Converting an office from AutoCad to ArchiCad 9

[Anonymous]

Our office of about 40 in Northern California is about to begin converting to ArchiCad 9 from AutoCad. Myself and a few others are charged with the task of making this conversion happen. We plan on working closely with our local distributor, who I have heard is very helpful. I would like to hear any stories good or bad about conversion, tips on what to do and what to avoid, and any resources available for developing a conversion plan.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

The conversion can proceed in several ways depending on your needs and resources. In most cases it is best to start with a small group selected for their ability and enthusiasm for the virtual building process. Get them trained, set up some preliminary standards, and start with one or more small projects. The process can then be extended to the rest of the firm in a few different ways as appropriate to the practice.

Tom Waltz here on the forum is presently leading this process at Kitchen Associates in NJ which is about the same size as your firm. He might have a few pointers for you. (Tom, I hope I am not out of line, but you seem especially qualified on this topic.)

This is a big topic, though, so you can't expect to get all you need here. You may want to bring in a consultant to help you get the process started. The way I usually work is to join the team for a project or two. This way the firm gets the most benefit of my expertise while being able to bill the work (or at least most of it) to the project.

For some firms it is more appropriate to engage consultants as a strictly overhead cost. This generally requires at least one strong in-house person who is responsible for implementing the new standards and practices.

If you have more specific questions, please feel free to post them here or contact me by PM. I have worked with many firms in your circumstances and am happy to help point you in the right direction.

[TomWaltz]

Aaron

at Matthew mentioned, I have been leading our company through a rather slow transition to Archicad. We've been on Archicad since early 2003. We are a 60 person company, with about 30 now using Archicad in some capacity or another. Our transition was intentionally slow in some places, to make sure we did not get ahead of ourselves, and other times slowed by staffing/scheduling/project issues about who was trained and available for projects, who was capable of being "CAD Leader" for a project, etc.

In the beginning, it was painful, as we all learned new software, new methodology, new workflow, and new project staffing needs. Our first two projects were REALLY hard, and we struggled to meet the deadlines at all. Now, we have projects that struggleing to meet deadlines because we put 2 people on a project that used to get 4 or 5. The change is unbelievable.

Working with your local reseller is a good start. Some resellers are very technically competent, others retain the services of someone who is. Either way, they will work in your best interest. Can you tell us who your reseller is?

In our case, the decision was made early on that since I was CAD Manager on Arris (our old CAD software), was intimately knowledgable of our companies standards, intentions, and desires, and the switch was my idea, I was going to the in-house expert.

I made a LOT of mistakes early on, but I think a lot of them are things were easily repaired. A few lessons were:

• 1) Buy the "Project Framework" book. It really is a great guide to get you on your way.
  2) Make sure that all the standard notation blocks (drawing titles, section markers, etc) you had before are available as Library Objects. If not, either learn how or retain the services of someone who can make them for you.
  3) Develop a strong template. Your template will contain all your project layers, pens, linetypes, and other defaults. A good template can make or break an entire project in the beginning of a transition.
  4) Get Training. Capitol-T-Training. Try to work through the Learning Guide on your own to get basic concepts and ideas, then sit through some form of formal hands-on training. It costs a lot up front, but you will never learn as fast on your own.
  5) Be willing to dabble in GDL. You can make your own objects do simple things without a programming background. Even simple things like self-scaling drawing titles that seem like magic can be done with 2 lines of code in less than 5 minutes.
  6) Make use of this forum. Guys like Matthew Lohden and our beloved moderator Djordje Grujic have been using this software for a really long time, and know a incredible amount about it.

Switching CAD software is a long-term benefit with a lot of short-term hassles. We made the mistake of short-changing the up-front preparation, and it hurt us throughout our first two projects. A lot of times I made mistakes, admitted it to the staff (hard to do!!), and adapted our standards and procedures.

By all means, let us know of you need more information

[Anonymous]

Tom and Matthew,

Thank you very much for your advice. Our distributor, Archivista and Tom Simmons specifically, appears to be very competent technically and willing to help. I have heard this from him and also from other firms in the area that have worked with him in the conversion process. I think Tom will be a great resource.

As far as our process goes we have a group of six people, one partner, one associate, Cad manager, two PA's and an intern, that has taken on the task of the conversion to BIM. We evaluated software and have very recently selected ArchiCad over Revit, a decision you no doubt agree with. Our general plan on how to implement the software is pretty much as you two have advised: spend some time, with the assistance of Tom, setting up office standards and templates, then pick a pilot project and get formal training both for the committee and all of the people involved in that project. From there the plan is to just use ArchiCad on most if not all new projects. This seems to be the most popular implementation strategy.

