Posts Tagged ‘MicroStation Acceleration Garage’

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MicroStation can’t find these. New technology from Axiom can.

Wednesday, 12 May 2010

CLEARWATER, FLORIDA, USA — Axiom, the world’s most experienced third-party developer of products that make MicroStation easier, announces the release of a version of CadExplorer that goes even further beyond the powerful capabilities of MicroStation. CAD file inspection, normally a tedious and time-consuming activity, just got an overhaul and became a lot easier with the latest release of CadExplorer.

There is no tool in any version of MicroStation that can find all elements that are — or should be — within a user-specified distance of other elements. How can a MicroStation user quickly ensure that each desk cell has a chair cell within a specified number of inches or feet in all the design files in the project? How can someone easily go through hundreds of files just to find out which cables are within 20 feet of which radio towers and then export that list to Excel? What if a project contains a multi-floor building with a fire code that requires escape route maps, fire extinguishers and special doors within so many feet of elevators and stairwells? How does someone verify that the new building design meets such codes? Short of laborious, time-consuming, element-by-element measuring, these kinds of searches can only be done with CadExplorer.

“There is no other product out there that lets someone easily peer into hundreds or thousands of MicroStation files at a time and rapidly find the elements that they need to locate”, said Axiom’s Vice President of Technology, Oscar Albornoz. He continued, “Now, with the newest release of CadExplorer, we’ve gone a step further and given users the ability to locate all pairs of elements that are within a user-specified distance of each other. For example, you can locate all support pillar cells that have an electrical outlet cell within a specified distance. Not only that, it also reports those elements that do not have a certain element within the user-specified distance. In other words, you could find all the support pillar cells that don’t have an electrical outlet within your required distance. These new capabilities can be applied to any kind of graphical element (cells, text strings, lines, arcs, shapes, tags, text nodes, the whole lot). This proximity searching feature has never before been available to MicroStation users.”

Axiom reports that in addition to the newly added proximity searching feature, CadExplorer is stuffed with tools and features that go beyond anything that can be done with MicroStation alone. CadExplorer shows users virtually all the data contained in one, ten, hundreds or even thousands of design files in an easy-to-use and intuitive grid. Need to see all the cells that are being used in any project on the network and get a count of each one? A few mouse-clicks is all it takes. What are the chances of catching an odd-ball mistake before submitting the project to a client, like a misspelled level name or some text that happens to be on the wrong level? Without CadExplorer, these are virtually impossible to locate and requires someone to laboriously go through each design file, element by element and level by level. Spotting errors like misspellings or a cell that was only used once (a shoe-in for a CAD-standards violation) becomes much easier, faster and, per Mr. Albornoz, is “even kind of fun” when using CadExplorer.

How to Contact Axiom
For more information on CadExplorer or to see a free, online demonstration, call Axiom at 727-442-7774 extension 1638 or e-mail 1638@AxiomInt.com or visit Axiom on the Web at www.AxiomInt.com.

About Axiom
Axiom is the world’s most experienced developer of time-saving MicroStation software solutions and the largest third-party provider of general-purpose add-ons and e-learning for MicroStation. Axiom focuses on making MicroStation easier by creating time-saving and productivity-boosting tools based on real-world problems MicroStation users encounter. Based in Clearwater, Florida, Axiom has been developing software for MicroStation for over 20 years. MicroStation is the flagship CAD package of Bentley Systems, Incorporated of Exton, Pennsylvania.

CadExplorer, and Axiom are trademarks of Axiom. MicroStation is a registered trademark of Bentley Systems, Incorporated.

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MicroStation Today — August 2009(Volume 16, Issue 8)

Saturday, 1 August 2009

Click here for back issues.

MicroStation Today — August 2009 (Volume 16, Issue 8)

Download a PDF version of this issue.

To read the pages above, download Adobe®‘s free Acrobat Reader®, if not already installed in your computer.

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Microsoft Office Importer adds ProjectWise support.

Friday, 15 May 2009

By Eiren Smith
What do MicroStation users do if they want to easily import large spreadsheets and word processing data into their design files with perfect formatting? What if they want to maintain a link to the original spreadsheet so that if something changes in the spreadsheet, the design file can be easily — interactively or automatically — updated? What if they use ProjectWise?

Microsoft Office Importer — which now talks to ProjectWise — lets you import word processing and spreadsheet data into your design files with formatting you control.

