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AECWeekly is a news magazine featuring important industry news profiles, a summary of recently published AEC product and company news, customer wins, and coming events. Brought to you by AECCafe.

AECWeekly examines select top news each week, picks out worthwhile reading from around the web, and special interest items you might not find elsewhere. This issue will feature Industry News, Top News of the Week, Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances, Announcements, Awards, New Products, Around the Web and Upcoming Events.

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Industry News
Intergraph User Conference 2009 Report
By Susan Smith

Intergraph held its annual user conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Washington D.C. June 14-18th. Attendance was notably down as for all events this year, but conference organizers were cheered by the 1,500 or so who did make it. The event was elegantly presented; care taken with food and presentations, but there were no unnecessary extras.

[ Click to Enlarge ] Intergraph CEO, Halsey Wise

The global economy was an understandable topic of chairman, president and CEO Halsey Wise’s keynote at Intergraph 2009, entitled “Powering the Future.” 2009 also marks the 40th year anniversary of Intergraph. The U.S. economy has gone “from boom to bust” according to Wise, and he asked, “what will bring organizations back up to boom again?”

Everyone has opinions on what might turn things around, but as so many people try to understand what caused it in the first place, it’s very difficult to know what could cause it to change for the better. Last year at the 2008 conference held in Las Vegas at Caesar’s Palace, no one could have predicted how dramatically the global economy would be affected. Wise cited these stock market statistics: as of June 1st 2009 the Dow Jones was 30 % down, NASDAQ down 26%, and the VIX index down almost 46%. He said that looking around we can all see the changes: the rate at which banks lend money to each other has changed, oil prices, 30 –year mortgage rates have changed and unemployment has risen in the U.S. He said that there were empty seats on airline flights, but I traveled on a full flight on the way to DC.

Wise counts Intergraph’s durable customer relationships as a factor in keeping the company strong. He said the company would rely on their core values and innovation, which would allow them to weather such variables as economic cycles, technology cycles and customer needs.

Times of economic stress open up some of the best economic opportunities, according to Wise, citing a person who in 1928,during the height of the Great Depression, decided that sliced bread would be a good way to not waste bread.
In 1920, neoprene and nylon were invented to solve the problem of tires on automobiles wearing out too fast.

7 keys to innovation at Intergraph:

• Mutual respect
• Systematic listening
• Mix of customer driven and company driven ideas.
• Continuous upward progression of ideas (feedback loop)
• Encourage dumb questions as you often get smart answers
• Make mistakes willingly but understand which mistakes to keep
• Don’t raise mice in an elephant’s cage.

Wise said that Intergraph is a leader in many areas such as video mosaicking. The company derives 22% of its revenue from new products, and is “betting a lot” on their new data centric strategy. The company has $240 million in cash at this time. The “now, next and after next” strategy announced in 2003 is continuing to evolve at Intergraph.

[ Click to Enlarge ] Intergraph Icon Award Winners

Intergraph is opening new R&D centers, and looking at new technologies that will fit into their technology stack. Wise said later that their goal is to reach $1 billion by 2012, a completely organic goal; any acquisitions will be on top of that.

Reid French, chief operating officer, spoke on the topic, “Software and the New Normal,” focusing on the role software and technology can play in the volatility and cost pressure today.

He said that Intergraph’s goal was to deliver software that will allow you to deal with this new normal.

“Just about every important economic metric has shifted dramatically,” said French. “The speed of how this has happened is astonishing.” Prior to September 6, 2008, there were only 35 days in which the stock market had risen or fallen more than 4% in a single trading session. He said, we have had more volatility in the past nine months than in 60 years.

He explained that the VIX index measures applied volatility. At the moment, volatility is high. “What impact will high volatility have on our organizations?” he asked. He said that only the fittest organizations will survive, meaning that they need to have great flexibility and cost structure, and can operate in real time.

French said that in this “new normal,” software can enable organizations to make them more efficient and adaptable.

