New: "ARCxl The App" and 2 low cost subscriptions

Effective today the ARCxl app became available through the Autodesk Exchange Apps store.  Though appearing in the store last week a minor issue prevented downloading.  That appears to have been corrected.  The app is free, and like the website comes with limited access to the library.  Access can be increased with new and lower cost subscriptions.

What does the app do?  If you are using Revit 2013 and install the app, an ARCxl tab opens a panel that provides more convenient access to the library and the ARCxl Planroom.  The planroom will be described in more detail following its actual launch in mid-October 2012.  The ARCxl app simply offers a choice of buttons that open a default browser on a user selected page.  Use the ARCxl website or an app button for navigating.

Get the app for Revit 2013!

Perhaps the most important thing is that it makes users more efficient by serving as a reminder to download a detail for modification instead of starting from scratch.

Minor efficiency gains produce major profits

In this post I’d like to use some basic math to demonstrate my point – that reducing your project production cost by just 5% increases project profit by 50%.  With that understanding it becomes easily apparent that modest changes can have a very dramatic effect on a firm’s overall bottom line or ultimate survival.  Surprisingly or not, our profit is not something Autodesk puts much emphasis on.  Instead they boast that despite a tough economy their 2011 revenue was a record 2.2 billion representing an increase of 14% over 2010 (also a very good year).

Louis Kahn died of a heart attack in a men's restroom in Pennsylvania Station. He went unidentified for three days and despite his long career, he was deeply in debt when he died.

As an architect and having been in the field for more than 25 years, it’s no secret architects consider themselves artists more than they do “bean-counters.” There is a tendency to look down on the accounting department or even the firm Principal that reminds staff of the need to watch the project budget.  Among most architects the emphasis is on doing our best work while believing in at least one of the following diametrically opposed myths:

1. If we do our best work we will be financially rewarded for it.
2. Or, believing that if we produce good work, living in relative poverty is the inevitable price we pay as an artist.

My point is that neither is necessarily true.  Not that there isn’t a relationship between good work and good business, but that there are other factors at stake.  These factors should be exploited to help ensure survival, improve profit and also allow for better design.  We all know architects that defy either of these two widely held beliefs.

Here is the simple and perhaps obvious math to satisfy the original premise:  Traditionally architecture firms strive for a profit margin that ranges from 10 to 15% on any given project.  In the current economy many firms are satisfied to break even and survive in order to outlast the recession.  For the sake of this example let’s assume the project target profit margin is 10% and that it would ordinarily be met.  In order to achieve this profit, total cost of producing the project, from initial marketing through completion of construction administration, should be 90% of the architectural portion of project fees including all office overhead divided among other projects.

In the extreme example above, 10% of total project production cost is saved during the CD phase, effectively doubling profit from 10 to 20%.

Now looking at 100% of the architect's total project cost through the 5 (or 6) phases of a project, if 1% could be saved from each of these phases you would add 5% to your 10% profit margin, or viewed another way increase your profit margin by 50%.  Alternatively any combination of savings from phases in even small amounts could do the same assuming in all cases you don't exceed the budget of the other phases - frequently a problem.  Any savings helps to offset loses or make a project that would otherwise break-even or lose money, a potentially profitable project.

If you are using Revit you have probably found that you are saving man hours during the CA phase with fewer Change Orders etc, and are very possibly saving in other phases as well.  New users will find that the learning curve causes a net loss in productivity and may see no benefits during CA with their earliest use of Revit.  If this is the case, don’t give up now, you're almost there and a recession is the best time to take on the challenge of learning anything new.

The guiding principal behind ARCxl is to participate in improving the profitability or survival of architecture firms also believing that we will be rewarded for the effort.  Our first venture has been to provide non-proprietary Revit detail (and CAD) content that we share among architects to assist in improving efficiency.  The content provided by manufactures is understandably intended to steer architects towards their products but does nothing to improve that architect's bottom line.  Historically architects have done very little to share resources among themselves, frequently repeating the same tasks over and over.  Even within a single office a staff member will redraw a detail rather than search through an office library.  While nothing can prevent the mismanagement of time, we believe that it is possible to offer alternatives to those that would like to.

It is quite possible that among some project types that include typical details, the ARCxl detail library will save 5% of total project cost during the construction document phase thus increasing project profit by 50%.  In an economy that provides little opportunity for profit, here's one you should take advantage of.

