Build It

What goes around, comes around

Recently, I had the burning need to find a certain document that was buried somewhere within the expansive paper archives of our building in Foster City.  The Chief Engineer had been looking for weeks, to no avail.  I decided that I should be able to go up to "The Library" and easily uncover what I needed, as if the Chief wasn't looking hard enough.  Spoiler alert: I was wrong.

The Problem

There was a mountain of disparate and disconnected documents, cabinets and binders full of paper, no true organization, various forms of media between paper, blueprints, sepias, plans, and digital documents.  It was a true "needle in a stack of needles" moment for me.

Needless to say, I never found the document I was looking for.  I gave up after about 45 minutes of pulling dusty plans off the top of shelves.   The whole experience brought me back to my days at BarkerBlue in a few ways: 1. I had visited this actual room while with BarkerBlue, and 2. I went there in order to try and convince the Owners at that time to pony up and scan all those rusting documents.  That call was also fruitless; poetically causing the frustration I was dealing with recently in trying to find this particular document.

I remember being frustrated at the time that the Owner did not see what a problem this outdated archive actually was.  How the inability to find documentation quickly (if at all) was a real business cost and risk to their operations.  I knew what a resource a scanned, tagged, and searchable archive of  30 years worth of documents could do for them, but they couldn't see it.

Fast forward 7 years, and I am now in the Owner position, wishing I had called that Salesperson 7 years ago to get to work scanning my archive.  This particular document, if not found, quite literally could have an implication of thousands of dollars.  Not to mention, I spent almost an hour looking for this thing, which has its own monetary impact to my projects and actual salary.

The Realization

Having a new perspective on this, I think I figured out the reason why my sales pitch fell on deaf ears that day.  As the Owner, looking at this monumental pile of stuff, the notion came to me that I had no idea where I would even start.  Deciding what was important, what was a duplicate that I wouldn't want to pay for, what was irrelevant.....a seemingly impossible task.  

It's a terrible excuse, but that's the realization I had.  I would probably turn my sales-self down just because I could not fathom starting the process.

The Takeaway

What would I tell myself of 7 years ago, knowing what I know now?  The Owner-me recognizes the problem, and understands the real life impact of lost documentation.  The Owner-me can probably justify the costs of the service.  I think the Sales-me should have done everything possible just to scan a few sets of drawings to start that snowball.

We actually did this in real life at BarkerBlue, successfully, with two pretty big tech companies in Silicon Valley.  We won those battles by showing them how we were already storing their current construction documents, and that it would be so easy to grow their archive by adding the old stuff.  We had momentum going into it, which mad the decision to add to the archive that much easier.

Staring at that pile of disjointed information was overwhelming.  Frustrating.  It seemed impossible to tame, but it would have been better if we had just taken a single step 7 years ago.

Blueprinter Redux - Follow Up

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about making the word "blueprint" cool again, I saw this article in the San Francisco Chronicle talking about how the public much prefers the word "hospital" over the marketing-speak term "medical center" which is so in use these days.  Here are some excerpts:

"a national survey of 1,027 American adults...showed that way more consumers prefer the term “hospital” to “medical center.

Considering that swarms of U.S. hospitals have transformed themselves to medical centers over the last few years, that’s pretty funny.

Marketers, business gurus, consultants, and others with big contracts and fancy suits convinced hospital executives that “hospitals” were old fashioned, quaint, and way too 20th century. "Medical centers” were cutting edge, high-tech and truly trendy. 

The survey...found that U.S. consumers think a “hospital” would have a wider range of services, would provide better care, would be more up to date and would have more physicians...who are experts in their fields, according to the survey, often by lopsided margins.

“The conventional wisdom for years has been that the word ‘hospital’ was tired and old-fashioned,” said Steve Rivkin, founder of Rivkin & Associates, a marketing and communications consultancy. “As a result, hundreds of hospitals have dropped the word and renamed themselves medical centers.”

"The conventional wisdom is wrong,” said Sandra Bauman, founder of Bauman Research & Consulting, noting that it shows that consumers favor ‘hospital’ across the board, and that results were consistent across lines of gender, age, income, race, region, household income, household size and educational level."

This is exactly what I was talking about.  The industry is tired of being called a hospital, so it invents a convoluted two-word phrase to replace it, yet the consumers think much more highly of the old-fashioned term than the new fangled one. 

That to me is the biggest take-away from this article.  The end-users themselves attributed more and better services to the name they knew best, not the name that was created by the hospital industry.

Was anyone ever really convinced that "reprographics" was the better term?

