Built on Collaboration

An experienced architect that has also been a colleague of mine for several years has suggested a procedure for handling CAD drawing & X-Reference file exchange. Although the text was written for users of the Aconex system, it can be applied to most online document management tools.

Two points to note is that the author of the drawings should have a logical drawing numbering system (hard & softcopy matching) and should also have a logical reference file or X-Ref numbering system.

Here is the suggested procedure:

1. Drawing author uploads and registers drawings and X-Ref files to the system.
2. Author transmits files to relevant consultants.
3. Author transmits X-Ref files to relevant CAD Manager.
4. The CAD Manager downloads X-Ref files to a specified folder on the organization's local server, for storage of X-Ref. Note that, using the 'CAD Standard' and the 'Config' functions in AutoCAD, it is possible to define a standard set of X-Ref folder structures to be used by all project participants.
5. Relevant consultant designers download drawing files to their PC or network and open them in AutoCAD. The related and current X-Refs will be automatically extracted from the local network folder location. This is likely to already be set up.
6. When an X-Ref file is updated the drawing author simply needs to upload and supersede (replace) the previous version of the file and run an Auto-Update-Transmit which automatically identifies the previous recipients of the file and sends them a transmittal. All they need do then is simply download as before and overwrite the previous version of the file with the latest working version (most online document management tools store all historical versions so users don't need to manage this aspect).

The advantages of using this process are that:

• Consultants do not need to change the way they work internally with CAD files - they will not be required to modify their existing folder structures.
• X-References can be sent independently from the Drawing files either on a scheduled milestone basis or an 'as updated' basis. This will mean that X-References do not need to be uploaded every time a drawing file is uploaded. This reduces the impact on upload/download speeds (compared to uploading the X-Refs each time).
• All project information is maintained and managed on one central platform, from where it cannot be deleted.
• There is a full audit trail of document updates and transmittals. Because the web collaboration tool stores all historical versions of all documents, users no longer need to manage this aspect internally.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on managing this type of issue. Is there a better way?

Labels: Good practice