Further, using the same simple math, it should be apparent that offering similar opportunities for modest gains in other phases could effectively lead to doubling or even tripling traditional profit margins.  The only question is, how many architects are willing to suspend their belief in myth 1 and 2 (identified above) to participate in a collective effort that makes us all more competitive here and abroad?

ARCxl is looking for Beta testers located within North America for our next efficiency improvement project.  To participate you must be a verifiable registered architect and Principal of an architecture firm.  If you are interested, from North America phone me at:  One, eight hundred, five three three - zero two nine seven.

Sales Representatives are Now Directly Accessible

As ARCxl.com has continued to experiment and evolve, our goal has remained providing opportunities to improve efficiency and productivity to architects, architecture firms and others in the construction industry that utilize our services.  Building Product Manufacturer's (BPM's) have long used advertising methods to build their brand and provide access to their corporate websites, ARCxl has been one of them.  But we are always asking ourselves what can we do to improve at making architecture more profitable?

It occurred to us that with so many other online directories already available, maybe we could offer something completely unique and more useful.  As helpful as a website can be, a professional consultant can be much more helpful.

Many times after going only to a product website for a selection, I've eventually ended up speaking to a product consultant and learned that the product I thought I wanted to spec was not the best for the application.  Therefore I may have wasted many hours or even days working with an incorrect assumption that could have been avoided having a single conversation with the right person.

In a World that seems continually becoming less personal, what can ARCxl do to help architects, builders and product consultants, create better working relationships that reduce wasted time?  We have now replaced impersonal website hyperlinks with digital business cards.

These cards do two things.  First they help you recognize your local representatives at trade events and second they put their contact information at your fingertips.  After a relationship has begun, and consultant recommendations made, then it makes sense to go directly to the appropriate web pages looking for the correct information, rather than engage in a goose chase skimming over multiple manufacture sites - often never finding what you're looking for.

You will only be introduced to those sales consultants that represent products in your area.  Using simple I.P. address technology, representatives outside your area are filtered out.  Just as with our former product ads, when you are looking at details that include particular products, representatives of those products are the ones that will appear.  This filtering will only begin to take effect once the number of representatives in your area start to crowd each other out.

New ARCxl Low Cost Subscriptions

We continue to respond to user input and modify ARCxl.com to suit your needs.  With that in mind we now offer both free details/components and new low cost library subscriptions.  The only difference is in the number of downloads available during a 24 hour period.  As a free service we continue to provide up to 3 free completed details and 20 individual components per day.  As a business we offer increased daily detail download access for those willing to pay a small annual fee for the convenience of using our massive library.

This allows users to sample the details before buying a subscription, or if struggling in a tight economy - continue to get some free production help.  Those busy enough to require more access simply make a modest payment and receive the increased access you'd like for the coming year.

For those that have been asking for the subscriptions we now offer, we regret the delay.  As stated frequently, without your complaints and comments we can't improve - so please do.

Email link: Comments and/or Complaints

ARCxl adds CAD/dwg, PDF and Eases Restrictions

Effective July 19, 2011, two very significant alterations were made to the ARCxl website.  We have added CAD/dwg, and PDF file formats to our library.  We have also removed restrictions on account location and email address types.  Other changes have been made as well.  None should significantly impact current users.  As always we encourage complaints if anyone does have a problem with our updates.

Often the obvious escapes attention.  Such is the case with a decision I made a couple years ago to forego offering CAD/dwg versions of our details.  At the time I thought, "everyone already has their CAD library in place, it's the completed details in Revit format that are truly needed".  I also figured that it would only be a matter of 5-10 years before Revit caught or replaced AutoCAD as the dominant method of providing construction documentation.  These beliefs were probably not entirely off the mark, but what was important that I hadn't given enough consideration to is: that if you've gone to the trouble to provide the Revit library, why not also export to CAD for those that haven't yet made the switch?  When they do they'll already be familiar with ARCxl.  And with some minor adjustments Revit makes beautiful dwg files.

I can't over emphasize that all our details were originally produced native in Revit and only then exported to DWG and PDF format, not the other way around.  You can make a "smart detail" dumb but you can't make a "dumb detail" smart.  My greatest concern about commingling these detail types is that it will create the presumption that our details were somehow converted from AutoCAD to Revit.  I assure you this is not the case and I strongly urge that Revit users never import or convert DWG files.  You always want pure Revit in your Revit project files.

The following video is brief and replaces other introductory demonstrations we have made for our detail library.

The other significant change is that we no longer restrict account creation to North American architects with their own domain addresses.