I’m a little tight on space this month so I’ll keep it brief. I want to tell you about Microsoft Office Importer’s brand-new and most excellent support for Bentley ProjectWise.

You all know what Microsoft Office Importer is, right? It’s Axiom’s super-popular tool for bringing data from Excel spreadsheets and Word documents into MicroStation with perfect formatting with a link to the source spreadsheet or document. Users open the spreadsheet or document, copy what they want to the clipboard, then jump over to MicroStation and paste that data, using the “Paste Clipboard Contents” button on Microsoft Office Importer’s toolbar. In addition to bringing the data in with perfect formatting, it provides tons of options so you can have things formatted exactly the way you want. Microsoft Office Importer also provides a link from that design file back to the spreadsheet or document so that pasted data in the design file can be easily (interactively or automatically) updated anytime in the future if the source spreadsheet or document file changes.

Enter ProjectWise
Microsoft Office Importer has long made all the above extremely easy to do, but (until now) wasn’t able to communicate with ProjectWise. So when Microsoft Office Importer would go to see if the spreadsheet or document had changed, that spreadsheet or document had to be in the exact same location it was when it was originally pasted into that design file. This meant two things:

  • The user had to check that spreadsheet or document out of ProjectWise before Microsoft Office Importer could check to see if the design file needed to be updated from that spreadsheet or document; and
  • The user had to check the spreadsheet or document out to exactly the same folder as it was checked out to the first time it was pasted into that design file, as that’s where Microsoft Office Importer was going to look for it at update time.

All this was because Microsoft Office Importer simply didn’t talk to ProjectWise. I’m happy to report that that’s now totally handled. Now, when Microsoft Office Importer needs to see if the design file needs to be updated, Microsoft Office Importer can talk to ProjectWise and check out any needed files automatically. This means that Microsoft Office Importer updates of spreadsheet and document data in design files are now totally workable for ProjectWise users.

As I mentioned above, I’m tight on space this month. Check back in the future for a detailed description of how this all works. But don’t let that keep you from trying out the new version of Microsoft Office Importer with ProjectWise support for yourself. It’s so easy to use, you really don’t need to know anything that non-ProjectWise Microsoft Office Importer users don’t know. Take it for a spin!

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Four problems users have with MicroStation

Friday, 15 May 2009

And four solutions!

Have you ever had difficulty importing text from Microsoft Word or tables from Excel into MicroStation with the correct text justification, tabs and spacing intact?

Have you ever opened a design file and discovered that one or more reference files are not attached due to messed up reference file attachment paths?

Have you ever needed to make changes to some text in hundreds of design files, requiring someone to open each file, one at a time, just to change a few lines?

Have you ever had a design file added to a project requiring you to now renumber a large portion of the files in the project?

All of these situations can be frustrating and time-consuming.

Is it frustrating not being able to import spreadsheet and word processing data with the correct formatting?
What do MicroStation users do when they need to import text or spreadsheets (large or small) into their design files with perfect formatting?

Just highlight and copy your Excel data (or word-processing text) to make it ready for Microsoft Office Importer to paste into MicroStation. The above is a simple example. In actual fact, Microsoft Office Importer can handle massive spreadsheets and documents (including those with very complex formatting).

Using MicroStation’s native Paste and Paste Special functions, users often find that their spreadsheets and Word documents become nothing like they used to be. Also, what if you need to paste a bill of materials (or a schedule) into a design file and keep a link to the original spreadsheet? The handling is as simple as this:

Microsoft Office Importer is easy to use. Just click the “Paste” icon to paste the contents of the clipboard into your design file.

  1. Open your Excel spreadsheet or Word document and copy to the clipboard whatever you want placed into MicroStation.
  2. Load MicroStation and open the design file you want to import data into.
  3. Microsoft Office Importer will auto-load and be ready for you to just press the <Paste Clipboard Contents> button. (Or if you don’t yet have Microsoft Office Importer, just give Axiom a call.)
  4. Now data-click anywhere on the design plane to make your paste.

When you paste data using <i>Microsoft Office Importer</i>, all the data comes in with perfect formatting (even on spreadsheets a hundred times the size of the above). Plus Microsoft Office Importer does it all in one paste.

That’s it. Problem solved.

