You say tomato, I say...
A great thing about our industry is that, with projects becoming more internationalized, and team members based in many countries, you get an insight into other cultures, attitudes and work practices. It's fascinating to hear how other people go about their business and how they would tackle a particular challenge.
An example can be seen in Emmanuel Netter's blog post 'Aconex et la gestion des fichiers de CAO' (Aconex and management of CAD files), which is a response to my recent post 'Handling CAD drawing and Xref file exchange'. Emmanuel, a prominent figure at French collaboration provider Prosys, sees the method I laid out as 'Anglo Saxon and rigorous' and quite different to the more 'anarchic, Latin' approach.
His blog, CPLUSN, is in French so in case you don't read the language (or trust the Google translation), the main section of the post (roughly) translates as...
In tools developed for the French market, like Mezzoteam, additional modules automate the retrieval of related documents. In short, if I open an AutoCAD file, Mezzoteam will automatically retrieve the X-refs, even grabbing local copies to save on transfer time, if they are up to date.
The approach advocated by Robert is more consistent with what we see in generic tools, since file retrieval and the maintenance of links between files is done manually by the CAD Manager. You are building a local set of reference data, which the CAD manager works from.
We can see a "clash of cultures". On one side is a requirement for automation and high productivity, driven by the wish for quality assurance, but requiring everyone to play by agreed rules. On the other is a more flexible approach, less effective on paper but also less demanding in organizational terms.
So maybe the old stereotypes of Anglo-Saxon rigor and Latin anarchy have been played out in this case!
Based on the above, it appears that the differences are as much to do with the principles of the system as with how X-Refs are managed. The automated retrieval model described is interesting and suggests that there is local software being utilized that can manage downloads and cache files for re-use later. Also, it hints that users can access files (X-refs) that they have not been explicitly been given access to.
My initial thought is that, while Mezzoteam's system may be easier in some regards to the SaaS collaboration tool model, there may be security implications. Could firms be left open to unintended consequences if people can see things that the author did not want them to see? A thought-provoking post and I'll certainly look into this more. Has anyone else had experience of using both approaches?
Labels: Global trends, Good practice, Technology
