How echo Can be a Single Source of Truth for Your Facility

by Tammy Mitchell | | Phase 2: Drawing Management Software

What is a Single Source of Truth?

A single source of truth is a designed around a philosophy of ensuring data from across a company is easily usable and accessible from a central location. They break down data silos that grow between departments, increasing transparency and productivity across the enterprise.

At DCM Inc. we believe the world should embrace the digital future. There is no reason modern, cutting-edge facilities should be stuck sifting through piles and piles of documents when a powerful, digital solution exists to organize the chaos and help your facility meet the demands of the modern world with a single source of truth.

Where Does echo Fit In?

The solution to creating a single source of truth for construction document control and engineering file management is made easy by echo: our cutting-edge engineering drawing management software. Our unique software as a service is perfectly suited to future-proofing your facility’s drawings, documents, and blueprints. Using echo sets your team up with a secure, searchable digital library in which you can find, store, retrieve, share, and update your drawings in seconds!

Let’s explore how echo functions as an ideal single source of truth:

A Single Source of Truth Should be Accurate and Trusted 

An effective single souce of truth needs to be accurate, structured and verified. It must also clearly identify how and when information is updated. DCM’s echo and supporting services have this completely covered.

Utilize our hands-on service to ensure your facility’s drawings and documents are prepared to last for your facility’s lifespan. Whether your drawings are hard copy or digital, our auditing process will have one of our certified Drawing Specialists review each drawing to determine the most recent version.

Always Know You Are Viewing the Latest Version

When viewing documents in echo, a green check mark lets you know you are viewing the most up-to-date, accurate version of that available document. Old, outdated drawings are flagged by echo to ensure that you know when you’re looking at an obsolete one.

Know That Your Data Privacy is Secure

Our development and technical teams have been innovating for years to ensure that echo is secure, stable, and reliable. We strive to maintain a highly-secured operating environment at every level of echo’s technological structure. We at DCM Inc. take data privacy seriously and have taken steps to ensure your data privacy is protected.

Echo Helps Your Team Maintain Accountability

An effective single source of truth requires accountability at every level: in designing, building, and maintaining the facility. Echo makes it easy to track accountability by keeping extensive records of its use. You will know who accessed echo, when, and what changes were made. All updates, additions, and deletions to drawings and documents will be tracked, and linked to the users who made those changes.

Echo Enables Shareability and a Collaborative Work Environment

An important function of a single source of truth is to enable a collaborative work environment, and work culture that promotes increased competence and capability. With echo on your side, your facility’s team members will have a wealth of collaborative tools at their fingertips, including the support of DCM’s own Certified Drawing Specialists.

Echo Provides a Massive Return on Investment by Improving Your Team’s Productivity

Lack of clarity and control over your drawings and documents causes unnecessary stress and frustration for your team. An essential part of maintaining your team’s productivity is having quick access to the documentation they need, the moment they need it. With echo, your team is equipped with the capability to find any document they need in seconds. The time saved will increase the competency of your team by allowing them to focus on more relevant tasks that deserve their time.

A Single Source of Truth Makes It Easy to Share Information with Relevant People

With echo, your database is easily shareable with others who require quick, seamless access to information, including consultants, contractors, and anyone else who needs to access your facility’s drawings.

Using echo‘s powerful search functionality, your team can find a specific drawing in seconds by selecting a site, floor, and discipline in our software’s customizable search wizard. You will have the most accurate and up-to-date information you need the moment you need it. Once found, your team can select and download any number of necessary documents into a zip file to distribute to relevant people at your discretion.

The Longevity and Transferability of your Single Source of Truth is Assured

Ideally, information stored in a single source of truth needs to be formatted to last for the entire lifetime of a building. Echo does not use any unique file types that other programs cannot interpret. In practical terms, you can send files to a relevant person who doesn’t have direct access to your echo database, and they will still be able to make use of the files you have sent to them.

If your facility’s drawings need to be transferred to a different person, we can help with the simple and painless process of transferring echo to a new lead.