Messed up reference file attachments paths?
A customer from a large engineering firm once called me and said that over the weekend, the IT department had changed a server drive letter from “H:” to “I:”, which was no big deal to the people in the IT department. However, it was a big deal to my friend on the other end of the line, as this “minor change” broke every single reference attachment in all their projects — totaling over ten thousand design files. Also, for some reason beyond his control, it was not going to be possible to change the drive letter back. This story ended happily, however. I told him how to perform the steps below with RefManager™ and it solved his whole problem. Now I’ll share this solution with you.

To make a simple example, we’ll say that all your design files were moved from the “H:” drive to the “I:” drive, without any changes to the folder structure. Here’s how to fix that problem:

  1. Open MicroStation and choose RefManager for V8 from your Axiom menu.
  2. Choose “Modify Reference File Attachments” from RefManager’s “Action:” option button. The “Modify Reference File Attachments” box will open and the “Attachment Names” category will be selected by default.
  3. In the “From:” field, enter the old drive letter, “H:” (without the quote marks).
  4. In the “To:” field, enter the new drive letter, “I:” (without the quote marks).
  5. In the “Apply to:” field, choose “Only Vector Reference Files”.

    In the example above, the user has told RefManager to change the drive letter stored in his reference attachments from “H:” to “I:”. The user can run this modification on multiple master design files, easily changing all his reference attachments in one easy job.

  6. Press <Close> to close the “Modify Reference File Attachments” box.
  7. In the main RefManager dialog box, press the <Select> button next to the “Master Files:” field. Then select the master files whose reference attachments you want to process. When done, press <OK> to return to the main RefManager dialog box.
  8. Press <Start>. RefManager will replace “H:” drive with “I:” drive in any vector reference attachments in which a path containing “H:” drive is stored. Case (such as an upper-case “H” or a lower-case “h”) is unimportant as this command performs case-insensitive text substitution by default.

It’s as easy as that. When RefManager is done, press the <Display Report> button to get a detailed report of what RefManager did.

Now all your vector reference attachments that had a saved path containing “H:” drive (or “h:” drive) have been changed to point to “I:” drive. If it was any easier, it’d be magic.

Keep in mind the example above is a simple one. RefManager can handle all manner of complex modifications, regardless of why things got all messed up in the first place.

Have you ever spent hours making repetitive changes to some text throughout hundreds of design files?
The need to find and replace various pieces of text throughout a set of design files is something that happens all the time for any number of reasons. Whether it’s making a date change on every sheet in a project or replacing the prefix on every part identification number displayed in thousands of cells throughout a large set of design files, it’s inevitable that changes will be needed. When you have to process lots of files or make lots of different changes, it can be time-consuming, tedious and error-prone.

Say you discover that thousands of text elements scattered throughout an entire set of project files use the words “Street”, “Drive” and “Avenue”. They were all supposed to have been abbreviated but they’ve all been spelled out instead. This “oops” could leave you with a time-consuming, profit-eating ordeal. Fortunately, there’s an easy and quick way to fix this.

Below are the steps:

  1. Open MicroStation and launch Global File Changer from the Axiom pull-down menu.
  2. Open the Modify Text custom dialog box by selecting “Custom|Modify Text…”.
  3. Select the “Replace Text” tab on the “Modify Text” dialog box.
  4. The <String Format> button can be set to either “Wildcard” or “Regex”. “Regex” is short for “Regular Expression” which is an advanced way for matching specific patterns of text strings. For instance, if you wanted to find the text strings “AG22Street” and “AG33Revision” but not “AG44Ramp” you could use a regular expression that would enable you to find just the first two and exclude the last one. This allows for more sophisticated search and replace functions to be performed in a single operation. For this example, we will just use “Wildcard”.

    The “Replace Text” tab gives you the ability to set multiple search strings and their replacement values.

  5. Enter the text value you are searching for in the “Search String” field and what you want it replaced with in the “Replacement String” field.
  6. Click the <Add> button to add it to the list of replacement combinations.
  7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each search and replace combination you want to make.
  8. After they are all entered, click the <OK> button and you will be prompted to save this list of changes. Save the file with any name and location you want. (This is so you can use it later if you like.)
  9. You will be returned to Global File Changer’s main dialog box, where all you have left to do is choose the files you want to process and click the <Start> button to make the replacements you just defined to every file in the list automatically.

Just click <Start> and Global File Changer will replace every matching text element with the new replacement text in all the selected design files.