Less significant changes include making our home page a directory of details instead of requiring that you first enter the site and then reach this detail directory.

Account creation and password reset are now automated but take a few moments to activate so be patient.  All of these should contribute to increased adoption and use of our site.

Warmest regards,

Mark A. Siever, AIA, CSI
ARCxl President and founder

The Twelve Steps of CAD users Anonymous

1. We admitted we were powerless with CAD—that our projects had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than CAD could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our work over to the care of Revit as we understood BIM.

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of our construction details.

5. Admitted to our Clients, to ourselves, and to our employers the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have Revit remove all these defects of our documents.

7. Humbly asked BIM to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all clients we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them through our attorney.

9. Made direct amends to such clients wherever possible, except when otherwise advised by our attorney.

10. Continued to take a detail inventory and when we were wrong promptly downloaded another detail.

11. Sought through prayer and tutorials to improve our use of Revit as we understood BIM, praying only for knowledge and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other CAD users, and to practice these principles in all our projects.

- ©  (c) Mark Siever former CAD user, founder of CAD users Anonymous and ARCxl.com

New ARCxl user interface

We've updated the ARCxl user interface to address requests for an indexed directory of our details. I believe these requests came as the result of failed attempts to locate an exact detail match after configuring, roof, wall, and/or floor construction prior to configuring detail options. In other words it took some time and effort to find something close to what you wanted. Though only a fraction of the time and effort required to create a completed Revit detail from scratch, we've all become pretty spoiled and impatient expecting miracles to rain down from the internet.

But it's always been the intent of ARCxl to deliver minor miracles, so we began reevaluating our interface the moment we heard the first complaint. Originally our response was a little defensive and went something like: "If we put 100 detail descriptions on a page, do you really want to read through 400 of these pages?"

This defensive response was based largely in the expense, effort and time that went into creating our original interface. Additionally, there were few complaints so it was hard to justify more expense and effort for another interface when the one we had seemed so magical. It had 3-d renderings of detail types and we assumed architects would rather look at colorful pictures than read descriptions.

We also assumed that ARCxl users would be downloading details in batches of more than 10 for a given project, making the effort required for the initial configurations worth the time. But in practice, the majority download only a few in any given visit. I assume this is because they have not yet realized the value of ARCxl as their office library standard.

The new interface reverses the order of detail definition and allows for immediate selection of a detail type. This verifies that a user will find that particular detail type in the library before investing any time.

Once on a detail type page, an ARCxl user will find preview images of the details described and the preview can be enlarged by holding your cursor over the preview image.

At this stage an ARCxl user has filtered the possible detail selections from ten's of thousands to a few hundred or thousand.

To further drill down to a just a few dozen or a single detail, pull-down filters are provided at the top of the detail pages. Skimming these filters an ARCxl user can pretty quickly find an appropriate filter or two.

The ARCxl Detail Library FREE AT LAST

Effective December 14, 2010, the ARCxl Detail Library became available free of charge to architects and the staff of architecture firms. This represents an opportunity for architects to finally have access to a massive detail library built native in Revit and all provided in a nearly completed state. While careful review, modifications and corrections will always be necessary, once accustomed to the detail interface, a dozen details can be configured and downloaded in less than an hour. With most of the work already done, modifications to the details can usually be done in just a few minutes each. Though a typical Revit detail built from scratch often takes a half day or more, an architect might easily complete a dozen Revit details from the ARCxl library in the same time or less.

The library is made up of those details that are common and generic. A particularly creative detail might start with an ARCxl detail prior to more editing. The ARCxl detail will save those steps associated with locating individual detail components and dragging them into a drafting or detail view one at a time.

The components can be locked onto the model with dimensions if copy and pasted into a detail view. This allows the detail components to change if a wall section changes. However, better use of time would remain doing detailing at a point in the project when it is unlikely there will be substantial changes to the project.

The reason the details are only available to architects: the details are architectural in nature and require professional review. Many will need minor correction or other adjustment for a specific application. By default architects understand their risk, liability, and responsibility for their instruments of service. The general population doesn’t always. For accepting this responsibility, we can provide access to a detail library larger than any available.

Please help us get the word out by telling other architects and Revit users.

The following is a video demonstration:

The Profit Margin and BIM

In this installment I'd like to discuss profitability. Before I get typecast as a heartless businessman, I would like to point out that I'm a bleeding heart liberal and maintained my entire staff when every firm around me was laying off. But, in order to remain in business for very long, A/E firms should consistently turn a profit. It's a sad cold fact. But, equally sad has been the difficulty in doing this over the last couple years.