[ Click to Enlarge ] Award winning journalist, Tom Brokaw

Award winning journalist Tom Brokaw spoke of his experiences as a journalist covering news around the world. He spoke about the generation emerging from the depression, who were asked to go across the oceans and engage in war. “When people did learn to take measure of their lives every day, their maturity was accelerated because of the decisions they had to make,” he said. “The secret to our immigrant nation is that we’re at our best when faced with our greatest challenges.”

To read about the Intergraph awards, read the press release

Process, Power , Marine

In a press conference, Wise talked about how users of the SmartPlant Foundation, Intergraph’s key data management toolset, had changed. Five years ago, 90% were EPCs, with 10% in Owner Operator space. Now 1/3 of users are in the Owner Operator space. What is appealing is the data hand-off in the operational phase is made easier by using Intergraph tools.

“In a down market, we are training more people in SmartPlant 3D than before,” said Wise. “How much of our activity increase in the product is due to a down market? They have time now, in a rising economy. We are training people at light speed. Training budgets have not been cut. Most of the people have decided engineers are in short supply. EPCs are keeping them on ice and giving them other initiatives to work on, such as training.”

Wise added that Intergraph’s training is classroom based, and their web based training has done very well, and is offered for all Intergraph products.

Executive vice president, Global Development Development, Process, Power & Marine, Patrick Holcomb talked about the SmartPlant 3D products have become mature and Intergraph has seen good industry uptakes of the technology. They have over 250 clients
And over 7,000 licenses.

“Obviously we had a setback with the global economy turning on us, and what that did is stalled a bunch of new projects,” said Holcomb. “Typically what most of the engineers do is wait for a new project to launch, in fact they wait for new projects even to upgrade. Most of them have internal rules they simply won’t do anything but critical hot fixes during a project.”

Features addressed in the version 2009 release included laser scan integration, integration with analysis, and integration with detailing through the CIS 2 standard.

Customers have reported anywhere from 15 to 35% productivity gains according to Holcomb.

Some shifts have occurred since the product was originally built between the years of 2004 and 2008. At that time, Holcomb said there was so much money around, “it really wasn’t about being efficient it was about moving faster. And the market was frothing. One of the benefits of this downturn (we wouldn’t have wished for it), now people are getting much more focused on productivity and competitiveness, so we’re talking to people about cost competitiveness. The importance of that is in order of magnitude higher than it was just a few years ago.”

Holcomb said he believes Intergraph will assume a growth rate that’s more “organic” in nature, “so instead of growing at 20 or 30% maybe we’ll see something that’s more like 10%. That’s a big success for us and in many ways. It’s timed extremely well in that just as our 3D technology is really coming through the early adoption phase, clearing out a lot of the early problems and getting to the very beginning of our maturity just as the world cares about costs and productivity.”

Holcomb described SmartPlant Construction (to be released in September) as an integration of engineering and construction into a capital facilities delivery group. The product brings together all the engineering, procurement information and scheduling information and letting a construction planner create a real fact based plan.

“Engineers like it because they can make sure they have the right information being planned and the plan is being done precisely right.” Well known is the disconnect between engineers and constructors, “They have all sorts of communication and handover problems which are a function of both the culture and the people issues and physical location, because frequently engineering is not at the site, there are time zone and other problems.”

For AEC professionals, SmartPlant Construction sounds much like building information modeling, and Holcomb agrees that it is a “very similar concept.” “We’ve got interfaces and applications, users screens and reports for constructors and we’ve got product support and interfaces in engineering which are designed to serve the construction process. We spent 2/3 of our total time on integration 1/3 on features and applications for the construction planners themselves,” Holcomb noted. “That’s the level – that’s where the user screens are going to show up in the hands of those who are construction experts.