Echo is Accessible and Easy to Use 

Your single source of truth should present info in a way that can be easily understood and utilized by users. Fortunately, anyone can use echo regardless of their level of computer expertise. If you can search Google, you can conduct an echo Search! Echo makes it easy for users to locate drawings through its user-friendly interface that has several levels of searching capabilities. Echo also supports different file types. AutoCAD files are useful for engineers and tech savvy users who can make the most of that deep level of information, but PDFs are more useful for average people such as a building’s residents whom you may need to share information with.

Echo Structures Your Drawings and Documents Like a Library 

A great single source of truth should be stored in a structured way so that people can easily find, update, and use the right information. In a way, it needs to be like a library: containing a lot of information that is sorted in a way that makes it simple to access the correct info when it is needed. This is exactly where echo shines! The software’s powerful search wizard makes it easy to find the correct document in seconds by making each drawing on echo searchable using over 15 metadata points.

Ready to Create a Powerful Single Source of Truth with echo? 

Facility Managers around the globe are using echo: our cutting-edge engineering drawing management system and its unique features to manage their drawings and documents without any hassle. Echo makes creating a single source of truth for your facility’s drawings easy and seamless. Book a discovery call today for more information about echo from DCM Inc.

Four of the Clumsiest Building and Architecture Mistakes Ever Made

by Tammy Mitchell | | Corporate DCM Inc. Articles

A beautifully designed and executed building can take your breath away. However, clumsily constructed structures can leave you scratching your head. Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa may be the most famous example of architectural error, but it’s by no means the only one. Read on as we look at four of the clumsiest building and architecture mistakes ever made.

1. Sydney Opera House

Located on the banks of Sydney Harbor in Australia, many consider the Sydney Opera House an architectural masterpiece. Others, such as the Maldives-based Times of Addu, call the performing arts center an “architectural disaster.”

Interestingly, the structure that opened in 1973 and now stands as a world-recognized architectural landmark in Australia was not designed by an Australian. In the mid-1950s, New South Wales Premier Joe Cahill proposed a global competition to find the perfect design. They considered more than 230 entries from 32 countries. In the end, Danish-born architect Jørn Utzon won and received an award of ₤5000 for his entry.

The opera house might not have suffered the indignity of becoming a hailed disaster had they constructed it following Utzon’s original 1957 drawing. The acoustics would have been superior, as well. The architect’s winning design would have created a multi-purpose structure that comprised a pair of side-by-side, full-size concert halls covered by a cantilevered, shell-shaped roof. The original expectation was that the soon-to-be Sydney Opera House would cost around AUS $7 million and take four years to complete.

What Went Wrong?

Utzon’s winning drawings did not precisely define the geometry of the shells that would make up the roof. However, he perceived them as a sequence of relatively flat parabolas that would be supported by concrete ribs. Government budget concerns forced engineers to come up with an economically acceptable solution. After six years and at least a dozen iterations, the shells were created as sections of a sphere instead of the flatter parabolas of Utzon’s design.

The government also scrapped the corridors and acoustic vision of Utzon’s drawings. Lauded by acoustic consultant Lothar Cremer as excellent, Utzon’s original concept of the two major concert halls was altered severely. Thus, resulting in poor acoustics for performing musicians.

According to a month-long examination conducted by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2006, the opera house was on the verge of becoming dysfunctional and obsolete due to cramped quarters in the orchestra pit, wings, and backstage areas. They addressed the acoustic issues through the addition of hanging Perspex rings over the stages. They also averted obsolescence with the replacement of stage machinery.

Ultimately, they completed the structure in 1973 (which originally broke ground in 1959) at a cost of more than AUS $102 million. Time and budget were not the only things that strayed far from the original ideas. In fact, the local government enacted so many changes to Utzon’s original drawings. The architect actually fled Australia in disgust and never returned.

