ArchitectureandEngineering

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BIM 360, produced by AutoDesk, is a cloudbased program that promotes collabora tion through file sharing and task man agement tools. McCoy said Sandman started using it once the program started trending with other firms.

“Some consultants require it,” he said. “A lot of time we use soft ware that our consultants use and that’s why we started using it, because our con sultants were requesting it for model sharing. … It’s worked out really well.

“The new dynamic or trend is that people are upload ing their models every week and so it’s kind of regulating that share of information because you’re constant ly getting information from other trades,” he said. “It makes it more collaborative and opens dialogue.”

He said companies are shar ing more information, but cli ents are requesting more of it, too. “It goes two ways,” he said. “Not only are we talking more, but they’re asking more ques tions.” BIM 360 helps bridge that gap, and provides the information that clients and consultants are requesting.

Similar to Matterport, BIM 360 allows informa tion to be shared in real-time and provides 3D images of projects.

Matt Hagstrom, owner of Hagstrom Engineering in Alexandria, Minn., only recently started using BIM 360 but said he already enjoys how helpful it has been connecting with an engineering and surveying firm in Colorado, where he continues to work with consultants.

“It became kind of problematic for us where we’ve had different file structures,” he said, noting a multi-family development in the mountain state needed more collaboration than they were able to obtain through email and video meetings. He was introduced to BIM 360, and said he is glad he did. There is no looking back now.

“It is absolutely more collaborative,” Hagstrom said. “We’re not saving stuff back and forth, we’re actually opening it in the cloud. … It was one of the struggles I had here while trying to stay active working in bigger markets: I’m not there sharing data. Well, now we’re all sharing the same drive … we’re all working off the same base files; it’s all about collaboration.”

Something else he likes about the program: it backs up files automatically.

“We used to always keep archive folders. When we’d make a change I’d archive it in my folder, but now you can go right into the file in real time and see the revision level and grab an older one right there, if you need it. That’s pretty cool.”

The software is geared specifically at architecture, construction and engineering companies, according to Jason Ziemann, strategic account manager with USCAD, which sells BIM 360 and other technology programs to companies. Ziemann, based in the company’s St. Paul, Minn., office, works with clients in the Prairie Business region.

“It does enhance collaboration because before this (came along) they would just be sending around these files and models back and forth through email or Dropbox, and the communication wasn’t very good,” Ziemann said, explaining that through the cloud-based program a model of a project can be viewed in three dimensions and “everybody can now collaborate, work on that model, and kind of keep an updated version of that model going at all times.”

Earlier this year Matterport said it integrated with AutoDesk’s BIM 360 so that engineering teams could use the full array of both programs for the job site.

While the basic format of BIM 360 hasn’t changed, the coronavirus pandemic has caused companies to look at new solutions, Ziemann said, and this one is a perfect fit.

“With this whole COVID thing, a lot of technologies – a lot of construction companies and architects were kind of half in half out,”

Zieman said. “They knew about the cloud, but they may not have gone fully on board with it, but with this whole pandemic thing this has really exacerbated it, basically pushed everybody toward that quicker.”

He said he views even more programs on the horizon that will continue to affect the industry, but because technology changes so rapidly who really knows what the next big thing will be?

For now, he said, “it was nice that AutoDesk was ready with this in case something like this ever happened. It’s been a great solution for people with work-from-home environments.”

ANDREW WEEKS

PRAIRIE

BUSINESS EDITOR

AWEEKS@PRAIRIEBUSINESSMAGAZINE.COM

701-780-1276 | @PB_ANDREWWEEKS