Here's a link to the article: http://bit.ly/jtNtGy

Here's a link to the study: http://bit.ly/kA0s6k

 

Jared Willis

 

 

Blueprinter Redux

Walking to work this morning, I saw an ad on the side of a bus for a new hospital in San Francisco. The ad stated that they weren't just making a plan for better healthcare, but a blueprint. 

Ironically, it wasn't an actual blueprint, but rather a regular print on blue bond. 

The point is, I got to thinking about the word "blueprint" and how difficult it was for us and the industry to distance ourselves from that "dirty" word. It was nearly impossible. That word just stuck with people and it's obvious that it has a clear and easily understood message for the general populace. 

Instead of tearing your hair out over whether you are called a blueprinter, maybe the adage of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is best here. 

What if you could could re-popularize the term blueprint?  What if you could take the power back from that word by giving it a different meaning?  Make blueprint cool again by having it mean something totally different.  Don't change the word; change what it means and what it says about what you do.

"Blueprint" is actually a pretty good word, it just has a bad connotation for reprographers.  It's only 2 syllables, 1 word and pretty much everyone understands what you mean when you say it.

I know that we spent a lot of time and money trying to get rid of that word and erase it from our customers' minds, but maybe it's time to put that word to work for us, and not against us.

 

Jared Willis

Deadly data overload in Reprographics

The front page of the New York Times the other day carried this story, "In New Military, Data Overload Can Be Deadly". Here is some quoted text from the first few paragraphs:

"When military investigators looked into an attack by American helicopters last February that left 23 Afghan civilians dead, they found that the operator of a Predator Drone had failed to pass along crucial information about the makeup of a gathering crowd of villagers.

But Air Force and Army officials now say there was also an underlying cause for that mistake: information overload.

At an Air Force base in Nevada, the drone operator and his team struggled to work out what was happening in the village, where a convoy was forming. They had to monitor the drone’s video feeds while participating in dozens of instant-message and radio exchanges with intelligence analysts and troops on the ground."

I share this awful story with you to make a larger point about information.  Our problem used to be a lack of information and we are quickly entering (if not already there) an age of over-information where the true desired skill will be the ability to intake, organize and accurately represent information to the end user.

We so often run up against projects/companies using a wide variety of tools to manage information: Box.net, Sharepoint, CMiC, Prolog, ftp, Projectwise, etc.  Most of these companies I talk to feel secure that by having these tools/databases, they are providing for information sharing and collaboration among their team members.  I submit that without the right tools/people in place, you are actually hindering the process of communication, sometimes with disastrous results.

The above example of the civilian deaths is the extreme example of what can happen when there's too much information, but it's not a big leap of faith to imagine a Subcontractor not knowing which document out of 20 that he should utilize and subsequently endangering the project schedule or budget.

Information Explosion

Lately, When talking about what I/we do in the reprographics industry, I increasingly refer to us as the Librarians of the Library.  Everyone in the industry talks about the death of print, but few look at the explosive growth of information, particularly in construction.  While plan printing has reduced drastically, your clients are dealing with volumes and volumes more data than they ever have before.  The relative ease of creating information these days (AutoCAD, email, site photos, PDFs) means that authorship has gone way up where everyone on the project creates a meaningful document multiple times a day.  That information is all important and it can be incredibly overwhelming if not controlled.

When selling your solution, don't talk about its ability to hold information.  Storage space and ability is cheap.  Talk about your ability to get the client down to what they want, right away.  Talk about your team's ability to be the Librarian in the Library that controls the documentation, organizes it and makes it relevant and easy to use for the team.  

FM'd Employees

I believe there's a market for reprographic companies to provide employees on jobsites that will act as the Document Control person.  We are already seeing this happen in our market where Contractors are designating a Project Engineer (aka: someone who's never done this before) and creating a Document Control role.  If you can place that person on-site, not only do you have the experience with construction documentation organization/fulfillment that they don't but you will be more likely to get them to use your document management solution on the project.

And, if we have to talk about a printing angle, what better way to ensure that you're getting the maximum amount of output than employing the Traffic Cop!

I believe many Reprographic firms are struggling with how to maintain their relevance in their Client's eyes and the shift in thinking to being true information managers will be the wave of the reprographic future.

Jared

Information Super-Highway Robbery

As part of the TypePad service, it provides you stats on who has visited your blog and how they got there.  Often, hits come via Google searches for reprographic or construction terms and TypePad shows you what people have looked for.  (I actually get an unprecedented number of hits from people looking at the photo that I took of the new bridge over the Hoover Dam).

Today, one of the Google searches that someone did was this, and I quote:

"reprographics places are charging outrageous prices for cd"

This is the first of it's kind that I've ever had, and in case this person comes back looking for the answer, here's what I would say in response to your query.

