By Dominic Gallello, CEO, Graphisoft

In late 2004, Graphisoft began offering 5D Virtual Construction services to owners and contractors to complement its unique 5D software platform.

This service takes architects' and consultants' project drawings and turns them into models which also combine schedule (4D) and cost (5D). The benefits of these models include finding problems hidden in drawings such as constructability issues, fast and accurate estimating, location-based schedules that are proven to decrease overall project time without increasing risk, synchronization with procurement and better information for site management.

It is a rare case where the developer of a software platform is such a power user of its own software in proving mission and time-critical services to its clients. It makes me smile to reflect on the early days of the construction software and services effort in late 2004 and early 2005. I get to the office at 6:45AM. On many mornings, I would not only see the services team just leaving after pulling an "all nighter" to make a customer deadline, I would see some of the developers. Our services-driven development process means that if there is something in our 5D software platform that prevents a service project from moving forward, the development team is on call, day or night. Fortunately, I don't see this anymore as our process has really matured the applications we ship to customers.

Another great by-product of using your software to service customers is the innovative ideas that come from the services team. Graphisoft's drawing revision checking software, Change Manager, was born out of the time-consuming and error prone process that Graphisoft services team, and all contractors and subcontractors, experiences in manually checking for changes as drawings go through the revision process. We would spend two to three days on a two-week turnaround project to just make sure that we didn't miss any of the changes. We put the challenge to the development team and now drawings are checked accurately in minutes. This same technology is now being used by customers around the world including the world's tallest building project in Dubai.

Going forward, our goal is to put our services team out of business! Since the concept and the tools were so new, we knew we had to do the first few projects for and with the construction companies until they could develop this expertise in-house. Further, we see a new breed of graduates out of the construction management schools that are becoming more and more familiar with this approach. Over time, the construction companies will become mostly self-sufficient, except for mega projects where a large number of people are needed in a very short period of time to build the 5D models. In these cases, we will always be available to assist. We also see that there will be collaboration between architects and contractors in a "design assist" manner where the model created by the architects and engineers can be used downstream by the construction company for estimating and scheduling. Again, when this work process comes to fruition there will be dramatically less need for our services.

In its first year, Graphisoft completed 6.6 million square feet of projects with a construction value of approximately $2bln. Of the 37 projects, one project alone had over 70 private home styles that were modeled with a very high level of accuracy and included configuration options for clients. Other projects included sports stadiums, a casino, residential housing developments, commercial offices, museums and most recently, an airport terminal. With a growing team of nearly 60 architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, estimators and scheduling experts located throughout the world, Graphisoft helps customers at almost any stage of a project, from winning the business to managing the difficult, and often very risky, task of delivering projects on budget and on time.

Of course, I don't think we can ever succeed at putting our services team out of business. We are in an industry where subcontractors are the norm. George Rodgers, CEO of Rodgers Quinn Construction once told me that he has 50 subcontractors that he uses because they do their work better, faster and cheaper than they could do it themselves. George looks at us as his 51st sub. We appreciate our customers' trust.

Published in Banker & Tradesman on October 30, 2006