Survey shows design falls short of best practice in coordination & collaboration

Friday, 3 July 2009

A survey into the use of Computer Aided Design within the construction industry by Excitech has
identified that it is in the areas of coordination and collaboration that the industry falls furthest short
of what is practiced in the leading organisations. Perhaps recognising this, some 60% of organisations surveyed are currently exploring or preparing to introduce new processes, workflows or technologies but only 56% of the organisations have a long term CAD strategy.
 
To gather this information Excitech carried out a survey within the UK construction industry in May
2009. Some 375 responses were received covering a diverse range of design disciplines and company sizes. The survey consisted of 45 questions and was carried out online with the incentive for participants of a detailed report of the results. Those invited to participate were selected by job title (manager, director, partner etc.) from Excitech’s contact database and while many were Excitech
customers nearly a third were not.
 
The questions covered a diverse range of areas including CAD Standards and Management, Project
and Document Management, Hardware and Software Systems as well as Training and Support. From
these Excitech has been able to discern a wide range of detailed statistics as well as score benchmarks against key factors which impact on productivity, cost, quality and risk. 

Particularly noteworthy statistics include the following:
• While 60% of organisations are currently exploring or preparing to introduce new processes        workflows or technologies, this varies widely according to organisation size with 39% of smaller        organisations and 86% of larger organisations responding positively.
• Only 45% of respondents state that they have CAD standards in place which have been reviewed    recently; some 22% say they have no CAD standards at all.
• Most design coordination (83% of responses) between design disciplines is still being done in only  2D.
• For 68% of respondents, their organisation’s design philosophy remains 2D while some 14% have moved beyond 3D to embrace full design data modelling (BIM etc.).
• 54% of respondents report that their organisations are using collaboration services/FTP systems to publish or share design files and documents internally or with third parties.
• Respondents report that clients or project partners are requiring or demanding changes in design processes with 21% being pressed to use Building Information Modelling techniques and 31% being pressed to use 3D. Note that these numbers overlap among responses.
• Some 58% of organisations continue to only use general purpose CAD software while 42% have  adopted or started to adopt discipline-specific tools.
• 59% of organisations have held formal CAD training for users within the last 2 years, but that leaves many who have not.
 
Commenting on these statistics and the full report Adrian Atkinson, Excitech Managing Director, says: “from our own experience the industry is clearly moving forward to address not just the previous and well-documented issues with regard to collaboration, quality and risk but also the current economic problems”. He continued: “but the statistics show this is fragmented with many organisations lagging seriously behind and in an industry where projects involve numerous organisations this can result in inefficiency, poor quality and waste which in turn lead to cost and time overruns.”
 
He continued to say that: “while the results are encouraging, especially with respect to the number of companies looking at reviewing their processes and technologies, there are many areas that remain poorly addressed. The small percentage of companies that have adopted 3D or BIM is disappointing, as is the commitment to maintaining skill levels with over 41% of companies not having invested in any training for staff within the last 2 years, if at all.

"There are better ways of working and there are technologies that can significantly improve the productivity and quality of the design information being generated and utilised. As an industry we have to explore how companies can review the value of new products and processes to their business so that they can make informed decisions. We have to be able to provide quantitative and supported information relating to costs, time scales and anticipated benefits for implementing change across all technology areas.”
 
Excitech now intends to use the information from this survey and the benchmarks established to help organisations to identify where they have the greatest room for improvement – then to support them in the introduction of better processes, greater skills and improved technologies.

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