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CAD Standards Part III: Are CAD Standards Important?
by: Joe Croser - CroserConsulting
Only if you want to see improvements in process!
We all know that the most valuable part of any company is the staff; loose them and all the technology in the world will not be able to replace their combined knowledge and ability. What however would you say is your company’s most valuable non-human asset: Premises, IT Infrastructure?
If you think it is either of the above then you would be mistaken, while they may have cost a great deal they are easily replaced should the need arise. Your greatest asset is not something you can buy; rather it is something that you have created. It is something that can greatly affect the success of any project guaranteeing future contracts and further success. Your greatest asset is the information you create!
The quality and most importantly the legibility of the information you produce will affect your projects as differently as night and day (not Martyn). In earlier papers in this series I have focused on the accuracy and depth of content of information produced, likening them to the foundations of a building; get it right at a fundamental level and any further improvements and developments will only enhance an already sturdy base.
Building on a rock-solid base of producing accurate information presented with an appropriate amount of detail for purpose, the introduction of a common mechanism for organising and managing the information is the logical next step. Implementing a company CAD Standard is akin to agreeing which language you are going to use to converse with your colleagues. When we all speak fluently in the same language we reduce the amount of misunderstandings and we only need say something once, rather than having to repeat ourselves over and over, each time trying to say the same thing differently to get the message across.
However as we don’t all use the same CAD standards we find ourselves arguing about which one we will adopt on any given collaborative project. A great quote sums this up nicely:
“Standards are like toothbrushes, everybody agrees you should have one, but no one wants to use yours!”
When implementing project-wide CAD standards many organisations and individuals regard them as a necessary evil and reluctantly nod in their direction rather than embracing them with fervour. This is largely due to the fact that there seems to be a different CAD Standard imposed on each project with larger companies having to contend with many different standards within the same office at the same time. Furthermore, as each different standard is often presented by its creator / manager as being ‘industry recognised’ or the ‘industry standard’ it doesn’t help the cause.
Different standards within the same organisation create many problems for the companies involved. Internal staff resourcing is greatly affected as designers cannot be freely moved between different teams as the workload rises and falls according to the project program and the IT and CAD support departments suffer as they have to get to grips with the variances in the standards being used. It must be for this reason that different organisations have implemented their own standard as variations on a common theme.
So what is the key to defining and implementing a CAD standard within your company?
As with all developmental projects the key to success is in fully defining your goals and understanding the problem in the first instance. There are four key elements, which must be considered and catered for:
Ease of use + Granularity + Flexibility + Scaleability
Any standard must be easy and logical to use in house while being capable of effectively communicating your designs to other consultants. It makes no sense to implement a standard, which prevents you from communicating with others, or is difficult to use and does not really cater for your needs internally. The CAD tool of choice should also be made easier to use with the standards in place than it was without. Think freedom rather than shackles.
The standard should have a level of granularity for dividing the various design elements across many layers, which is on a par with all of the major industry standard approaches. With such a division of elements your standard can easily be converted to reflect the presentation of another without a major re-organisation of the data structure.
The standard must be flexible to enable you to work on different types of projects without the need for different standards.
Finally, the ideal standard will be scaleable. As your requirements as an organisation grow so too will the standard without the need for a major re-working involving the inevitable re-acclimatisation and training. In affect you need a structure, which a project can ‘grow into’ as the design develops through feasibility, planning and construction stages including generic layers for concept development as well as detailed construction elements.
To sum up Rudyard Kipling’s poem “IF” springs to mind. For those who are not familiar with it, ‘If’ is a great poem which starts with “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…” followed by lots of other “If you can…” type lines before finishing with “…you’ll be a man my son.”
In the case of CAD standards the poem could be easily amended and greatly shortened to:
If you can create an easy to use CAD standard,
which others can simply interpret and welcome,
If you can structure your data with levels of granularity,
which mortise with other CAD standards when exchanging data;
If you can develop a flexible standard,
Which embraces and caters for different projects,
If you can make your standard scaleable and future proof,
So that it can grow with your business needs;
If you can agree standards with other consultants,
And deliver real benefit to your team,
Then you will be saving your company many thousands of pounds,
While making them more employable in the future.
About CroserConsulting
CroserConsulting is a specialist CAD consultancy for MicroStation and AutoCAD users.
After almost three years as a Director with Adrem-DCX Joe Croser started his own consultancy firm in 2001 and is currently working with some of the biggest names in London including MacCormac Jamieson Prichard, Jestico & Whiles, Geoffrey Reid Associates and Squire & Partners.
Having studied architecture in Oxford Joe went on to work in London with the Richard Rogers Partnership, contributing to the development of CAD and IT strategy for many large projects including: BAA’s Terminal 5 and the Millennium Dome in Greenwich.
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Did you miss Parts I and II of Joe's article? Write to editor@cadgurus.com to request them.
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