Within just a few minutes, the text replacements will be complete in all the targeted design files.

How do you quickly renumber 237 sheets?
Imagine that your project is due out on Monday. Your project team spent the weekend putting the final touches on the job. All the 237 sheets have been plotted for the final check. Everything appears to be in order and the tension is starting to ease. Then all of sudden a blood-curdling scream resonates throughout the office. The sheet numbers are wrong. The sheet total is off by one on every sheet and every sheet number higher than 17 is off by one.

Now raise your hand if you would manually open all 237 sheets to edit text? That is just how it has always been done and it works just fine as long you want to spend the entire afternoon editing text in 237 separate sheet files. If you can modify one sheet in one minute, stay on task, not get any phone calls, and not make any mistakes, then we are talking three hours and 57 minutes just to modify the text.

With Title Block Manager, you don’t have to open up each design file individually to make changes to your title blocks. Title Block Manager allows you to quickly update your design files in bulk from changes made in Excel or Access.

You can break it up and give sections to different people to hurry things along. That could make it go faster, or it could just make things worse and increase the chances for error. Let’s round it up to four man-hours just for editing the design files. I don’t remember the last time that I had four hours uninterrupted.

Fortunately, there is another option. It takes about five minutes:

  1. Open MicroStation and start Title Block Administrator.™
  2. With Title Block Administrator loaded, click on the <Select…> button next the “Database” field. Navigate to and select your Microsoft Excel (or Access) database.

    You can quickly and easily renumber all 237 title blocks at one time.

  3. Click on the <Edit Database> button on the Title Block Administrator main dialog box. This will open the database selected in step 2 above.
  4. Increment the values in the “Sheet” column to accommodate the renumbering. Save and close the database.
  5. Press the <Select > button next to the “Design Files:” field in the main Title Block Administrator dialog box. This will load the “Choose Files to Process” dialog box that allows you to select the sheet files for processing.
  6. Set “Action:” to <Update selected files from database>. Click <Start>.
  7. Check your e-mail, get some coffee and a few minutes later the job is complete.

Which scenario sounds better — the one that takes you four hours or the one that takes about five minutes?

Putting it all together
We have found that MicroStation users often come across more than one of the above scenarios. This is one of the reasons why we made sure that all four of the products in this article are included in MicroStation Acceleration Garage, a cost-efficient package of nearly all of Axiom’s time-saving software products and e-learning courses.

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MicroStation Today — April 2009(Volume 16, Issue 4)

Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Click here for back issues.

MicroStation Today — August 2009 (Volume 16, Issue 4)

Download a PDF version of this issue.

To read the pages above, download Adobe®‘s free Acrobat Reader®, if not already installed in your computer.

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Tips & Tricks — Replace text strings with Global File Changer.

Sunday, 1 February 2009

By Rick Sewell
Global File Changer is exactly what it sounds like. This thing can change just about anything in your design files and fast. It is my personal favorite Axiom product due to its amazing versatility.

While it is true that Global File Changer is incredibly multifaceted, the single most utilized feature by far is its ability to change text. Global File Changer allows you to change a number of text attributes such as font, justification and size to name a few. However, the most commonly desired text-changing feature, in my experience, is the ability to replace an existing text string with a new text string. For this reason, I wanted to write it down for all to use.

Global File Changer’s main dialog box is jam-packed with goodies. Its bulk file-changing capabilities are limited only by your imagination.

Replacing text with Global File Changer
For this example, let’s say “Linkin Street” was misspelled as “Lincoln Street”.

  • First, load Global File Changer from the Axiom pull-down menu.
  • From the Global File Changer main dialog box, choose Custom|Modify text… and then select the “Replace Text” tab.
  • In the field labeled “Search string”, enter “Lincoln”. In the field labeled “Replacement string”, enter “Linkin”.
  • Since Global File Changer has the ability to process more than one set of search and replace parameters, it is necessary to confirm what you have entered into the “Search string” and “Replace string” fields. Press the <Add> button to commit your entries to the list.
  • Choose File|Save As… to load the “Save Modify Text File” dialog box. Enter a name and then navigate to a convenient location to save your text change parameters. Then press <Save>.
  • Press the <OK> button to return to the main Global File Changer dialog box.
  • The “Key-in File:” field will automatically be filled in with the command needed to change your text, based on the parameter file you created. Ensure that the “Design Files:” field lists the files you intend to process and the “Report File:” field contains the path and file name for the report file you want created.
  • Press <Start>!