2. Walkie-Talkie Building in London

It may not boast the nefarious past of the Tower of London that sits a few blocks away, but the “Walkie-Talkie” building at 20 Fenchurch Street leaves one with an indelible impression nonetheless. A clumsy addition to the London skyline at best, the awkwardly shaped structure faces a perilous future. The architecture mistakes may take millions of pounds to fix.

To say that this 37-story structure has issues would be an understatement. In fact, the bulging building opened in 2014 with many problems. It topped the shortlist for the UK’s not-so-illustrious Carbuncle Cup Award for the “ugliest British building” the very next year. And it’s not just the skyscraper’s less-than-lovely looks that have the UK in an architectural uproar. Sections of the structure could be downright dangerous.

Shortly after its public unveiling, Bloomberg CityLab called the now-nicknamed Walkie-Talkie a “clunky stub of a building” that arrived on the skyline in a murky and dishonest manner. They said that it failed to live up to its promise to be an authentic public space.

And then there were the death rays.

Top view of a group of architects discussing possible architecture mistakes in their building plans.

What Went Wrong?

According to CityLab, the London tower was “melting cars” with reflective “death rays” long before construction was complete. Architectural designer Eleanor Joliffe concurred. She described the building as reminiscent of “a Bond villain tower” that could “melt your car with a solar beam from space,” reported the Evening Standard.

Whole-project construction communication expert HIVOT offered a more scientific explanation of the now-infamous architecture mistakes of the hastily-approved skyscraper. Pertinent to the solar death ray issue, HIVOT explained that the #1 flaw of the £200 million building is a concave mirror that reflects incapacitating rays of sunlight more than 90° Celsius (190° Fahrenheit) onto the street where cars park every day.

Protracted heat caused by the ill-placed mirror charred carpets, cracked tiles, and melted car components so severely, London city officials suspended a trio of parking bays near the structure and will not let them be used until a permanent solution is devised.

3. Vdara Hotel and Spa in Las Vegas

Did you think the Walkie-Talkie tower is the only building accused of delivering “death rays”? Think again! Shortly after the 57-story Vdara Hotel and Spa opened its doors for business in December 2010, guests at the Strip resort began complaining of intense heat — and even burning skin — at and around the public swimming pool.

What Went Wrong?

Gordon Absher, a spokesman for the MGM Resorts-owned property, told Reuters that the high heat guests took to calling “death rays” was actually a “solar convergence phenomenon” caused by the sun changing elevation as it passed over the pool area.

The skin-scorching heat happens when solar rays bounce off the gleaming glass facade that happens to be concave in shape. Remember the Walkie-Talkie structure in London? 

MGM Resorts attempted to correct the problem. They adhered high-tech solar film to each of the 3,000 glass panels that comprise the southern facade of the Vdara. Did it work? Not exactly.

After Vdara condo owner and Chicago lawyer, William Pintas, told a local Las Vegas newspaper he could smell his hair burning at the Vdara pool, the resort manager said he would look “into further mitigation procedures” including umbrellas and foliage options.

4. Wingspread in Racine, Wisconsin

Currently home to the charitable Johnson Foundation, Wingspread nearly collapsed in the wake of a Wisconsin ice storm. The 1994 near-disaster was not the first problem experienced by the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed structure, however.

What Went Wrong?

Fifty-five years prior, the plywood roof of the three-story, 14,000 square foot octagonal building was leaking badly. In fact, owner Herbert Johnson contacted Wright who blithely suggested he change the position of his furniture.

They spent decades fixing leaks in the roof which they ultimately replaced with new rafters and carbon sheathing, according to renovation expert Bob Vila.

Don’t Let It Happen to You

Up-to-date engineering drawings that are readily accessible to contractors, facilities managers, and properties managers can go a long way toward preventing such embarrassing, and potentially dangerous, building and architecture mistakes.

DCM Inc. makes it effortless to ensure that your engineering drawings are always up-to-date and easily found.

Avoid these building and architecture mistakes! For further information about echo, our Drawing Management Software, we invite you to contact us to book a discovery call today! We look forward to hearing from you!

