How AEC software like Bluebeam is changing the game for built environment consultants
Built environment consultancies (BEC) have it hard.
On top of the usual pressures of tight timelines and shrinking budgets, BECs face extra obstacles, like intricate collaboration demands and dizzying project complexity.
Most of this is for a simple reason: BECs work with an exceptionally diverse range of stakeholders. And as we know, the more stakeholders, the harder things get.
So how can BECs work efficiently and reduce risk in the face of this complexity, wherever it comes from?
Enter AEC software. Or more specifically: Bluebeam.
Bluebeam is one of the world’s leading AEC software solutions, helping over three million industry professionals deliver faster, reduce risk and work smarter.
For BECs, Bluebeam is a game-changer, allowing them to coordinate and liaise with precision, maximise efficiency, collaborate effortlessly and manage thousands of documents from one place.
Here’s how Bluebeam changed the game for Ridge & Partners, a leading BEC with over 1,000 employees across 11 offices:
1. Managing project documents 5x more efficiently
Manual operations are still common in the industry, and Ridge & Partners were no exception. Before Bluebeam, they used to print, annotate and scan every project document by hand. For tender and contract documents alone, this could easily be hundreds of documents. Which, it goes without saying, was both time-consuming and highly prone to errors.
With Bluebeam though, everything changed.
Their team now easily manages, marks up and organises PDFs in one unified place on Bluebeam’s digital platform. It’s a radically simpler workflow, allowing them to work faster and more accurately than ever. In numbers, switching to Bluebeam helped Ridge & Partners make their operations over five times more efficient.
Not only this but moving from paper to digital also helped them transition towards a fully paper-free office and has saved the company thousands of pounds in printing costs every year.
2. Making digital transformation for built environment consultants easy
Embedding new software into a business can be difficult. Even more so for multidisciplinary consultants whose business complexity makes change extra taxing for their people. But overnight, Bluebeam replaced manual tasks with a faster, digital alternative. Engineers and designers could create and amend drawings together on the fly using Bluebeam’s Studio Sessions, and design reviews were completed 50% faster. Errors plummeted and Tipp-Ex became a thing of the past.
As efficiency skyrocketed instantly, getting buy-in and adoption for Bluebeam across Ridge & Partners’ 1000-plus team was easier than ever.
Even for die-hard paper fans, the impact was staggering. As senior associate Chris Mills said: “I used to enjoy working by hand, and I took pride in doing good quality sketches. When I think about how long I used to spend doing that, as well as scanning documents and redoing things when needed, it’s not comparable. Now I can work in real time and it’s so fast. I wouldn’t go back.”
3. Boosting accuracy
Another win for Ridge & Partners was increased accuracy, using Bluebeam to easily mark up, measure and annotate drawings as a team.
For comparing drawings, Ridge & Partners uses Bluebeam’s Overlay & Compare tool, which makes it easy to see even the smallest of differences in measurements. In complex projects with hundreds of drawings to check — which is often the case — this saves the company days on their timeline.
Associate Rhys Griffiths says it best: “If we’re reviewing two drawings and we need to see what’s changed, you can use the Overlay & Compare tool, which places the drawings on top of each other and you can clearly see where the colours clash. On one recent project, it was invaluable. We had to check hundreds of drawings and see where any changes had occurred, and that function was a game changer.”
4. Reducing risk with accurate QA/QC
Quality control has to be bulletproof, but complex projects and thousands of documents combined with manual workflows mean errors do happen. Luckily, Bluebeam comes with a suite of tools and features that bring new levels of accuracy and security to the QC process.
Bluebeam is one of the world’s leading AEC software solutions, helping over three million industry professionals deliver faster, reduce risk and work smarter.“
For Alex Hall, working in the building services team at Ridge & Partners, Bluebeam is now his starting point for every project: “If I get given an architectural floor plan and I’ve got to do a survey, I’ll use Bluebeam to mark it up. That’ll include colour coding rooms and overlaying where the electrical and heating services are. That gives us a reference point to check against as part of our QA processes, comparing what we’ve captured against the final drawings.”
All of which increases efficiency and reduces risk, while giving Ridge & Partners a digital audit trail to check.
Many of the team also use Bluebeam to quickly create professional designs themselves, instead of relying on an overloaded technical team. For every drawing, Ridge & Partners saves two to three days.
5. A professional approach
Finally, Bluebeam gave Ridge & Partners the tools to create consistent, professional and presentable documents, easily and quickly. For Partner Nick Barringer, it was a welcome change: “Bluebeam Revu helps us to make professional customer documents that are locked down and secure. Using Bluebeam as a presentation tool means the team can quickly sketch up and demonstrate things in meetings for internal meetings and with clients.”
In fact, the impact was so dramatic that many clients thought Ridge & Partners’ drawings had been done in AutoCAD or Revit. In reality, drawings came from everyone and anyone, with almost zero training.
All that’s to say, Ridge & Partners found the perfect digital solution in Bluebeam.
Whether working remotely, in the office or on-site, the entire company now works more efficiently.
Of course, while Bluebeam changed the game for Ridge & Partners, built environment consultants are just one group of Bluebeam users. Architects, engineers, builders and hundreds of others in the wider AEC industry use Bluebeam. All working smarter, collaborating better and delivering faster with one digital solution.
*Please note that this is a commercial profile.