Global File Changer’s Modify Text dialog box allows you to replace a text string with another text string in multiple design files at the touch of a button.

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How to save time and increase profits

Wednesday, 7 January 2009

Taking the CAD manager’s power to a whole new level

Clearwater, Florida, USA — “Companies like ours are under enormous pressure and are trying to ‘fast-track’ projects by leveraging and re-using existing design data.

Axiom’s enterprise-level programs such as Global Workspace Manager boost production and save time.

“I was asked to ‘convert’ approximately 200 drawings for re-use in a new project. The project manager unsuccessfully tried to find and replace the new project numbers manually in a trial-run. He was skeptical when I told him I could make all of the changes in one afternoon.

“It took me less than 3 hours to process all 200 drawings. To do this manually would probably have taken us weeks! Instead of being slightly behind schedule, the project is now a few weeks ahead of schedule!

“Axiom products have saved us hundreds of hours in time!”
— C.A., CAD Manager

Since Axiom’s 2008 introduction of MicroStation Acceleration Garage (a cost-efficient package of nearly all of Axiom’s time-saving software products and e-learning courses plus an entirely new line of enterprise-level, productivity-boosting applications), CAD managers have discovered that combining time-saving MicroStation add-ons with effective training leads to huge savings and more company profits.

MicroStation Acceleration Garage includes e-learning!
Axiom’s self-paced MicroStation, GEOPAK and InRoads training courses are also included in MicroStation Acceleration Garage. Users can now learn from MicroStation, GEOPAK and InRoads gurus without wasting valuable production time traveling around the country or sitting in a course room. In fact, any user can learn new skills or brush up on existing knowledge without leaving his or her desk!
“We had an employee who hadn’t touched CAD in 7 years — and she had only used AutoCAD. We got your MicroStation V8 Essentials CD and she started training with it. Within two weeks she was doing billable work. It was very impressive. We are very happy with the training.” — D. L., CAD Manager

V7 and V8 Toolkit applications in a single package for the first time
Axiom’s V7 and V8 Toolkits have never been offered together before — this is a first for the MicroStation Acceleration Garage. MicroStation Acceleration Garage also includes Axiom applications which have never been part of Toolkit before: Title Block Manager, English-to-Metric and RasterDgn are included!

Global Workspace Manager, an enterprise-level application, allows CAD managers to modify any machine’s settings, copy settings from one workstation to another and move standard files and projects between workstations or servers without leaving their desk.

Manage every MicroStation workspace without leaving your desk
MicroStation Acceleration Garage also includes new enterprise-level MicroStation applications, taking the CAD manager’s power to an entirely new level.

Tired of trying to figure out which workstations are running which version of MicroStation? Losing time due to having to personally walk (or drive) to inspect the workspaces of each of your designers? Too much re-work having to be done due to wrong workspace settings on some machines? The first of the new enterprise-level applications can actually manage dozens, hundreds or thousands of MicroStation workspaces, all from one computer. It’s called Global Workspace Manager and is included in Garage.

Global Workspace Manager allows CAD managers to analyze, manage, modify and control every workspace they have. With Global Workspace Manager, CAD managers no longer have to guess who is working on which project, hope that they’re using the correct resources and pray that something doesn’t go wrong with a MicroStation installation or workspace that one of their users is working with. Now, without leaving their desks, CAD managers can monitor who is working on each specific project, verify that the correct project or company standard CAD resources are being used for each project and make changes to the workspaces including all of the configuration files. It also allows CAD managers to copy an entire project along with all its resources (seed files, DGN Libs, fonts, line styles, color tables, etc.) to another network server or to an individual computer. Global Workspace Manager shows which MicroStation versions are installed on each workstation, shows when projects were last worked on, shows who has worked on each project (this helps planning for allocating manpower) and compares several machines to easily pinpoint errors on a specific workstation. Global Workspace Manager lets a CAD manager view and control any MicroStation environment variable in any MicroStation workspace on any computer in his company that MicroStation is installed on without leaving his desk.

