Archicad & Cost Schedules / Schedule of Works / Tender

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am just making the move to Archicad and hoping to become much more efficient in terms of the documentation I produce. I am an architect in the UK working on private houses.

I am interested in being as effective as possible it streamlining the documentation I produce for tender. I normally produce drawings, a pricing document (essentially a schedule of works, with basic quantities) and the specification is largely in the form of notes on drawings. What is considered best practice now and is there a way to coordinate this with the information produced by Archicad?

Does anyone use NBS Create or any of their other products with Archicad? The biggest frustration I can see with NBS is that it does not produce an Excel spreadsheet that can be updated as the project is constructed. Essential for carrying out staged valuation and cost control.

I'd be interested to hear what you have found the best process to be?

T23

[godi]

Of, course.

Being forced to use a solution so poor as schedules is a annoyance and a nonsense.

[Karl Ottenstein]

godi wrote:
No success at all with stairs and rails. Simply GS has not implemented these objects to use list.

We're doing our bills of materials using list system for all project but those two kind of objects, and I have defined two schedules for stairs and rails.

Schedule system is a so underpowered, simply and rigid, that there's no way to obtain anything too detailed: no more than pure length and height of rails and step number in stairs.

I really can't understand that decision of GS.

The List system is deprecated. None of the new features are part of it - not just the ones you mention. It's a shame, but that's how it is.

GS's decision as to supporting the schedules you want is (from public comments) that it is not part of the architectural software workflow, but rather part of the construction management workflow which is supported by other software. They had developed such software and later sold it:
http://www.vicosoftware.com/model-based-estimating

In some countries, architects must do what you're doing - and so all of us can sympathize with the difficulties you are facing (!) - but it is not something that is part of the architect's responsibility for the vast majority of users/countries.

[Anonymous]

Ok Karl,

Please tell me what MEP has to do with an Architect software the lets deprecate this too.

interactive schedule is a great tool to tabulate object and element info. Also the fact that you can control their parameters though this makes organising information much faster. But not presentation.

Because it is just a table not a form.

What Graphisoft should do is add the new properties to the list system.
for example when a parameter applies to ALL classes, is actually a global parameter so it can be listed in the the parameters dialog in the list scheme settings, and be used in these forms. This would be ground breaking.

As you mentioned Graphisoft sold Vico and also Vico merged later with Trimble. We can't know about the sales contracts what rules they had about using or not using or advancing the listing technology. But if there are not any contractual implications then they shouldn't deprecate this.

if your statements stand all countries that rely to these functionalities should stop in version 18 where everything worked fine. Even the coordinate object tabulation of xyz parameters of the object. Something that was giving us the ability to not only tabulate but also export for setting out reasons.

Architects and all construction professionals need robust flawless solutions because they are professionals not gamers.

We added point clouds a feature that was firstly developed by surveying professionals. Not that I'm implying that it is not useful for architects but it wasn't developed for them. Thinking the same way Lists are more useful to construction managers but are useful for architects too.

Architects still want to make estimates. Their estimates are of higher level.
Elemental classification like Uniformat cannot be derived without lower level like masterformat. We firstly estimate in a detailed manner and then we group our results in a grouped manner like uniformat. Uniformat is used for the customer to better understand the expenses and where they go in the building. You can achieve uniformat estimates in the old system by using elements or zone lists that will use components but will filter by element or zone. Otherwise you just rely on price books that have done the analytic job for you and then provide you higher level pricing.
Is'n it better though to develop your own vision of how much a residential property costs per m2 instead of relying on published pricing data that you are not sure how precise they are and what parameters they have taken in to account?

And by the way the construction manager does not design. He manages information provided by the Architect. So the Vico concept was wrong in including constructor. Archicad should stay as it is and stay to the architect side and the rest of the suite should go to CM's side.

Regards

[godi]

Karl wrote:

godi wrote:
No success at all with stairs and rails. Simply GS has not implemented these objects to use list.

We're doing our bills of materials using list system for all project but those two kind of objects, and I have defined two schedules for stairs and rails.

Schedule system is a so underpowered, simply and rigid, that there's no way to obtain anything too detailed: no more than pure length and height of rails and step number in stairs.

I really can't understand that decision of GS.

The List system is deprecated. None of the new features are part of it - not just the ones you mention. It's a shame, but that's how it is.

GS's decision as to supporting the schedules you want is (from public comments) that it is not part of the architectural software workflow, but rather part of the construction management workflow which is supported by other software. They had developed such software and later sold it:
http://www.vicosoftware.com/model-based-estimating

In some countries, architects must do what you're doing - and so all of us can sympathize with the difficulties you are facing (!) - but it is not something that is part of the architect's responsibility for the vast majority of users/countries.

None of the reason you give me is logic. Most architects are NEVER going to use the curtain wall objet or the morph tool, but we are many THOUSANDS making cost estimations for every project as a daily basis and GS let us in the lurch.

You can't make any estimating with any 3rd party application if you don't have first a detailed list of the project components, and that is what AC can make easily and one of the best features of this app. Just until now.

The worst of this nonsense is that add stairs and rails to list should be so simple as to obtain properties from fields of a database Archicad already had and use it in a function that they have implemented 20 years ago. So his absence of more infuriating.