Technology companies seem to take a scattergun approach to offering products to the construction industry. Too many tech vendors fail to appreciate that work on an AEC project is done by firms that operate in discrete areas of specialisation yet with a need for collaboration, revision, and overall planning. The key to technology in the AEC industry, therefore, is focus. Technology that claims to cover every process in every project will rarely be as effective as technology that’s evolved over the years to help specific workflows and core methods.

There are, of course, more esoteric offerings from technology companies like augmented reality modelling platforms, drones and imaging solutions, robotics, and IIoT. But it’s important to recognise that the phrase’ core functionality’ is not the same as ‘basic functionality’ in this context. Take, for example, the following list of core capabilities for any piece of technology for the majority of AEC workers:

• Manage drawing sets and navigate quickly through links and labels on a mobile device,
• Make comparisons of revisions quickly and accurately so no changes get missed,
• Reduce time spent co-ordinating and calling project team members because markup and comments can be made by everyone at the same time,
• Invite external partners to collaborate on project documents in real-time,
• Create measurements and take-offs for accurate estimates without needing to click around multiple apps,
• Store information anywhere, wherever it’s needed (from Google Drive to Box to cloud storage),
• Access documents in the field through mobile apps and get deeper access to information at a desk .

Those core capabilities are certainly non-trivial for AEC software to accomplish reliably and easily in industry settings, yet a solution that does is like an irreplacable tool: software that’s focused on achieving essential work, every time.

Focused AEC software is useful for the people who need it, does its job(s) well, and does it/them reliably, day in and day out. If we take as an example the PDF-centred nature of many workflows in the AEC industry, equipping a workforce with some kind of PDF editor/viewer seems logical. But not only does general PDF software tend to ship with multiple features that will never be used, but those capabilities that will come into play are not designed for workflows in construction and engineering. Almost all were created for graphic designers and print shops. (The PDF format is a wrapper around an encapsulated PostScript file, PostScript being the language used by hardware printers.)

For over 20 years now, Bluebeam’s offering has addressed in software the problems encountered in work solely in the AEC industry. It’s iterated on its product over this time, refining tools and functions so they are practical, fast, fantastically useful and simple to use in any environment. It’s the epitome of software that’s focused on a specific vertical. Over the course of its evolution, Bluebeam has taken feedback and suggestions from its user base as to what would work, what doesn’t, and how the platform could be polished. Its features revolve around a PDF workflow, but to compare it in the same breath as, for instance, PDF-Xpress, is like comparing general-purpose Excel with the specialist accountancy software in NetSuite or SAP.

Bluebeam’s tools and features are designed for markup, collaboration, version control, estimation and take-offs, all built in a platform that is simple to use yet solves many of the challenges experienced by people in the industry over the last two decades.

Source: Bluebeam

When we spoke to David Rekker, a senior manager at Bluebeam, he said that his customers, “Learn it in the morning, use it in the afternoon.” The usability piece of the puzzle is a critical part of focused software. A platform like AutoDesk can offer the user too much complexity presented on screen in tools that are sub-optimal on site.

Despite its apparent simplicity, intuitive-to-use software does not mean limited software. The power of Bluebeam can be discovered in lessons from the Bluebeam University, a self-guided training program that helps teams learn features and workflows at their own pace, over and above the basics. Courses have step-by-step videos, interactive exercises and quizzes designed to get the most out of the software.

Practicality also has to mean adaptability. Every company has its own preferences as to where data and work are stored, like it has its own workflows and ways of tackling a project. Rather than confine files to a proprietary ecosystem, users can work with just about any other platform, storing and sharing files wherever they’re needed. “The point here is that users can simply open their PDFs and drawings in Bluebeam, do their work, and save it back to their system. Bluebeam doesn’t force them to keep all their work inside a Bluebeam ecosystem,” Rekker said.

All over the world, Bluebeam is helping create great companies. Over in Dublin, Ireland, ClearTech now wins 50% more contracts than it did before it started using the software, including household name companies like Facebook, Salesforce and Amazon. “The other companies that we work with, they use Bluebeam as well. And we communicate using the same software so we have more concise and accurate comments and reviews on the drawings,” said Thiago Tamm, a structural engineer at ClearTech. The company has now expanded into the APAC and Saudi Arabia.

Closer to home, Anchored Height Safety’s Mark Anderson said, “[Bluebeam] is now one of our key tools for documentation for our quoting markups, installations and re-certifications and for demonstrating to our clients exactly what we have delivered.” The company uses Bluebeam’s markup capabilities and templates to produce quotes, reports and drawings. It’s also integrated with the company’s job management system so workers don’t need to transfer data manually from system to system. Project management information is constantly up-to-date, and there’s better collaboration between people in the field and office teams.

Conclusion
The features we listed at the top of this article as the ideals for a piece of AEC industry software are those present in the Bluebeam platform, ready to start using today, and starting a free trial is the best way to begin. You can find out more about its available tiers and how easy it is to use from the company’s website.