Evolution in design technology continues to drive both innovation and optimization in the A/E/C industry at an increasing rate. So much so that firms with foresight, including DRMP, have invested resources into new technological initiatives in our industry. DRMP’s design team continuously assesses new technologies, educates and supports its staff, capitalizes on emerging technologies to better employee’s projects and workflow and ultimately provide the best product to the client.
DRMP created a Production Technology Committee in 2019 to serve as a forum to share new software, updates to existing software, and ideas on how to improve workflows. The committee encompasses all facets of the firm’s business and is comprised of members who are passionate about innovation.
The committee analyzes technology’s real-world application and determines whether it’s the best fit for DRMP and our clients. We’ve seen the benefit of how the creation of a Production Technology Committee has benefited DRMP and our clients.
The Benefit of ProjectWise Collaboration
One of the first initiatives the firm rolled out was creating a ProjectWise Datasource to create a collaborative environment where DRMP staff, as well as our subconsultants and clients, can access current project files. Ultimately, this helps with collaboration amongst disciplines and reduces design changes impacting production schedules, so our clients’ timelines to bid out their projects are not impacted. Another benefit our project teams and subconsultants receive using ProjectWise is it allows staff to work from any office or remotely while providing the best experience with processing large amounts of data in the files. Sharing files through email or through a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is becoming a thing of the past.
The Power of Visualization
We have also improved workflow by leveraging 3D models to create better visualizations for a project’s public involvement phase. By adding the firm’s 3D visualization team into a project’s design phase at the right time, we have developed a best practice workflow to bring 3D models from the simplest typical sections to multi-level interchanges into visualization software to create realistic renditions of proposed projects.
Leveraging 3D model visualizations into our project design phases helps bring crucial context to their design concepts. We’ve used 3D visualization to give our clients an opportunity to give feedback at critical design submittal phases by showing them renderings generated from LumenRT. These sessions give the client a clearer picture of the project design as it will be constructed. There is even the possibility to provide 3D drive throughs, which helps with the analysis of sight lines. We’ve used this technique with a client to determine the limits of walls as a means to hide tolling equipment for better aesthetics for a roadway corridor.
The use of 3D visualization and ProjectWise collaboration for project design are not really new ideas to the A/E/C industry or to DRMP. But, the way our project teams are leveraging this type of technology into their project’s design and delivery of their plans is an ever-changing opportunity to design better and more efficiently for our clients.