I still hold the belief that the media does not define the value.  If you look at this argument from any other industry's viewpoint, you will see that one should not define how much something should cost by whether or not you could physically do it using supplies you found at Office Depot.

The simplest example I can think of is software developers like Microsoft or Apple.  The hard costs for them to burn the latest OS to a CD and package it up for sale is probably $10.00 per package, if that.  Do you, as a consumer of their goods, truly believe that you should only pay $10.00 for the value of what they're providing you?  If you buy a new bestselling book, is the value of that book somehow limited by the cost per pound of the paper and ink they printed it on?  Why are those any different from reprographers charging you a cost to have a perfectly organized, easily accessible format to access drawings?

You should really be complaining about the Architects.  Think about it.  If they get 4% of a $5 million job ($200,000) as a fee, and produce 100 pages of drawings for you, they are charging you $2,000 per page!!!  Larceny!!!

Additionally, you used to pay hundreds of dollars for a set of drawings in paper, and I would venture to say that the true cost of that paper wasn't that much.  Why did you feel it was okay to pay hundreds of dollars, for the same information, in paper format?  What made it more real for you?  Weren't we still organizing and making the information consumable for you?  Are you any better served by receiving AutoCAD files straight from the Architect?  

I get what it looks like.  I get that it looks like we're trying to rob you for something that you could burn right now on your computer.  However, I will say that there is a lot more going on to produce that pretty and perfect CD than you realize.  Reprographers are not charging that much money because they want to.  They do it because they have to.

Jared Willis

An open call for reprographic standards

I recently completed my CSI Construction Document Technologist certification.  The CDT certification demonstrates that one understands the processes and documents inherent in this complicated process that is construction.

The major tome of reference for your CDT certification is the Project Resource Manual (PRM).  This book covers practically every single aspect of planning, design, construction, operations and demolition.  From contractual language, to document definition to project delivery types, it is THE resource for construction professionals.

Going through this entire book, where chapters upon chapters are dedicated to seemingly every trade needed to build a structure, I was struck by the fact that there couldn't have been more than 2 full pages dedicated to document management/reprographics.  A trade that is so integral to the success of any project gets treated so lightly in this manual for how to build a project from A to Z.

An open call to the IRgA

As I've written about before, reprographics is probably the worst treated and least organized building trade.  We are the only trade:

• that does normally not have a contractual relationship with the project
• that is not really a subcontractor, and not really a supplier, yet not a major team player
• that is the hub of project communications, yet is judged on the basest of unit pricing
• whose work can get taken down to street and copied at any time

Most every other trade on the jobsite has some sort of an agreement with the project defining their responsibilities, rights and obligations for that project.  This agreement demands a level of service to the project, but also protects the trade from the project.  Many of these agreements have been standard practice for dozens of years, are developed by national organizations and work to serve the best interests of their members.  I feel that it is time for the IRgA to develop such a contract.

I also call on the IRgA here so that it can lend its gravitas to the process and get documents like this included in resources like the PRM and accepted by other national groups like the CSI, AIA and AGC.  I don't feel that this can be a process only spearheaded by individual companies, no matter how large.  It must be professional; it must be accessible; it must be standardized.

The times they are a'changin'...

In this era of electronic revolution in reprographics, of increased competition and technology ready to outpace most firms, I think a standard reprographics contract may be more needed than ever.  A contract that places reprographics firms in the true center of information exchange, that gives them security from losing a job for no reason and helps them maintain profitability.

Now this isn't all for reprographers benefit alone.  A standardized contract would help project teams better understand the importance of accurate document management on the project as well as helping them to better define the flow of documents on the project from the start.  Lastly, I think one of the most frustrating parts of reprographics for contractors is the inability to price out our services.  I don't think contractors like asking for square foot price anymore than we like giving it.  Contractors want lump sum pricing or guaranteed maximums and with a standard contract, we could develop a methodology that both protects the reprographer yet gives the contractor more peace of mind.

The smart people in the room

Now I am the last person that should be figuring this out, but there are a lot of smart people within organizations like ReproMAX, the IRgA and ARC and I imagine that via a coordinated effort from the IRgA we could develop some simple, standard agreements that would at least be a start and help all reprographers advance and get our collective acts together.

Jared Willis

Predictably Irrational Blog: NY Times Charging Scheme

Read this blog today and thought there was a good article on how the New York Times is about to embark on charging its readers for digital content after years of providing that same information for free.  Take a quick look:

Predictably Irrational Blog: My Take on the New York Times Pay Wall

This is the spot that most reprographers are going to find themselves in (if not there already).  Stuck between the constant pressure to provide digital documents and the need to keep your doors open and pay your employees.