As a guest lecturer before I took the Revit teaching spot at the University of Kentucky's School of Architecture, I remember a student asking how much faster is Revit than AutoCAD? While it seems like a simple enough question, the answer is not so simple. It usually begins with "that depends" and may include "not much or no faster". While our Revit based office can go head to head with any office using AutoCAD on speed, the real benefits are in all the other features BIM offers up. But examining these added features, you would be hard pressed to identify the underlying answer to the student's question, which is actually a question of profitability. In his case perhaps a question of how can I get through architecture school with more time for sleep?

What makes BIM more profitable than CAD? While it's well established that once the construction documents are completed the firm using BIM will have fewer RFI's and Change Orders. Equally true is the fact that the level of expectations among the clients of BIM platform A/E's is higher. As a result, these clients expect more service but don't expect to pay any more for it. They expect more renderings and animation, environmental impact results, fewer Change Orders, better all around design results, etc. And while they don't expect to pay more for the additional service, the partner responsible for marketing will frequently give this additional service away in an effort to close the deal. That marketing partner knowingly or not, largely determines a firms profitability. Once fees and services are established there is little that can be done to change the financial outcome. Improvements in efficiency with reduced errors and omissions, or taking shortcuts with associated risk, round out the options.

I would highly recommend the first of these two options. A BIM strategy partially addresses the second half of the first option; reduced errors and omissions. But, rarely will you find that BIM out-of-the-box can dramatically improve production efficiency. When it comes to improved production efficiency, with a few exceptions, BIM is playing catch-up to established CAD based add-on tools, and probably will for awhile. Additionally, those time tested CAD detail libraries are hard to resist (unless you know better). Those office CAD detail libraries are possibly more responsible for firms failing to make the switch than any other excuse.

That's where the ARCxl detail library comes in. Try to find an available and convenient single source library of completed drafting details for CAD, built with quality standards, that numbers more than 42,000 ready for use in your projects. That's what ARCxl.com has done for Revit users, and there are more details and features on the way.

What about profit and ROI? While I'll be writing in more detail about profit and ROI later, I believe that there are projects of certain types that will achieve profit margins well exceeding 20% using our detail library. Most other projects will substantially benefit as well. The simple explanation is that if you can cut your total project production cost by 10% you just added 100% to your total profit assuming a 10% profit target.

Those familiar with producing small to medium commercial and residential projects with Revit, will agree that by the time you get to the construction documents phase, the majority of the actual production work has already been done. What remains is largely the detailing. If it can be agreed that detailing a BIM project accounts for 15% of the total cost of producing a BIM project, reducing this cost to 5% would give you a net reduction in total cost of 10%. This reduction of cost can now be added to a target profit of 10% or more, to achieve a 20% or more total profit margin.

The birth of the ARCxl blog!

The ARCxl blog is now born. Where it goes from here, who knows? The hope is that it will prove useful for communicating with those that may have questions, comments, concerns and criticism of ARCxl. Unless we find out what these concerns are, we can not improve our products and services.

The primary purpose of ARCxl is to provide a set of tools that will enhance the ability of architects and A/E firms to survive and thrive by leveraging BIM with our Revit built details and eventual larger business model applications now under development.

In our first phase we are focused on an extensive and growing library of Revit built 2d details distributed through a complex "detail dispenser". While some will question the wisdom of providing 2d details in this emerging BIM environment, others will immediately understand that standard details remain an important part of construction documentation and remain scarce. We believe the ability for hyper-efficient details for Revit will answer concerns among those dragging their feet to join the next paradigm in construction documentation. The URL links provide easy access to BPM's.

Converting CAD details to a Revit environment should nearly always be avoided. It introduces cancerous old-world data that blows file sizes out of proportion and slows the proper conversion to a truly parametric detail world. JUST DON'T DO IT! If the word parametric is mysterious, all the more reason to use our details. We've done the "parametrics" so you don't have to.

Much 3d detail construction is inefficient and unnecessary. A lot of it is poorly made. It can also cause file sizes to become unnecessarily large when over used. Most of the unnecessary 3d detail construction is done by those fairly new to BIM that have become entranced by their new found ability. More likely they aren't responsible for paying salaries. On the other hand, 3d detailing when used properly, occasionally, and efficiently can be tremendously useful. It is important to know when to use it.

In the coming posts I will provide more information about what we are up to. In the mean time you can reach us through our website: http://www.arcxl.com

View our video demonstration