairly obvious, consider the problem in an environment where one is constantly consolidating work from different contributors and it its clear that the problem becomes very complex. This is one important reason why the Bentley solution of combining strong file interoperability and change management provides a more comprehensive value proposition than either might in isolation. The new change management capability in MicroStation V8, called Design History, manifests itself in a number of distinct ways: Ability to track individual contributions Ability to undo work that has been integrated into the whole Ability to backtrack to the last successful or approved version Ease of diagnosis for problems or incompatibilities Time sequence of additions and changes The ability to track individual contributions may be utilized in many different ways by a regular user. For example, if contributors are compensated based on activity (a common practice for companies who use contract labor), the change management tool makes it easier to detail who did what, and when. Or, if a team member was given bad specifications or directions, the process of removing their work is simplified. Another important value to change management is that it allows you to remove work that has been integrated into a larger overall design. For example, if a component or subassembly was changed or replaced, the process of updating the affected parts of the design that have been superceded by the new requirements is vastly simplified. A common occurrence that plagues some design firms is when changes or specifications have moved so much that it becomes necessary to backtrack to VISIT BENTLEY ONLINE AT: 4

6 the last approved, or successful, version. Change management allows designers to go back with little, if any, time penalty. Design History also simplifies finding the point at which a design no longer met specifications, stopped working, or invalidated previous approval. If you can isolate the elements that are causing the problem, it s easier to diagnose when and how they occurred using change management. Finally, the ability to manage the timeline is also improved by Design History. Using change management, it s very easy to understand what elements of the design were completed, by whom, and when they were added. SUMMARY When one examines the latest version of MicroStation, it s clear that Bentley has excelled at adding features that create real value for the individual designer, the workgroup, and collaborating firms. While too much of the inventiveness around architectural and engineering tools has been focused on the designer, MicroStation V8 goes one step further by providing solutions to the problems that arise from integrating and managing the work that comes from the use of these tools. The ability to work natively with different source file formats is extraordinarily valuable, and can substantively improve the timeliness of projects by streamlining the integration of the work contributed by collaborating organizations. The key is file fidelity and consistency, which MicroStation V8 alone delivers. The second very real benefit of this software is its ability to manage changes or iterations of a design with its change management tool, Design History. There are so many times when a drawing might be decomposed based on the time that something was added or changed (or based upon other personnel or interface issues), that the ability to track back to preceding versions efficiently is highly valuable. Bentley has carefully considered how the design and design management processes can best be managed to help users increase efficiency and lower overall costs. These two capabilities add a great deal to an already top-flight product. While the benefits to managers will be obvious and welcome, these unique capabilities give designers good reason to consider MicroStation as their design platform of choice. 2002, Ziff-Davis Media. Bentley, the "B" logo and MicroStation are registered trademarks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or Bentley Software. AutoCAD is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Incorporated. VISIT BENTLEY ONLINE AT: 5