From the Road with Fellow Reprographers (Part 2) Color in Construction

This is my second article related to my recent roads trips around the country. If you read my previous post you learned that I have been attending a variety of industry events along with visiting with reprographers to learn about their challenges and their strategies for success in the future.

As I promised, I am sharing some of the more valuable information I learned along the way and at the same time I want to reinforce the message that there are opportunities “still to be had” in these challenging economic times.

I recently headed to Dallas, Texas to attend the Central Reprographics Association  (CRA) Conference. Overall the attitude of the attendees was fairly optimistic, a little better than those who attended the WRA in San Diego. The attendance was a bit light but there was good educational material presented and there were plenty of opportunities to network and exchange ideas.

Like I said, the educational sessions were great. There were several educational sessions that I attended but the presentation from Peter Lawrence (Océ) Where's the Color? Sales Opportunities in the construction project lifecycle was particularly insightful!

Peter is a very knowledgeable guy and has been around this industry for some time, since the days of PageMasters. It was interesting to hear his perspective on where he sees the applications and benefits of color for the construction industry.

Peter sees color being used in several areas in construction:

1. Construction documents that are produced in color can be more accurate and more trustworthy; color can transform rich 3D data set into a powerful guide for the installers.
2. Color can reduce errors by 80%.  Color can reduce direct costs (errors and changes) and also the associated litigation cost of errors and omissions.
3. The Document coordination process might be much easier to tackle if the construction documents were in color.
4. Scan As Built’s in color; these hard-copy records usually have color mark-ups and notes (color markers. pens or pencils) about changes that were made over time. Capturing this color data is critical for records keeping purposes.

As an industry we need to help educate our customers on the benefits of using color. If you are interested in learning more about the opportunities for color in the construction industry please visit Peter’s blog at http://colorforconstruction.com/.

Shaun

Shaun's Corner: Building Information Modeling And Our Future - Making The Most Of Opportunity

If you're reading Point of View religiously, and we know you all are, you know I've been tackling the weighty subject of BIM (Building Information Modeling) and its impact on the future of the reprographics industry.

Reprographers have expressed their concerns on the sustainability of the reprographics industry, and rightly so, as more and more AEC companies begin to adopt BIM 3D software. AutoDesk's Revit Architecture, Revit Structural, SolidWorks and Bentley Systems are all up and running and in the marketplace. I believe there are some valid reasons for concern. But I also believe that BIM has its challenges and, as result, will create opportunities for those reprographic companies positioned to overcome them.

Here's a nice little video primer on BIM... check it out. Click here:

Let’s look at the design industry. Sure, every design company could buy BIM software, spend whatever limited resources (time and money) are required to train their staff and generate beautiful 3D models. But in reality not every design company has the budget, skills or the time to learn BIM. Early adopters will embrace BIM, but the rest of the market will lag a number of years behind. So, in the short term, most designers will produce and distribute documents in 2D and reprographers will continue to print and/or electronically distribute print-ready information to the construction industry.

Design firms that do adopt BIM completely will expand their mix of documents by including both 2D and 3D content. The opportunities created for reprographers in this situation are extensive. BIM models will render realistic images which reprographers will print in color - in both small and large format.

Models have been and will remain an important aspect of architectural design. The traditional (analog) model building approach is labor intensive and requires a unique fabrication skill set. It is usually a very lengthy and expensive process. Since traditional models are handmade “one-off’s” it makes it practically impossible for a design company to build multiple variations of designs for owners to review. Another shortcoming of traditional models is that they are difficult to archive and preserve for future use.

Design competition can be extremely fierce in the best of times. Design firms are doing whatever it takes to secure new business. Creating models can help designers compete more effectively by communicating a designer’s concepts in a realistic medium. But not many designers can afford to have traditional model makers on staff. They are now looking at BIM software to render their models on 3D printers. We see this as an opportunity, as there will be increasing demand for 3D printing services from those reprographers who make the investment in 3D printers.