If Google and MicroStation had a baby, what would you get?
Shhhhh. Don’t tell anyone about this one just yet. It’s still a secret. Here’s an inside scoop on another of those new enterprise-level applications that is about to hit the MicroStation universe (and AutoCAD too, for that matter). How would you like to have instant access to just about anything you can imagine regarding your design files? How would you like this access not just in your local CAD shop, but anywhere in your company? How would you like to find, for example, all instances of “Main Street” in all project files — instantly? And once you found them all, how would you like MicroStation to zoom in on any instance of one and show it to you — instantly? How about getting an instant count of every instance of cell “Transformer 211″ in every design file at your site?

How about being able to instantly find every instance of a cell named “Oil Well” close to a piece text containing “Dallas” everywhere in your whole corporation? Proximity searching is just one of the many features of this new product.

What should we call it? Global EdG one customer suggested, but we’re still debating. We welcome your suggestions.

Coming to a MicroStation Acceleration Garage near you in 2009.

Want to save time and look like a genius at the same time?
If you’re a CAD manager or MicroStation user who is interested in saving time and increasing productivity in the coming year, you should attend a free, on-line demonstration of the suite of products included with MicroStation Acceleration Garage.

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MicroStation Today — January 2009(Volume 16, Issue 1)

Thursday, 1 January 2009

Click here for back issues.

MicroStation Today — August 2009 (Volume 16, Issue 2)

Download a PDF version of this issue.

To read the pages above, download Adobe®‘s free Acrobat Reader®, if not already installed in your computer.

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Posted in Featured, Interviews, MST Issues | No Comments »

Fight back!

Sunday, 7 December 2008

How to increase your profits in a slow economy

Clearwater, Florida, USA — In a slow economy, software add-ons that consistently save dozens, hundreds or thousands of man-hours aren’t just “nice” things to have, they’re vital.

How much money are repetitive, time-consuming tasks costing you?

David Evans & Associates saves $19,596 per year by using Microsoft Office Importer. Oregon DOT saves $42,000 per year in man-hours by using FileFixer. Barone-Shultz saved just one of their clients $5,400 on just one project using CellManager, a savings of 90% of the total project cost.
Washington Group saved $16,400 using MicroStation Productivity Toolkit on just one project over one weekend and potentially saved millions of dollars in lost income. Valero Paulsboro Refinery saved an estimated $125,000 on just one project using tools included in MicroStation Acceleration Garage.

Increase profits and reduce expenses.
Axiom creates tools for CAD managers and users that not only make their jobs easier, but also help them get projects done faster. In addition, LearningBay’s e-learning courses make users more effective and efficient when using MicroStation and MicroStation products such as GEOPAK and InRoads. LearningBay’s “on demand” e-learning courses produce better results and yet are less than a quarter the cost of offsite training and less than half the cost of onsite training. What’s more, the training can be done over and over to keep skills fresh. That’s simply not possible with either onsite or offsite training without incurring additional costs.

CAD managers spread too thin
According to Robert Green’s “CAD Manager 2005 Survey”, 26% of CAD managers reported that “their number-one frustration was not having enough time to do their job well.” Surprised? Here are some other numbers from the survey:

  • Only 31% of CAD managers perform their management duties full time (meaning they have other duties as well).
  • 61% are in salaried positions (average base salary: $53,847, or roughly $27 per hour.
  • A CAD manager supports an average of 41 CAD users.
  • 16% have purchasing authority.

Cost justification
No matter how good a product or service is, you still have to explain its value to decision-makers in a language they understand: money. This is why the CAD manager has to be business savvy and where cost justification comes in handy. The below, real-life examples show savings in terms of man-hours. In each case, one or more Axiom products greatly improved the productivity of the user or users involved and saved the company large amounts of money. According to the previously mentioned survey, the average salary for CAD managers was $27 per hour. Typically, taxes, insurance, benefits, training, management, overhead and other employee-related expenses are about 20% of salary costs. Thus, the following examples use $33 per hour as the company’s cost for the employee’s time. The actual cost of each Axiom product mentioned in the following examples was only a fraction of the overall amount saved by the company by using the product. All of the products mentioned below can be purchased separately or as part of MicroStation Acceleration Garage.

Example 1
One customer needed to change 200 drawings from an existing design for re-use in a new project. The task required all existing reference numbers on all drawings be re-mapped to new project numbers. The estimated time to do this manually was approximately 80 hours. At an average of $33 per hour, total cost would have been $2,640. Using Global File Changer, the actual time spent was 3 hours at a cost of only $99. This is a savings of $2,541 or 96% on this one three-hour project.

