Bus drivers, welders, CAD professionals - spot the odd one out...

What do bus drivers and welders have in common that CAD professionals don't?

Not sure? The answer is simple; bus drivers and welders need to demonstrate their professional credentials on a regular basis throughout their careers, in order to be allowed to do their job.

Bus drivers (and lorry drivers from next month) have to pass a 'certificate of professional competence' in order to drive their vehicles in the UK .

Here's the background; the CPC was developed as a requirement of the EU Directive 2003/59, which is designed to improve the knowledge and skills of professional LGV and PCV drivers throughout their working life. There are two parts to the legislation:
- An Initial Qualification that must be achieved by new (LGV and PCV) drivers along with their vocational licence to enable them to use their licence professionally.
- Periodic Training, which involves all professional drivers undertaking 35 hours of training every 5 years.

Now let's look at the humble welder;

Welder certification are specially designed tests to determine a welder's skill and ability to deposit sound weld metal. The tests consist of many variables, including the specific welding process, type of metal, thickness, joint design, position, and others. Most certifications expire after a certain time limit, and have different requirements for renewal or extension of the certification. Once a welder passes a test (or a series of tests) their employer will certify the ability to pass the test, and the limitations or extent they are qualified to weld, as a written document (welder qualification test record, or WQTR).

So if the driving industry has a recognised benchmark for performance and if the welding industry won't allow its members to pick up a blow-torch without first demonstrating they have the requisite skills, then why on earth does the AEC industry let anyone with a pulse loose with a CAD license??

A recent story on ENR.com highlighted the dangers of unqualified staff working on projects. A warehouse in Philadelphia suffered a major structural collapse, resulting in damages of $3.5M USD. A building-collapse expert concluded, 'The team committed several engineering errors of "amazing proportions" that caused the Philadelphia warehouse to fail under the weight of snow'. He found that the warehouse had only one-third of the steel roof framing it needed.

Someone using analysis software grossly underestimated the quantity of materials, the error went unnoticed, the building was constructed, the snow fell... and they firm got hit with $3.5M in costs. Plus a bunch of people got hurt when the roof fell in. Ouch! Suddenly a few extra bucks on testing a person's proficiency using engineering software, plus a few hours training, seems like a good use of the company resources!

A CIO at a large US design firm recently said to me; “The minute you give someone a CAD license on their desktop – you are effectively giving them full access to your end product. You want to be sure they know what they are doing!”. This firm doesn't allocate a CAD license to someone's desktop unless they have first met the minimum threshold competence level for CAD performance, as identified by the firms CAD administrators (using CADsmart, in this instance).

A bus company doesn't give someone the keys to its shiniest double-decker without making absolutely sure that they have the current skills required to drive the vehicle. Isn't it time that the AEC industry recognised the need for clear skills certification in core authoring, BIM, Civil and analysis software packages? And a continuous improvement program for design and engineering professionals to demonstrate their credentials to their employers on an ongoing basis?

Rory

CADsmart development update

We are quite regularly asked what we have scheduled in our technical roadmap. The truth is, it can vary, depending on customer feedback, focus group activity, market trends, strategic decisions by the major vendors, and so on.

In spite of the economic backdrop, we remain pretty flat-out on our technical deliveries this year. BIM is clearly a big influencer in our current workload.

Our plans are sometimes subject to change, but to give you an idea of what we're focusing on this year, I've outlined our technical delivery roadmap, as follows;

- Feb 09-Mar 09 - MicroStation Rail x 10, Revit 64-bit compatibility (upgrade to SQL Server) and 2010 compatibility
- Apr 09-May 09 - Revit Structure basic x 10, MicroStation 3D x 10 and Bentley Architecture basic x 10
- Jun 09-Jul 09 - Revit MEP basic x 10 and Revit Architecture basic x 20
- Aug 09-Sept 09 - Revit Architecture & Revit Structure advanced x 10
- Oct 09-Nov 09 - Bentley Structural basic x 10 and quiz wizard module

We're also working on creating a framework for BIM accreditation; more to follow on this item later. Plus a development to compliment Bentley's Be Employable initiative. We also go live with a link to 4D's CADLearning training tools - 'Curriculum Builder' - in the next month or so.

Looking ahead to next year, we'll be continuing work on our existing portfolio, but also plan to create assessment libraries for the following; Geopak, Civil 3D, AutoPlant, Bentley Mechanical and maybe Inventor. Plus the usual Dashboard and reporting developments, not to mention custom library work for existing customers!

Hope that's useful; if there are any items you don't see mentioned here, or if you have any questions about the CADsmart development roadmap, why not give us a call?

