Posts Tagged Revit
Autodesk Posts 2009: Revit Continues to Outpace
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Revit on June 16, 2009
Autodesk released its fiscal 2009 annual report and I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the numbers. First, and most importantly to me is the growth within in their AEC segment. This segment in general posted a revenue gain of 9%, whereas the Revit family or products produced a revenue gain of 22% compared to itself in 2008. I could boldly state that this is proof positive of Revit’s market acceptance, however, this is also an easy to mask would could be lousy performance. For example, if I sold one box of cookies last year, and this y I sold two, voila 100% gain. By seeing the actual numbers you are more likely to come to the conclusion that I am lousy cookie salesman, and this does not necessarily reflect on the product at all.
When looking at revenue by Geography, Revit posted a 40% Revenue gain compared to 2007, and compared to the AEC segment of 26% as a whole. Again comparing it to itself does not shed a ton of light on the subject accept for the fact that Revit is accelerating.
If we look at this on a macro level, anyway you look at it, this is positive. Autodesk could be discounting products in order to maintain top line growth. Do I care? No, since I do not own Autodesk as a stock holder, but am very invested in it as a user/developer. So while a shareholder might be more interested in margins, I’m more about top line growth and adoption, so the fact that Revit is posting better revenue gains compared to the rest of the segment, I’m happy.
Strategically, I like the fact that Autodesk has almost $1 billion cash on hand in cash and cash equivalents, and that they have no problem making acquisitions of companies in their target zone. What’s their target zone? The way I look at it, imagine a building from conception to destruction and everything in between. If you carve out a space in there you are in their target zone. Interestingly they dropped FM Desktop which leaves a gap in their portfolio. The fact they picked up Navisworks, Constructware, Ecotect, etc. shows they are serious in owning this space and that they do not want you to have to leave their product of families to do your work. Hello Microsoft. How this plays with their commitment to IPD and cross platform compatibility will be interesting. IPD is too big a deal to pay lip service too so I imagine they play along, continuing to create value within the BIM and IPD space, and acquiring companies who provide value added tools.
And if you are a Revit user, or thinking about switching over, signs look good that Autodesk has your back. FYI Gartner Research reported in 2007 a 12% growth rate for BIM and Revit is beating those estimates. If I get a bit more motivated I will try and break out Revit revenue from the AEC segement, breakout the % revnue from subscription and divide by average single seat license or average seat license and see if we can get to an installed base #, last time I tried something, and this was very unsicentific I had it around 300,000+. I’ll follow this post up if I get some more cofee in me and can get excited to go through the annual report, 10K’s etc. in more detail.
Revit Rumble
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Revit on June 12, 2009
As a preface to this article, I wanted to say that the employees that came through my business and went to architecture firms to become designers are still gainfully employed despite the multiple haircuts sic. layoffs the industry has gone through. I can attribute that to my acute acumen and hiring skills, although I always believed these individulas were exceptional. Or we can look at the skills they needed in our environment which was always to build, draft and think in 3D, so they both came out of our shop with refined Revit skills which I think is becoming one of the most important skills on your resume, or at least a skill that anyone in the profession is developing.
The AIA in Portland, Ore has put together a Revit Rumble for both employed and unemployed designers to show their chops.
Labor Productivity Declines in the Construction Industry: Causes and Remedies
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM on June 10, 2009
This is an article by Paul Teicholz from Stanford it’s older but still very relevant today. If you don’t intend to make the jump the nut of it is the lack of collaborative tools within the construction industry is inhibiting productivity gains. Even as better tools and methods appear their adoption is slow and buildings are becoming more complex.
Typically, as informally described by PMs in the field, after the steel goes up or there’s a major renovation HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc. want to be in first, why? Less problems and issues downstream, no worries if your stuff is colliding with anyone elses and minimum change orders. Compare that to the last one in, who’s chases are now filled with other equipment, who’s runs are compromised by a plumbing stack or HVAC trunk. I’d want to be first one in too.
One of my friends, and clients has a design/build firm. He was a trained architect but got more into the building side. He brought us into document the existing conditions of a residence. We brought it into Revit and he then he sat down with someone from my team to design the proposed. We phased it, rendered it, he used it for a variance hearing, etc.
Now the plans needs a stamp. The architect does not work in 3D so need to export everything into 2D, not a problem since the architect does not work within the Autodesk family of products, I am not trying to be a shill for Autodesk I am just showing the problems going cross platform, so he is going to use our stuff to trace over. We export the floorplans, sections and elevations. He goes to work. Now the landscape architect still works with pencil and paper. Even though we had a plot plan and brought it into Revit so all the grades and current information is in the model, the landscape architect went back out with a transit and paper and created his own plan on paper.
What is the number one cause of inefficiency due to interoperability. “The manual re-entering of data.” This was reported in the 2007 Smart Market Report from McGraw Hill. They also cite :
• Time using duplicate software
• Document version checking
• RFI processing
• Cost of data translations
and it is not difficult to see the time sink this becomes.
Now take the other end of the spectrum. We sat in an IFMA round table at MGH (Mass General Hospital) where they told us they used BIM and IPD (Integrated Proejct Delivery) and they did everything digitally. Scheduled it, collision detection, etc. and they found tens of thousands of collisions on the computer before anyone went into the field. I have seen estimates, and I will try and dig up the source for you, that each collision was valued between $3,000 to $5,000. That should provide enough of an answer as why anyone should switch to BIM. And I keep coming back to what one of the construction mangers said to me, “we now have the time and inclination to things right.”
Heading towards BIM
Posted by coleparker in Uncategorized on May 30, 2009
Here’s a guy heading toward BIM. Clean install of Revit MEP, that’s a good start.
