Projected time to be up & running

[Anonymous]

In looking over the forums I find that many peopleare coming from autocad, so here's a new one for you. Why are looking at Archicad 9 with log plugin. We are currently using softplan ver 11. Our concern is what kind of timeframe we can expect before we have program up and running. Example: How long does it take to customize the program? How long to create new windows? How involved are template?
One company near us has had the program 1+years and spent almost 100,000 us with consultants and are still not up & running. Sales agents say 1 month or so. Hence we are looking for the experiances of this crowd to try & get a real world answer so as to figure out a game plan. For those not familiar with softplan, when drafing walls are tru walls with studs & coverings, but minimal3d generation capacity & no trying of dcuentation, elevations, plans to each other when doing changes. All pages must be manually updated, hence our intrest in Archicad

[Link]

Hi!

It depends on how many users you have, the type and size of jobs you undertake, your hardware, the company & staff's feeling about the change to ArchiCAD, etc.

It also depends on how you intend to train the Architects & CAD Techs, and how you intend to create your template. If you decide to go with a 4 hour intro training, go through the step by step tutorial, read online documents and buy a few books, you'll be able to be productive in a month. I doubt you will be very productive though, and people who take this approach invariably seem to teach themselves as many bad habits as good habits.

Creating a template can take a much longer time. It's always an ongoing process, but to get a highly efficient template that suits your company's needs could take anywhere from three months to three years.

On the other hand you can secure the services of an ArchiCAD Trainer, as found on this forum. Not only will you have a template created for you in a fraction of the time, it will end up costing you a fraction of what you'll spend doing it in-house. I know I'd be confident of providing comprehensive training to a small company and creating their CAD template within a month. It's not just the intensive, comprehensive and personalized training you get. Or the ArchiCAD template that is pre-linked to PlotMaker that automates your entire documentation process. It's the peace of mind you get knowing you are using the software to it's maximum efficiency - using it how it was designed to be used. It's knowing that you are leading the way in your field and are far ahead of your competition.

I'm sure other trainers and trainees will respond!

Cheers,
Link.

[Ignacio Azpiazu]

I think that going it alone may take more than a month to be anything near seriously productive --it took me way longer, even after having read all the books, buying the STS templates which were an essential learning tool, etc. Of course once you are productive you are way more productive than you could ever be in 2D world.

Especially if it is an office and there is a group of people working together etc., I think the external consultant is essential --anything else will be way more expensive, even if successful, and I would say the chances of its ending in failure are high. Also if you can hire at least one full time person that has a solid command of the basic tools etc. it could help a lot --an outside consultant can help you a lot with solid templates and work methods, but the little things can be an avoidable obstacle at the start too especially if you need to be productive soon.

[Vitruvius]

There are two considerations in switching CAD software:

1. How create as little disruption to your business as possible.
2. Will the short term investment be justified by long term savings.

In the case of the first, I'd suggest you implement ArchiCAD on one project with a small team. Make sure the project is not overly complex and not under a ridiculous time constraint. Let the team run through the tutorial and give them access to an ArchiCAD trainer before starting work. They should really be up to speed in a month and some time after that, that core team can help you to implement the software with other teams.

In the second instance, US $100,000. is a meaningless figure to quote. If it's a 50 person office that means they've spent $2000. per employee, and assuming a long term 10% improvement in efficiency, they should be well into profit on their investment in the first year. In fact, given industry standards and gross-fee-per-employee, even a 10 person office would break even in the first year on that basis.

I think that any professional familiar with CAD systems should be up and running within a month. I found the fun aspect of ArchiCAD made me want to put in a lot of OT during the first month to get up to speed. I occasionally have to resort to "other CAD software" from time to time and it gives me the creeps.

Which is to say that my investment in AC is one which has enriched my professional career and one which I have never had cause to regret.

Cheers

[Anonymous]

I agree with the others here. It is possible to get working and productive on your own with ArchiCAD in a relatively short period of time. One month is a good average, but will depend on the nature and requirements of your practice.

