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Graphisoft Change Manager
A new system documents change orders
and keeps track of who sees them
By Elaine S. Silver
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Both fundamental and hard-to-spot drawing changes are highlighted
by Graphisoft Change Manager - in this case using the vertical
slider function.
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How many hours on a project are used to comb through documents
to ensure that all the designer's changes are noted? How many
construction hours go to fixing mistakes made because a designer's
changes did not get communicated to the people who needed
to get them?
Too many, most general contractors would say.
That all may be part of an unpleasant past now that Graphisoft
has come up with a new software program called Change Manager.
Graphisoft saw the need first hand for Change Manager because
of the frustrations it was experiencing servicing its own
clients. "We are the largest virtual construction company,"
says CEO Dominic Gallello. "We have 50 people drawing
5D models to go along with our software. We were living the
life of the contractor."
Gallello says his staff was spending three days to a week
or more to check design documents to see what had changed.
"We thought that was dumb," he says.
But as all contractors know, spending all that time checking
the documents was necessary. Architects don't always put "clouds"
around their changes as they are supposed to. And it's hard
to detect, for example, if the mechanical contractor has increased
the size of the ductwork from 3 to 4 ft.
So the Graphisoft crew came up with a simple way to shave
days and headaches off the construction process. Change Manager
compares two files, the original and the updated ones. It
detects the changes, displays them, tracks them and routes
them to the people who need to know about them.
First, Change Manager identifies the set of folders to compare.
It examines each file in each folder, finds the original and
updated files, the new files and the files that have not been
changed. It lists the results in an easy-to-read format.
The user looks at a change and passes it on to the team member
who is authorized to deem the work complete, put it aside
or assign it to another team member.
The user views the pairs of drawings using different colors
from the changed, new and deleted items. Users can "cloud"
changes they deem significant and then assign those changes
to the appropriate team member. A log keeps track of the assignments.
Darrell Griffith, the director of business development for
the HVAC contracting company Control Air North Inc. of Hayward,
Calif., found immediate productivity efficiencies using Change
Manager for the first time.
"The lack of time to identify change is a real problem
for us," he says. "And yet overlooking a single
change can be extremely costly. After running Change Manager
on one project, we found that only 30% of the changes were
clouded by the architects and engineers. Without Change Manager,
this would have resulted in a dramatic cost escalation and,
of course, a lot of wasted management hours."
Gallello says that Graphisoft's goal is to automate services
as much as possible, and Change Manager does just that.
Change Manager costs $895 per package with discounts available
for volume purchases.
Graphisoft U.S. Inc.
One Gateway Center, Suite 302
Newton, Mass. 02458-2802
617-485-4203
http://www.graphisoft.com
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