Rory

CADsmart presents to AIA CIO LFRT meeting

I've been on the road this week, and it's been an eventful trip. My week started in Exton, PA, for a meeting at Bentley HQ. No sooner had I rented my car from Philly airport, than the local radio announced that Pennsylvania was expecting 10 inches of snow overnight! And so it proved, when I awoke on Monday morning to a scene from the movie 'Winter Wonderland'. I think my GPS had a Machiavellian streak, because the 30 mile drive to Exton took in just about every icy, snow laden side road in the county, studiously avoiding the nicely gritted Interstate!

The meeting at Bentley was very positive; we'll shortly be releasing news about a collaborative program, where CADsmart is contributing to their recently announced 'Be Employable' initiative.

Oh yes, and one other highlight of my visit to Philly; I found the 'Rocky steps' by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and couldn't resist running up to the top (though I stopped short of doing a little dance) ;)

Next stop was Tampa, Florida, a complete contrast in meteorological fortunes! 75 degrees and sunny, I decided to take a walk from my hotel to my morning appointment; some 9 or so blocks. Clearly this wasn't a bright idea, as I forgot just how vast distances are in the US versus the UK. After 20 minutes of walking (the first 5 in the wrong direction!) I soon realised my schoolboy error. Murphy's law of taxis kicked in (when you need one, they're nowhere to be found) and I was creeping towards being late for my meeting. At that moment, I happened to see a battered blue sedan pulling out of a car park in front of me, so I jumped out in front of the mildly traumatised driver and said, 'Ill give you $20 to drive me 1 mile in that direction!' When he realised that I was a mildly harrassed and geographically challenged (lost) corporate executive, rather than a car-jacker with poor taste, he eagerly accepted my offer and the deal was sealed.

The meeting with Axiom was very useful; more news to follow, but we're in discussion to co-promote CADsmart and Axiom's LearningBay training suite for Bentley users.

And so, on to the beautiful city of Charleston, SC, for the AIA CIO LFRT (large firm round table) meeting, where we had been invited to present a session on capturing performance metrics for CAD & BIM teams. My thanks to George Temple, CIO at LS3P and Shawn Foster at Jacobs, for their hospitality during my stay. Charleston is a wonderful place to spend some time, rich in history and southern charm; it also helps that my visit coincides with their annual food & wine festival (http://www.charlestonfoodandwine.com/2009/) :)

The CIO LFRT meeting was an information packed 2 days, covering a host of topical issues facing AEC firms in the current climate. 30 large architectural practices were shown how CADsmart's performance metrics provide a powerful source of business intelligence for firms using Autodesk & Bentley software, particularly in these challenging times.

I think I'll book ahead for my taxi back to the airport.

Rory

This just gets gooder and gooder!

I managed to have a few days off over the Christmas holidays this time around, which was great. No emails, no phone calls, no spreadsheets, just good company, (too much) good food and drink, time relaxing with family - all good stuff.

My two year old daughter made me smile amidst a tornado of shredded wrapping paper on Christmas morning. When her mum asked her if she had everything she wanted from Santa, she shrieked, 'This gets gooder and gooder!'. Naturally, we fell about, but the phrase stuck.

As with all software products, they're never really finished, as such; there's always more that can be developed, especially with great customer ideas streaming in for each new release. CADsmart is no different in this respect. But during my holiday down-time, I indulged in a bit of reflection about the past 5 years or so, back to the early days of our fledgling attempts to capture reliable metrics on how people use CAD. Things have moved on a bit since then, and everything on our original wishlist of features is now live in the current software - something we could only dream about back in the day.

Just last year, we completed a major upgrade of our core architecture, adopting the latest programming technology and web services functionality, to make our user journey that much smoother. We also undertook and delivered our first Revit release, which was challenging, but extremely rewarding.

During a web demo to leading US-based CAD consultant Robert Green last week, it suddenly dawned on me that, based on the enthusiastic feedback we received, we have actually created a damn fine piece of technology! And not just our software, which is world-class in the skills assessment field.

The lightbulb moment for me was more to do with the feedback we received on the quality and range of performance metrics which are created when the skills assessments are completed and uploaded to our customer 'dashboard' - a secure online login area where customers can access and interrogate their results data. In fact, the comment was made by Robert that the testing software is really just a tiny part of the big picture - and he's absolutely right! The testing phase is just a means to and end - it's the capturing of the CAD performance data for individuals, teams, offices and whole companies, which is the key.

We've been working hard on providing innovative and useful ways for our customers to engage with and apply their CAD metrics to improving performance across their respective organisations. In the next couple of weeks, we go live with even more functionality for CAD Managers and administrators to present CAD skills data in more of a 'management' context. We're excited at some of the new features, particularly when I look back at how some of the data was presented (using Excel and Word!) just a few short years ago.

In addition, our training reports now dovetail neatly into corresponding web-training sessions from Evolve (http://www.evolve-consultancy.com) and E-Learning classes from 4D (http://www.cadlearning.com/) which adds even more value to our user base.

To quote a wise-beyond-her-years toddler, this business 'just keeps getting gooder and gooder!' :)

Rory