There are other opportunities for reprographers who help their clients in the move towards BIM. Companies embracing BIM will need access to BIM software, in-house 3D printers and special training for their designers. Some reprographers are already recognizing these needs and have begun to sell, train and support BIM software and workflow solutions.

Using BIM for design does not always mean that BIM models will be available during all phases of the project life cycle. A lot of it depends mostly on the type of project delivery methods the owner contracts with the designers and builders. With the design-bid-build project delivery process we have seen significant reticence by many designers to share BIM models (due to avariety of issues: contract terms, deliverables, ownership of intellectual property and risks). Projects that contract using design-build or the latest delivery method IPD (integrated-project-delivery) are more collaborative and more likely to share BIM models throughout the project life cycle.

In my next blog posting I will share my thoughts on how construction companies are embracing BIM and IPD and the opportunities that will present themselves for our industry - if we are smart enough to take advantage of them.

Keep reading, and writing - we like hearing from you!

Regards,

Shaun

I’ll take Manhattan! - Shaun Visits The Big Apple, Gauges The Future

By Shaun Meany
President, The PEiR Group

Last week I traveled to the Big Apple to meet with some of our members and attend Canon’s ImagePROGRAF Reseller Roundtable. I took some time to walk this great city and see for myself if "the city that never sleeps" was awake or not in terms of new construction around town.

I was surprised to see so many open lots with nothing being built on them. Reprographers in Gotham tell me that many projects had been put on hold for a variety of reasons - the biggest and most obvious one being a lack of funding.

It floored me. Here I was in the financial center of America and things were basically standing still. An exaggeration, maybe, but it was a matter of perception - the financial capital of the world finally appeared to be asleep.

The Canon Roundtable was interesting, an event Canon hosts in conjunction with the US Open Tennis Championships in Queens, NY. It was great to meet with some of Canon’s top resellers and learn what they are doing to be successful in their respective markets during these challenging economic times. Canon let us in on some of their new market share statistics and they confirmed that Canon is serious about large format.

They are, it seems, quickly taking market share from HP and Epson in the aqueous inkjet large format market space.

Back out on the town, I had to resist the urge to hold a finger in the air to see which way the financial winds were going to blow. We're in a waiting game, I think, but there is an underlying sense of optimism that things will pick up once money starts flowing again.

PEiR members are struggling with the reality that they can't be focused solely on AEC - still. This confuses me. You don't have to look far to see that the people who are doing the best in these stagnant times are the ones who are out there hustling new business, owners networking and mining every last dime out of connections made at social networking functions and pre-established business contacts.

Others are streamlining their pricing model, removing every last barrier that would make a customer say "Hmm, I dunno..." and offering "Read the Meter" solutions charting a company's use of services at the beginning of the month and end of the month and billing them once for everything in between.

It's clean and it's working, particularly as businesses are watching every penny and can't afford to spend more time than they have to accounting for them.

There are some other trends developing in the market... we'll talk about them in the days to come.

In the meantime, stay in touch and let us know how you're doing.

Regards,

Shaun

Industry Self-Analysis From The UK

By The PEiR Group




British printers believe that attracting more business in the coming year will be the key challenge for the reprographics industry.

Results of a British Association for Print & Communication (BAPC) association survey won’t come as much of a news flash for U.S. counterparts, but it does demonstrate that our colleagues overseas are looking for ways to identify and overcome challenges for the looming New Year.

The “attract more business” finding echoed the results of a similar sampling conducted last year, but the perceived remedies jumped dramatically in importance as UK printers are driven to find immediate solutions to a drop in their business.

Improving staff performance, reducing operating costs, and boosting productivity and efficiency all shot up the BAPC list this year as printers struggled to match output and input costs in 2009.

Last year's number two, retaining existing business, dropped to number 10 in the list while last year's number three, fighting falling margins, fell to seventh place on the list of top concerns.

"This survey shows that printers are worried about the economic climate in 2009," Sidney Bobb, BAPC chairman, told PrintWeek. "It is interesting that improving staff performance is so high this year - to do this, printers will need to invest in training."