Example 2
Another customer, who regularly uses FileFixer, comments, “FileFixer ends up saving us approximately 400 man-hours a year. We couldn’t be nearly as productive without it.” Again, applying a $33-per-hour cost to this example, this results in a $13,200 savings in man-hours each year. Keep in mind that the $13,200 is only the figure for the savings. It doesn’t even begin to take into account the extra profit from all the additional work that gets done in those 400 extra man-hours.

Example 3
Another customer states that, “whenever any MicroStation file came back from the client, our drafters would spend an average of about two hours finding and correcting the CAD standards violations. If one figures that we get about 20 files per submission sent back to us by the client, that it takes a drafter about two hours to spot and correct the violations and that there are about two to three submissions in the lifecycle of our design projects, then there are approximately 120 man-hours per project spent in corrections — time spent not earning any new revenue!” Instead of doing it the hard way, the firm now uses SpecChecker and gets the work done in five minutes instead of two hours. In dollars, that saves $3,960 in man-hours on each and every project.

Example 4
Another customer had 400 design files in a project where a non-standard set of cells was used throughout the design process. They had to replace literally thousands of instances of multiple cells throughout all 400 design files. They were looking at 330 man-hours to fix this and a late delivery of the project. However, using Global File Changer, they were able to update all 400 design files with the “Replace Cells” function in a little over three hours — only 20-minutes of which required an operator to be present. The remaining time was simply the processing time. The total time, including the processing time, was only 1% of the time the design team estimated it would have taken to make the changes by hand. They saved $10,879 just by running Global File Changer — once!

Savings plus increased production
The money saved in man-hours is only part of the picture. What these examples don’t take into account the value of the additional work that the users involved can now get done. In other words, for each hour of work that one of Axiom’s products can save a company, that hour can then be used to generate more income on another project. Free advice on increasing profits

Make the vendors vying for your budget dollars work for you. Use their resources to get your projects done faster and more accurately and don’t be afraid to try and implement new technology. Contact Axiom and schedule a no-obligation, one-on-one, online demonstration with one of our product managers to discuss how the products included in MicroStation Acceleration Garage can greatly increase your rate of production and maximize the return on your budget dollars.

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Making your MicroStation life easier

Friday, 7 November 2008

by TJ Crabtree, Maintenance Service Consultant
Clearwater, Florida, USA — Have you ever bought some software and then had to struggle with getting it up and running? Here at Axiom, we are not satisfied to just sell software. We want our software used. That’s why we make it — to make the MicroStation user’s life easier.

Rochester, New York, USA — Bergmann Associates CAD Manager, Melcher Mack, has been in the CAD industry for over ten years. He gave us some insights on changes he’s seen in the industry as well as his prediction on where it is going.

Melcher Mack — on a crusade for true BIM

MicroStation Today: What is your background?
Melcher: In high school, I took an architectural elective course where I worked on designing my dream house. Later, I went to college for Marketing Management but found I was more interested in designing things than selling them. So, I went back for Mechanical Technology.

MST: I’m sure Bergmann Associates was happy about that. What type of work does your firm do?
Melcher: Bergmann Associates has been around since 1980. We offer an extensive range of engineering, architecture, planning and design services for commercial, institutional, retail, education and industrial leaders as well as agencies at all levels of government.

MST: What have been some highlights for you personally in this industry?
Melcher: After I started working at Bergmann Associates, we began looking at 3D design packages. This is when I really “got it.” Once I could see more of what we were drafting instead of 2D lines and arcs, I really got into CAD. Helping the company transition from primarily designing in 2D with just a few design packages to using 3D in our design process and using multiple design packages tailored to specific disciplines has definitely been a highlight for me.

MST: What are some of the most challenging aspects of your job?
Melcher: Bergmann Associates is engaged in a number of both small and large projects. For instance, we’re one of four firms working on the Renaissance Square project here in Rochester, New York. For me, the most challenging part is maintaining all of the software packages that we use on our different projects. Keeping multiple design packages working efficiently in multiple disciplines across multiple offices can be very challenging, to say the least.

