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Design Review, which reduces the cost of sharing CAD documents in much the same way Adobe gives away Reader software to help people share PDFs, and Sketchbook, which "lets architects capture those 'back-of-the-napkin' sketches," says Stark. "You can then develop your ideas in other design apps when you're ready to take them further." Collaboration Mobile apps and the cloud are but two technological elements that bolster people's ability to collaborate on projects. Application programming interfaces (APIs) help as well. Sophisticated systems often ship with APIs, which enable developers to 'connect' other applications to said systems. BIM data supports energy analysis and structural analysis in different systems, and APIs can serve as the bridge for that data. Downstream, the model also supports maintenance and operations of commercial buildings, so savvy project owners (including some governments) mandate BIM usage, driving the development of APIs in the process. Clients use BIM data to support project management processes, "like helping with an RFI or developing a scope of work or putting together a bid 42/ JUNE 2012 p.40-45software_waterproofing.indd 42 package," says Tressler. "Architects get the full value of the BIM process when the people they collaborate with also use BIM," Stark notes. "It's about project teams coming together and having more insight into the design data to support decisions, not just the architectural model but how it aligns with engineering models and the as-built models that contractors often create." Perhaps the most surprising potential collaborators are the non-human ones – individual systems used in projects. Take project management, a complex affair involving multiple phases, various consultants, different billing methods and other layers of detail. Qazi doesn't think this should be a problem. "You should not have to rely on managers to know where the project is," he says, noting that push technology can be used to notify managers when certain measures meet preset criteria, like late con irmations for delivery of materials or overdue invoices. "The system can take over tasks that are repetitive and mundane, things that the system can do to 'watch' a project on behalf of managers." Qazi also champions the notion of 'zero-entry' software – tools that can take care of all data entry needed for speci ic tasks. He offers time capture as an example. "The iPhone has a GPS," he explains. "If an employee leaves the of ice and goes to a job site and comes back, not only should we be able to igure out how long it took him to travel to the job site and return, but we should be able to igure out how many hours he stayed at the job site." "We can get the GPS location, we can igure out the address, we can match it with our database of project addresses, we can know exactly what job site you are at. All you have to do is review and approve the timesheet." Managers won't rely entirely on preset alerts or zero-entry software. Dashboards can provide key information managers can use to foresee risks and better determine the next steps they need to take. Dashboards can also become sources of business intelligence. "Businesses want to know which employees are high performers, when employees inish tasks within allocated budgets, and which clients pay on time," Qazi offers as examples. The technology mentioned to this point is both available and widely used. But Richard Kula looks forward to the day when everything clients need gets integrated into one tool, eliminating, or at least reducing, the need to move information between different programs and the attendant time delays. "A design architect could keep a running energy consumption total, showing right away how speci ic changes increase or decrease energy totals," says Kula, principal of Diagram Building Certi ication Consultants Inc., by way of example. "That doesn't exist yet." Kula's clients want to cost-effectively build sustainably. "There's an underlying business case for building green – everything from reduced energy consumption to employee productivity," he says. Kula believes that a clearer de inition of the data and analysis required by each discipline at each stage of the design and construction phase of the project could lead to more comprehensive software. "The objective for architects is to increase the amount of detail as the design evolves," Kula continues. "From the green building perspective, we're trying to incorporate the appropriate amount of detail. We're not bouncing light rays off coat hooks. That takes computing time." "The software developers are doing a great job. It's just that there are so many jobs to do that it's hard to be all things to all people." ■ AEC Software 5/25/12 11:51:03 AM

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