In terms of implementing a new technology such as SmartPlant Construction during this economic downturn, Holcomb said that one of the challenges is going to be finding a project – “it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a brand new project, but it would need to be something that is not already deep into construction for them to consider using it,” he pointed out. “It’s also a function of just finding the right people, people who are interested in trying something innovative within a company. There’s a lot that goes into piloting it. I think most clients are telling us they’re burning off a lot of backlog there are not a lot of new projects starting. There are a lot of projects, ones that are ongoing and other projects that have just been delayed.”

Because a project is not over after the building is built, SmartPlant Construction will provide a database that can be handed over at the project’s end to Owner Operators to use for its maintenance planning capabilities as it will contain all the technical data with all materials.

Areas where Holcomb sees the economy doing fairly well are in the power industry and nuclear.

Top News of the Week

Deltek, Inc., provider of enterprise applications for project-focused businesses, announced the release of Cobra 5.0, the leading enterprise cost and earned value management solution for government contractors and other project-based businesses. By delivering tight control over project costs, insight into mission-critical project data and the ability to easily calculate and report on earned value, Cobra 5.0 helps organizations better manage project and program performance. In addition, Cobra 5.0 enables government contractors to manage the impact of increased government oversight and provides key components of government mandated compliance programs.

Quantapoint, provider of laser scanning technology and services that help companies achieve Zero-Defect Projects -- announced that Quantapoint Laser Models may be accessed directly in Intergraph SmartPlant 3D using QuantaCAD 9.0. QuantaCAD enables 3D laser scan data to be accessed as high-definition Quantapoint Laser Models (not fuzzy "point clouds") and photo-realistic Laser Images directly within design software.

Acquisitions, Agreements, Alliances

Since 2005 Viewpoint Construction Software has worked with Textura to offer Viewpoint clients a robust set of interfaces to Textura. In response to our clients' needs a new initiative will enable contractors using Viewpoint and Textura to achieve tighter integration through better communication and collaboration with their subcontractors. Viewpoint is working with Textura to enhance integration between the products to create seamless integration, today and into the future.

YCD Multimedia, a developer and provider of smart digital media solutions for businesses, and Matrox Graphics, a leading manufacturer of specialized graphics solutions for professionals, announced a technological partnership to develop an innovative, Ultra High Definition (UHD) decorative display wall solution for digital signage applications.

Announcements

Design and Computation is brought to the forefront in the SIGGRAPH 2009 Curated Art Gallery – Generative Fabrication – an exploration of non-linear and natural processes in design and digital fabrication.

"Generative Fabrication shows extraordinary work inspired by the physical and biological world, which takes advantage of new production techniques enabled by computation," said Makai Smith, SIGGRAPH 2009 Curated Art Chair from Bentley Systems. "The innovative structures, sculpture installations, and complex forms in the gallery show how the computer has unlocked a new field of inquiry in art, architecture, and design."

Autodesk, Inc. announced that one of India's leading animation studios - BIG Animation, a Reliance ADAG Company - used Autodesk Maya software to animate the magical worlds of the new "Little Krishna" animated series. The company relied on the Autodesk Smoke and Autodesk Flame systems for finishing and final output of the 13-episode program. "Little Krishna" is a joint production between The India Heritage Foundation and BIG Animation, and marks the first time that Nick International (Nickelodeon) has acquired a series produced in India.

Awards

Meridian Systems announced that Proliance software has been named Top Product for 2009 by Buildings Magazine.

Applied Software, a leading and nationally recognized Autodesk Value-Added Reseller, announced that it has garnered significant awards for instructional excellence. Each year, Autodesk Authorized Training Center (ATC) Partners and Instructors are recognized with awards based on their instructional performance and customer feedback. This year, Applied Software's trainers were awarded top instructor awards for 2008.

New Products

AutoDesSys has released bonzai3d. The facts: bonzai3d is a new 3D modeler developed by AutoDesSys for quick robust 3d modeling. The goal is to offer conceptual and sketching stages of design, yet CAD accurate models that can be used further down the production pipeline such as construction drawings, renderings, animation, fabrication, rapid prototyping with 3D printing, or with any application that depends on good clean solid 3D models.