MST: As a CAD Manager, what kinds of problems do you encounter?
Melcher: Anything from “how do I get this icon on my screen” to “I just lost three hours worth of work”. It’s frustrating losing work or trying to get software to do something that it should do but doesn’t. Axiom’s tools help with that. Although I first heard about Axiom through mailings, it was at the BE Conference where I really saw what software options Axiom developed. [Editors note: The "BE Conference" is an annual conference sponsored by Bentley Systems.] Axiom tools have increased our productivity with software like Microsoft Office Importer. We have been very impressed with what that tool can do.

MST: What do you use Microsoft Office Importer for?
Melcher: We have several people who use Microsoft Office Importer on every project they do. They use it with Microsoft Word for general notes and with Microsoft Excel for extensive tables like schedules or bill of materials. One of my colleagues recently told me the product was great, worked well and really saved hours of time on each of their projects.

MST: What would you like to be doing in ten years?
Melcher: As long as I’m involved with design technology in some fashion, and not just pushing paper, I’m sure I’ll be content.

MST: What book do you wish you’d written?
Melcher: The types of books I have read are not the types of books that I would want to write. For an example Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. In order to write it, I’d have to experience it and that’s one I’d rather not.

MST: If you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would it be?
Melcher: If it’s during the workweek, my Father — he’s retired!

MST: What do you predict will be the “next big thing” in CAD?
Melcher: The big issue in CAD today is true interoperability. If we can accomplish that, we will see technology really take off in this industry. The buzz in the industry right now is BIM. [Editor's note: Building Information Modeling (BIM) is the process of generating and managing building data such as geometry, spatial relationships, geographic information, quantities and properties of building components (like manufacturing information).] We all say we are “BIMing” or attempting to do BIM, but until true interoperability exists, I don’t believe you can accomplish it. The major CAD companies are acquiring a lot of software packages to cover each phase of a project to accomplish BIM. I think their intentions are to have software in each phase of BIM that’s interoperable. The problem is, we all use a different lineup of software to accomplish our goals on a project. Most likely, it will always be that way. This industry will accomplish more once there is a certain level of true interoperability between multiple software companies. I believe International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) has the most potential to make interoperability happen.

MST: Thanks, Melch

That’s where I come in. My name is TJ Crabtree and I am your friendly Axiom Maintenance Plus gal. We really do go to great lengths to ensure that our software gets used. As a matter of fact, there is a sign on the wall here that lists one of our major goals as: “Outstanding products successfully being used.” The “being used” part is key. We have a policy here that someone from Axiom’s Customer Service Department calls everyone who purchases an Axiom product within a few days after they get the software to make sure they were able to get it installed and working. Axiom not only provides technical support for the Axiom products that help you to be more efficient with MicroStation, but often we can help with your MicroStation-related issues too.
There are many things Axiom does to ensure our products are successfully being used. For example, we routinely send Axiom technicians all over the globe. Recent trips include Kansas City, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Germany, Canada and England, to name just a few. (I volunteered, but I didn’t get to go to England.)

Axiom Maintenance Plus
More than your average maintenance program, Axiom Maintenance Plus combines tech support, software upgrades, training and custom programming to cover all the bases. The technical staff here at Axiom strives to ensure that, as a user of Axiom’s products, you always have all the benefits you need to really get the most out of your Axiom products.
The Axiom name for customers that have Axiom Maintenance Plus is “Maintenance Plus Holders”, but I like to call them “VIPs”. My father is a civil engineer, so I understand my customers and what they do.
With Axiom Maintenance Plus you get:

  • The latest updates for the products you own, provided at no charge.
  • Unlimited technical support via telephone, fax, e-mail or mail. If you are having a problem, just let us know.
  • Bug fixes and work-arounds. We specialize in solving production snags and MicroStation workflow issues.
  • High priority given to your enhancement requests. We get lots of requests for easier ways to do things in MicroStation. That is how we know what new features to add to our software. We look at Maintenance Plus holders’ requests first.
  • The latest version of the product, sent automatically at least once a year.
  • One hour of free user training via the Internet or two hours of free custom programming, for every $500 paid on annual maintenance.

MicroStation Productivity Toolkit, MicroStation Acceleration Garage and Axiom Maintenance Plus
Both MicroStation Productivity Toolkit and MicroStation Acceleration Garage combine many of Axiom’s top, time-saving utilities into a single, cost-efficient package. Occasionally we add new programs to both Toolkit and Garage. As a bonus for Toolkit or Garage owners with Maintenance Plus, you get any and all new products that get added — free of charge.

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