How can you do what this author suggests? Charge for the digital content but maybe throw in some other twist to make your customers assign more value to it now that you're charging for it.  Ay, there's the rub.

Jared Willis

Poor Jobsite Communication May Have Caused Death

I often get up on my soapbox and rant about the importance of drawing/document management in construction, and it often falls on deaf ears with my clients.  They just don't realize the importance that those documents carry on their project.

A very tragic story out of Florida brings the gravity of the importance of construction information to the forefront.  Here' s the headline from the story:

 

"A second inspector testified Tuesday he didn’t see complete plans for the Berkman Plaza 2 parking garage in Jacksonville until after it collapsed in December 2007."

"The inspector was paid to examine temporary supports used during construction. He also said building crews changed materials used in some supports, but he didn’t get new plans taking that change into account."

It seems that the major problem here is that the Inspector, whose job it is to ensure that a structure is safe for inhabitants, did not have updated construction information regarding changes in support materials which he may have deemed unsafe or insufficient.  Because he was unaware that new plans existed, he was not able to inspect the work that may have led to the structure's collapse.

Here's another troubling quote:

"Dickey said he thought the inspectors were doing their jobs and catching problems. But some details weren’t being caught.  For example Mullins said the plans he used were shrunken versions, not the big blueprints commonly used by engineers."

"OSHA lawyer Dane Steffenson had him study a full-sized set of plans, which showed an engineer had specified exact heights to which screw jacks that raise and lower the shoring should have been set.  Mullins hadn’t seen that before on the half-sized version and didn’t know to check for that."

The lack of communication, accuracy and quality led to the death of one man and to 20 others being injured, not to mention the financial impact of lawsuits, reconstruction and disability that the City of Jacksonville will now incur because of poor construction information management.

For those developers and GCs who read this blog (if there are any), please understand the impact that information and how it's handled has on your project.

Jared Willis

The Spearin Doctrine. What is it and why is it important?

In doing some research on Building Information Modeling (BIM) recently, I came across a legal decision referred to as the Spearin Doctrine.  For those in reprographic sales (or any type of construction for that matter) this is a decision you should become very familiar with.

It was a Supreme Court case (United States v. Spearin) heard in 1918 that essentially lays the legal groundwork for assigning liability for accurate and correct plans.  It pitted a General Contractor against the US Government which had asked Spearin to build a dry-dock in New York.

You can read a great summary here, but basically Spearin completed the work according to the plans as approved by the Owner (the US Government).  A year later, when a neighboring sewer line that was not included on the approved plans broke and flooded the dry-dock, the blame (and cost to fix the problem) was laid squarely on the shoulders of the Owner. To paraphrase the linked article above:

"This doctrine...maintains that a contractor will not be liable to the owner for loss or damage which results solely from insufficiencies or defects in such information, plans and specifications."

When talking to your Owner/Developer clients, the importance of accurate and complete document management can not be stressed enough.  This particular case may deal with the accuracy of the drawings themselves, but stressing your QC processes that help catch incomplete drawings and other mistakes.  Get down to the real issues facing the Owner including that's he's responsible for the drawings that make it out to the team, then show them how you help mitigate that risk with your services. 

Jared Willis

Making Your Own Soap

We had a meeting with a General Contractor today, and a large part of the conversation dealt with this GC's plan to create their own, internal system that will not only manage the RFIs, Change Orders, Accounting packages, Scheduling, Contracts and much more, but also manage and store all project-related documents, essentially eliminating the need for those darned "printers".

I wrote about this back in November, about the desire of many construction companies to become their own source for document management on their projects.  The mindset, I feel, behind most of these desires is that document management is simple.  I believe that they feel there is not much more to document management in Construction than sending files around to different parties on the project.

There's More Than Meets the Eye

To be quite honest, companies like that are over-simplifying the process and steps that go into preparing, organizing and making perfect those documents for immediate use by the GC.  Reprographers go through a lot of pain and suffering to wrap up these complex document processes so that it gets delivered to the end client in a nice pretty bow.

I guess what I'm really trying to say, is that the Construction community should, in my opinion, recognize that everyone has a certain expertise and that it's probably not the best course of action to attempt to do everything yourself.  In the General Contractors case, they are not experts at the individual trades which is why they hire Subcontractors.  Attempting to become experts at every little piece of construction is inefficeint and unprofitable.

So...

The moral here for reprographers is to demonstrate to your clients, always, the full value and hard work that you put into protecting them from document screwups, delays and risk.  Otherwise, they may think that's it's a simple process that anyone could do which means you're nothing special and you can be bid out against your competition.

Be different.  Be valuable.

Jared Willis