Sean O’Dwyer
Of the many trends, themes and buzz-words currently top of mind within AEC & Manufacturing companies, 'collaboration' is one of the most widely discussed.
As every step in the construction and manufacturing value chain continues to go ever more paperless— and digital technologies offer the means to do so —
traditional ways of doing things are being reevaluated.
This reevaluation (pivoting on the need for improved collaboration)
is leading to faster processes, better data management,
greater accuracy, reduced costs, and less rework, waste, and risk;
precisely the benefits that Bluebeam Revu delivers.
In this blog I offer a closer look at the extent of the functionality wrapped up in Bluebeam. You’ll find an overall introduction to Bluebeam in my recent blog, ‘Why review PDF documents the hard way, when you can Bluebeam Revu them?’.
A word of warning: once you adopt Bluebeam, you’ll never look back, perhaps apart from wondering how you ever managed without it.
Manual approaches to sharing documents have long sufficed. Indeed, to many, they seem, or have seemed, to capture the spirit of teamwork – people get to talk to each other, share views, offer opinions, and spot problems when scrutinising a document they can handle, and relate to.
The problem is that ‘sufficing’ is not enough. ‘Collaboration’ today has become almost a digital word. In this sense, it means working smarter, faster, more confidently, from a single source of truth that everybody shares on any connected device, anywhere.
There’s a right way and a less right way to collaborate. There’s teamwork as it used to be, and the transformed, connected, software-driven version. Let’s see where the divergences are.
When Manufacturing & AEC professionals need to access documents or drawings, they need to do so instantly. It’s the next stage in whatever they are doing at that moment in time. Searching or waiting for the information can be frustrating. Contacting other people, to get the information required just chews up time. One single, always up-to-date, central repository of the latest version of any pertinent document or drawing is essential for clarification and the avoidance of all doubt.
Bluebeam offers more than real-time visibility; it offers ‘in the moment’ collaboration — getting things done when they need to be done; due to projects being centralised in the cloud, allowing when-needed access.
Bluebeam Revu is available in three plans, ranging from using it as a basic document management platform, through to exploiting the value of automated processes.
This flexibility gives you the chance to make a transition to the software at the pace that works for you. After all, there’s no point in paying for functionality your teams are not yet ready to take full advantage of, or that does not have an immediately identifiable role in your workflows.
Delight your team: Achieve your goals faster, smarter, and with greater confidence!
Plan 1: Basics
At the ‘entry’ level you can use the software for simple markups, measurement (length and area), and document management (such as pdf creating and editing).
‘Basics’ is ideal if you just want to explore the value of Bluebeam from the perspective of your own workflows. You can convert any Windows file to PDF or TIF, JPG, BMP, PSD, PNG, PCL, GIF, EMF and WMF files using Bluebeam’s integral PDF print engine.
Plan 2: Core
‘Core’ adds to the functionality of Basics by offering the ability to make speciality markups on 2D and 3D pdfs, and batch comparisons of multiple drawing revisions. Files can be batch-converted from AutoCAD, Revit and SolidWorks to PDF, TIF, JPG, BMP, PSD, PNG, PCL, GIF, EMF and WMF files.
Plan 3: Complete
As its name suggests, ‘Complete’ is the most comprehensive plan with an extensive range of functionality added to the above two plans, such as:
Example workflow benefits that can shift you up a gear in efficiency with Bluebeam include:
Studio Projects is an online collaboration platform (with cloud storage) that comes with all Bluebeam solutions. This is where project participants can come together in real-time for reviewing and marking up.
Studio Projects gives you a single centralised location — where you can store not just documents, but entire building projects — in the cloud. And Studio Sessions lets project teams review, mark up and update the same files at the same time.
Symetri can advise you on the best Bluebeam Revu plan for your business, advise on optimum licensing, and onboard your users. We also provide ongoing support, if required.
Please get in touch if you want to explore what Bluebeam Revu can do for your team, your workflow efficiencies, and your next step in digitising the processes that really need it. We can arrange a demo.
Join us for our upcoming webinar the 20th Sept at 11am that explores the power of OCR, document comparison, collaboration, and advanced Bluebeam features - a complete and comprehensive webinar experience you don't want to miss!