There are definitely significant benefits to be gained by getting some effective consulting.* The extent of these benefits and the cost of implementation also depends on how you will be using the program.

Larger and/or more specialized practices will typically benefit more from (and require more) consulting and customization than small practices with wide variation in project types and architectural styles. I find the latter can usually do fine with some basic training (and intermediate if the budget allows) and some good templates, while the former can require some very extensive customization to go along with the training and implementation.

It is impossible to give any more detailed estimate without knowing more about your firm's size and the range of work you do.

*Disclaimer: Naturally I believe this or I wouldn't be doing it for a living.

[Anonymous]

I thank everyone for their advice thus far. It was mentioned earlier that $100,000+ us was a meaningless number. I agree & should have given a proper context. This is the estimate cost of software & consultant for (4) archicad 8.1 stations, no hardware. As you can well imagine, this caused a great deal of concern with my boss & the financial manager. We are starting with (2) stations & should be up to (4) 6 months after we are fully comfortable with the first (2). We have decided to take the 2 day startup class offered by angie before we purchase. As we did all of the customizing of our current CAD software inhouse, we feel this would best allow us to understand what is involved in archicad & gauge how much assistance we will need to get up to speed. As most off our customizing had to due with adding various window vendors, adjusting what appears in the toolbars, & adjusting some of the wall materials & sizes, we are wondering what other things we will need to setup in archicad. I have seen several threads on Plotmaker & templates and are not quite certain what these are. Our current printing setup is a simple matter of placing multiple drawings on a presetup page using multidraw function & just sending to HP plotter 430. Am guessing that templates are simular to what we did with setting up toolbars? Our current software starts with a floor drawing page & by use of a popup menu you can change to roof, ceiling, joist, area, framing views. Each floor plan is then laid down in a proper order using a build menu. For twisty houses we usually start by laying out the foundation, then copy to first floor & re-edit the walls to proper material. Throw in windows, doors, interior walls, adjust vertical offsets, & tell it to elevate. This on the surface seems to share many of the same processes as archicad. When we draw a wall, it has true framing, coverings, & can be sectioned, with a material list. Unfortunately, since we do mainly log & timberframe construction, this residental level cad software just can't be made to understand why you would want to put insulation on the exterior of the rafters/purlins. It can be made to show it on the elevations by much playing, but it totally throws off the material lists & any attempt at a 3D rendering is completely out of the question. Any comments on any of this in relation to archicad would be of great assistance

[Dwight]

ArchiCAD/Plotmaker Workflow:
In creating a Plotmaker [ArchiCAD's drawing layout tool- a separate program] "template," you build a workflow control to automatically take your archicad model and extract the relevant views into prearranged drawing sheet layouts - no more pasting-up.
Consider your building type: buildings of roughly the same size and construction type requiring the same drawings. What if you had an ArchiCAD/Plotmaker template organized with your favorite materials, elements and favorites all ready to go within an environment of layer sets, stories and views already linked to Plotmaker sheets in a workbook? Wouldn't this shiver your timbers?
One makes this template from an existing project, being careful to formally describe all of the standard elements. Subsequent project are merelyradical edits of the first, relying on links established the first time - you are simply replacing and editing defined data within a view and data management strategy, not creating anything truly "new".
An example of how this works and what makes ArchiCAD powerful is that any change made in the ArchiCAD model can be immediately reflected in all related construction documents assembled in Plotmaker,[where all of your construction notes might still reside from last time].
It's alive!!!
And if you are wondering what Plotmaker is after a two day seminar, you are being poorly serviced, since Plotmaker [motto:"It's a plot!"] is the keystone of ArchiCAD construction document productivity.

True Framing:
ArchiCAD can do true framing - just a bit tricky - you'd want to consider an Add-on called Frameworks for post and beam structures, altho stud framing is easy to emulate.

Customizing:
ArchiCAD 9 has highly customizable commands.

Outsulation:
While many things can be designed in the composite structure dialog- a 2D trick, you might be best served to place your outsulation as a duplicate roof plane if it needs to show in a rendering.

There was a lot in your post - hope this helped.