Autodesk, Inc. announced that it is shipping new releases of Autodesk Navisworks 2010 software for managing, simulating, and reviewing design and engineering projects in 3D. Autodesk Navisworks 2010 provides new capabilities that manage multi-disciplinary plant design and engineering workflows and enhance coordination across distributed teams.

Project Dragonfly is Autodesk’s software as a service approach to do-it-yourself floor planning. The Dragonfly team has been busy at work. On Friday they released an update based on feedback from the Autodesk Labs community.

Motive Systems, the developer of M-Files document management software, and CAD Manufacturing Services, the developers of CMS IntelliCAD CAD software, announced the availability of CMS Vault by M-Files, a powerful document management solution that is now included with CMS IntelliCAD.

Intergraph introduced SmartPlant Enterprise Power Solution (KKS-Enabled), a preconfigured solution template for designers and operators of power generating plants to optimize the design and construction, safe and reliable operation, and life cycle management of the engineering design basis for handover and regulatory compliance.

SmartPlant Enterprise Power Solution builds on the proven and widely used SmartPlant Enterprise solutions suite with features tailored to the needs of the power industry, such as out-of-the-box configuration for KKS (Kraftwerk Kennzeichen System) plant classification convention and specification-driven integration between SmartPlant P&ID and SmartPlant Reference Data. Customers benefit from an accelerated implementation because of the preconfigured KKS asset naming convention and plant classification structure, ready-made application integration, as well as early and accurate materials estimation capabilities.

Intergraph has introduced the newest solution of its SmartPlant Enterprise engineering software suite, SmartPlant 3D Materials Handling Edition, to automate the design and modeling of bulk materials handling systems for the mining, port, power, pulp and paper industries.
A next-generation, data-centric, rule-driven solution, SmartPlant 3D Materials Handling Edition automates the design of conveyor systems and transfer chutes to enable bulk materials industries to rapidly and easily create or expand facilities.

To celebrate the release of Vico Office, Vico Software is pleased to debut a new online training platform. This interactive training space offers users the opportunity to work at their own pace right from their desk. Managers don't have to worry about travel expenses for the team or flying in a trainer and taking everyone off their projects... not to mention scheduling everyone.

Oce announced new Oce PRISMAscan Convert state-of-the-art document conversion software that simplifies the transformation of paper documents into digital format. New Oce PRISMAscan Convert software uses an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine to convert scanned documents into editable files compatible with electronic data distribution and archiving management applications.

1st Pricing, a Southern California-based eCommerce and Technology Company, announced that they have upgraded and enhanced the plug-in that links their patented revolutionary BIM technology to AutoCAD Architecture and various other CAD programs. This plug-in allows architects and other designers to utilize libraries that contain real-world, commercially available products.

The rapid evolution of modo took another leap as Luxology LLC announced the immediate availability of its latest 3D content creation software, modo 401. With a focus on rendering and animation enhancements, modo 401 delivers a wealth of new features and innovative workflows, which enable users to easily model on top of existing geometry, see changes in their scene immediately from the radically improved Preview renderer and efficiently re-use assets throughout the content creation process. These new features benefit customers in a broad array of disciplines such as architectural visualization, product design, game development and advertising image production.

Cadac Organice, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner developing Organice, a SharePoint based engineering document management solution, announces the release of Organice 2007 R4 build 204.16. Build 204.16 is the last build for Organice 2007 prior to the release of the new Organice version later in 2009.

LEDAS Ltd., an independent provider of variational design tools known as Driving Dimensions plugins for different CAD platforms, announced version 1.1 of its Driving Dimensions plugin for Google SketchUp, a free 3D modeling software. With this plugin SketchUp users can parametrically edit their models in a very simple and intuitive way.

Events



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-- Susan Smith, AECCafe.com Managing Editor.