Archvista has a monthly cycle of four ArchiCad classes about and hour away from our office so that will be extremely helpful throughout for training staff.

I will look into the books and other resources that you two have suggested. If you have any other advice or anecdotes please add them. Thanks again for your help,

Aaron Jobson

[Djordje]

Thanks for the praise, Tom

One thing that you have to do before you do ANYTHING else is to make everybody understand the following:

You are NOT producing the drawings. You are virtually building your projects. The submission sets are a PRODUCT of your virtual building. Don't call it a model. It is a building.

Terminology is extremely important because it embeds the ideas of the concept behind the software and the whole process into people. Insist on it. It creates a completely different mindset, especially with experienced AutoCAD jockeys that do need guidance and can be even afraid of the completely new concepts.

The quick and dirty methods of fixing this and that just so you can meet the early morning's deadline will come back to haunt you ... Be horribly strict and carry a stick around. Do NOT let anyone say "but this is the way we did it ..." Gone. Finished. You were drafting before. Those days are over.

You are in luck to have an excellent reseller at your elbow - use their expertise. Another lucky point is that your management is acively involved and uses the software themselves. Sometimes, if that is not the case, the problem or, worse, the benefit, cannot be explained.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

This post was very useful, It gave me an Idea of a time frame I can expect change. Is their any lastiest information that you can provide in where a firm/company has made a remarkable time transition within the conversion of Autocad to Archicad? Furthermore and time or information on any firms utilizing archicad thats has conducted and developed a standard within a timely fashion?


FYI - I was recently working in a 2-man Archicad user team working in Version 9, I have joined a 35-man Firm in Northern California and I am trying to implement and introduce Archicad here. what is your advice regarding standards implementation for a rapid production within our firm.

[Laszlo Nagy]

One solution:
http://www.getstandardized.com/

Another solution is to hire a consultant, who will help you with the implamentation. There are several really good guys here on the forum.

[Laura Yanoviak]

We are currently a 55-person firm, with 33 seats of AC and 38 staff trained (senior staff who do not use AC on a daily basis share a 5-seat network key).

We "officially" started implementation 1 year ago and 33 of the trained staff are active AC users (we still have a couple of projects residing in flatland). Prior to implementation, I had the luxury of an entire year to become familiar with the software and establish standards (this was not the original intention -- we had budgeted 4-6 months for this, but due to the aforementioned staffing/scheduling/project issues, implementation was delayed). I have also been more-or-less full time on this task which has been a huge benefit (and, I believe, a requirement for a firm this size). I was the "implementation team" which was maddening at first, before others were able to get up to speed.

We were realistic and assumed implementation could take anywhere from 1 to 2 years. At this rate, we should be 100% (everyone trained, BIM Manual in effect, AutoCAD history) within the year, so the original assumption is proving true.

[TomWaltz]

Hard to believe it's been two years since I wrote that post.... and I don't think I would change a thing.about my recommendations.

Laura is absolutely right. A larger company really needs someone full time dedicated to the transition who can provide support as needed and figure out larger issues before they become a problem.

The task I like to recommend is to take a typical project in the office and try to recreate it in Archicad. Maybe not every single detail drawing, but most of it so you can get an idea of what is possible and easy out of the box and what might require either further training, custom objects, or add-ons.

[Anonymous]

Here is an update on where we are two years later:

We are about 75% implemented in ArchiCAD with all new projects being conducted in ArchiCAD. All CAD staff and many Architects are trained and running on ArchiCAD. It has been a long and sometimes difficult process. We are a firm of about 40 and it would have been very good for myself or someone else to have all of their time dedicated to creating standards. We have not had that luxury and as a result our manual is still a work in progress. I would suggest that anyone undertaking this challenge seriously heed the advice given in the last few posts and assign this task to someone. We have done pretty well by dedicating about 20% time from two people and hiring a consultant, Matthew Lohden. (see his post below) Matthew has been helpful in creating a number of custom objects for us and helping with standards. Our local re-seller has also been very helpful with training and support.

Many of the most difficult challenges have been in the form of changes in process and culture that working in a BIM software requires rather than technical issues with ArchiCAD. We actually have significantly fewer technical issues now than we did with AutoCAD. The cultural and process changes are an important issue to address and discuss at your firm and one that is easily overlooked.

For anyone undertaking the conversion I would reccomend getting all the training you can, having a person(s) dedicated to standards and support and taking time to remember how much better and more enjoyable this software is than what you used before. Also, remember that the goal is to do our jobs better, not make really cool models.

Good luck,

Aaron