ADVANTAGES OF CAD
A bill of materials extracted from a CAD model is not an estimate, but rather exact quantities of surfaces and members, present within the model. The accuracy of the model is directly related to the building skills of the person inputting the building information into the computer.
It's easier to teach somebody with a background in building...to correctly input building information into a computer...than it is to try to use a computer expert to build a house with no personal building experience. An experienced building professional equipped with competent 3-D building software is capable is digitally prebuilding even highly complex projects so that the construction process can be accurate, highly automated, and highly efficient. The output of information that intelligent architecture/engineering/construction software can produce is key to eliminating excess stress, cost, and time by systematically pre-assembling the project and running interference checking utilities to eliminate conflicts between various building elements and trade parties. The more complex the project is the higher the payoff is. Production manufacturers outside of the construction industry have been taking advantage of computer-aided planning for many years to extract the maximum profit from low-margin product lines.
3-D production drawings are not only calculator accurate, but with a computer available at all party's locations, within minutes, via modem, the model can be available for use as an infinitely adjustable visual and comprehensive working model for any user, client, architects, interior designers, landscape architects, surveyors, subcontractors, builder, building authorities, and future clients to query, view, analyze, and manipulate. Kings and queens of centuries past would have killed thousands to have such ability and luxury in their pursuit of the perfect cathedral, palace, or country house. Technology allows the process to be taken one step further....
Vanderbilt family residences conceived, masterminded, and coordinated by Richard Morris Hunt and staff:
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The Marble House; Newport, RI. ($11,000,000.00 begun: August, 1889 - house warming: August, 1892)
And various others in New York City, NY and abroad. ($ millions pre 1900)
...Plans for these residences, were hand drawn in New York City, then the details for many of the materials and components were floated across the ocean, to be then couriered by horse, donkey, camel, or foot,... braving water, weather, daggers, sand, alligators, natives, etc.... and delivered to the appropriate parties for manufacture and pre-fabrication and then the reverse back to the States, to be delivered by railroad, before being installed.
PROBLEM: "current day" HUMANS.....
...Do Ya' Know Any?
Notice the time frames of construction of the residences listed previously by Richard Morris Hunt and his projects for the Vanderbilt family. Notice the cost figures. Translate that into today's outlay of capital (numerous times greater).
These people had no calculator, no CAD, no HAC, no Dewalt power tools, no fax machines, no landline phones nor cellular phones, no Gatorade and ice at the local "Food Mart".... being put in the cooler, in the back of a 5.O liter Mustang, and then 3 mile s of winding road, being retracted back to the jobsite.... in about 2 minutes, 45 seconds. My... haven't we gotten quite lazy in all our present technology and luxury?!?!?
What had to occur (???), for (in addition to the Vanderbilt's financial contribution)... Richard Hunt, to unleash the ferocity of the speed, in concert with the weight and complexity involved in structures of those caliber, constructed in times recorded by history, and still having maintained the finish quality, not currently known available from anyone at any price, in the United States today. They'll take your money though.
Currently, the technology is waiting on the humans,.... to make up their mind, about what they want,.... so that the technology can produce the wants and the needs of the humans. Currently no technology is known to exist, that can interface with your thought patterns, wants, and desires, or changing distorted individuals attitudes (telepathy and virus control).
Change orders: A common excuse for not utilizing available technology is change orders.
With the way the current industry is going about it's construction routine, it plagues itself with problems. This is due, to little tolerance control, vague plans, and no concurrent engineering. Change orders have inflicted haunting thoughts in the general contractors, playing "builder".
With technology and concurrent engineering in place, change orders and weather, are the only things, one will have to worry about. Why worry? You will have the tools and technology to integrate it.
The same situation today (one hundred years later) could be harnessed, reduced, and simplified by:
- The model being created digitally in New York City in imperial measurement, simultaneously (in real-time) with the subcontractors and suppliers (in metric measurement, if needed) to remote locations globally.
- Specific trade/supplier "no-more, no-less" production drawings are produced in minutes, on location.
- Computer-Aided Manufacturing/Computer Numerically Controlled files in seconds (if interfaced w/CAD).
- Parts/components/assemblies are produced with exacting tolerances in minutes/hours/days.
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a) Next day delivery/same day delivery is convenient;
b) All package/shipment order tracking via the Internet. - With CAD, optimistic HAD (Human-Aided Design), and spatial positioning technology present,... synchronization of site modeling, site manipulation, and component placement can be both smooth and efficient, while being controlled and monitored "in real-time", from a remote location, and resulting on a structure being essentially and accurately "built" on a site.
- Automated material handling equipment can manipulate and transfer loads in manufacturing and installation, drastically reducing payroll, workmen's compensation insurance premiums, liability, and accumulated interest due to compared production times, by eliminating the undependable, unpredictable, emotional, and the never-going-to-be-a-crane..... humans.
- Timeline/project management software, communication and messaging devices, and CAD keep all parties coordinated, connected, supervised, and informed.
Everybody is working with the same model....
Each person/party has access to whatever that person/party needs for his trade and also can inquire about the other trades and how they affect each other.