Cad Managerment, Templates and Quality Control

[Anonymous]

I just thought i would throw this idea out and see what people think.

I think a constant problem for CAD managers it trying to get staff to read the procedures and follow them. I have seen many managers explain how they do it, most commonly through a cad manual, linking staff reviews to their cad performance, using empty layers to identify groups of layers, ect, but i wonder if there is something more that can be provided specifically for this in ArchiCAD.

This has already been implemented minimally by Graphisoft in a few small areas like PEN sets where we can name each pen. I use this name to identify what pen should be used for what, eg. concrete, blockwork, gyprock ect. But i think it needs to go a lot further and a system needs to be created thinking of the whole quality control management issue.

Generally I think it would be good if there was a layer of information that Cad Managers could add to their templates that would help this problem. The benefit of this is that the information would be dynamic and it would be delivered while people are working.

There are probably many ways this information could be delivered through ArchiCAD which i would like to hear peoples thoughts.

My initial thoughts are (which i think are probably a bit primitive and there are probably better ideas out there) is that a office specific help is prompted when your mouse is held over a item. For example I have a certain way in which layouts are created, so ideally when a user holds their mouse over one of the template layout folders I would like not only ArchiCADs help prompt 'What is this?' to appear but also a office specific prompt to appear like '[Practice Name] Help on this'

The end goal would be good to move the whole cad manual out of a graphic and textual manual either hardcopy or electronically where it lives today and into the actual program.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Neil. I would love to be able to see, in practice, some of the things you mentioned. Like using composite walls to preset various attributes. I need to seriously edit our line and fill types and develop a new 'start plan.

It is unfortunate that we no longer have the Archicad user groups in our area. A lot of these type of issues were discussed and resolved through the shared knowledge & experience of the group. Sometimes, a member would do a presentation on something they had developed for their office or a management method that worked for them. Perhaps I can convince our rep to have a webinar user group once a month as a replacement.

[Anonymous]

Hi Nick,
I've attached a section of our process manual which sets out the 'theory and practise' of drawing walls in Archicad which takes into account change management. One of the things I've found once this process is in place is that even if the technician gets it wrong it is relatively easy to find and address as you can manipulate and assess variations in the walls via schedules before doing any visual checks.
You also need to understand that the general policy in our teams is that all things are drawn with default settings within the elements (line, fill and pen weights ). Individual setting of elements attributes is discouraged as you can't change the whole project at once if twenty settings are in used. Our cad process becomes mandated at project file level rather than by the CAD manager. The team then just draws with the defaults and they are automatically in sync. Most CAD systems are this way but ours works best when the basics are ' dummy proofed' within the template.

Cheers.