What the NFT Boom Holds for Custom Building Blueprints

by Tammy Mitchell | | Corporate DCM Inc. Articles

The architectural world hit the global NFT headlines back in 2021 when a virtual real estate property sold for over half a million dollars. The insane amounts paid for an architectural rendering signalled the entry of cryptocurrencies into mainstream architecture. Previously a mainstay of digital art, here’s a look at what the arrival of NFTs means to construction design.

What is an NFT, and What’s the Deal With It?

Non-fungible tokens—or NFTs, are unique digital files that store ownership information. Non-fungible means that it’s one-of-a-kind. Users cannot change or replace them for something else. For example, a 20 dollar bill is fungible because you can exchange it with two 10 dollar bills.

Most people know of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, which continue to make waves in the financial markets. However, people have little information about blockchain technology, the infrastructure behind many digital currencies. A blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions shared across computer networks. 

Blockchains record every transaction in a ledger, which no one can alter despite the maintenance from multiple participants. The distributed database guarantees information consistency and security using hash encryption for every transaction. Any tampering along the chain will be detected, as the original transaction data is still contained within the blockchain.

NFTs build on blockchain technology to store origination information. NFTs can be created from anything as long as they are in digital forms, like when Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet in 2006 for more than two million dollars. However, much of the current hype revolves around selling digital art.

Here are some speculations about how design and architecture can use NFTs.

Blockchain Contracts

The distributed ledger system makes it easy to track project workflows and the movement of goods and services. People can trace and eliminate changes or delays along the blockchain, reducing the time spent on oversight. 

Blockchain technology lays the groundwork for smart contracts. A smart contract is a self-executing digital agreement between two parties. The contract contains predefined conditions that parties need to meet before it executes and moves to the next stage.

For example, a typical construction contract will stipulate that if supplied goods have passed inspection, the system triggers payment from a virtual wallet. Smart contracts eliminate unnecessary paperwork and streamline dispute resolution between contractors and project owners. 

Events can also be triggered by signing off on completed tasks in a project, after which the relevant activities begin. Smart contracts will also cut transactional costs, for example, paying third parties to audit or verify a transaction. People can save an unchangeable digital replica of the building within the blockchain to ensure that nothing runs out of scope.

The distributed nature of the contracts holds the parties accountable, or it remains unfulfilled.

Male architect selling his unique designs in the NFT market - using a laptop and mobile phone to analyze cryptograph.

Virtual Land

The concept of paying real money for virtual land might seem a bit far-fetched. However, it is already happening, and the prices are soaring. NFT virtual land essentially means that you own a piece of real estate in the metaverse. The landowner can use their online plots for advertising and hosting online events like gaming. 

The metaverse is a collective term for virtual technologies. Some of these virtual worlds consist of idealistic versions of the physical world. We’ve already seen augmented reality technologies that allow you to walk into a mall, try on some clothes, buy anything you like, and waltz into a restaurant next door to grab a drink. 

Virtual worlds allow you to create digital personas using 3D avatars that you can take with you anywhere. With NFT virtual lands, developers create vast tracts of digital land and subdivide them for sale. When buying these parcels, you essentially take ownership of a non-fungible token linked to that particular plot. 

Owning digital land carries aspects of the physical world, like renting out a venue for concerts and product launches. You can purchase plots directly from the project developers or through subsequent owners.

Digital Blueprints for Sale

Most people involved in building and construction already know what blueprints are. The document’s name came from the original production process, where the use of chemicals on detailed architectural drawings produces a blue sheet of paper. Modern architects do their designs on a computer and print them on white sheets. 

Blueprints can be for an existing structure or a planned project. They help to keep everyone on the same page during the construction process. Because they show precisely what the finished building is supposed to look like, they can be used to prepare the bill of materials, estimate the labour costs, and prepare a construction schedule.

Blueprints can become inscribed into blockchain contracts as a way of ensuring that all parties, including the contractor, construction workers, and the building owner, meet their end of the bargain. It won’t be long before we start seeing blueprints of historic buildings on the NFT market. Architects are following these developments, and many won’t hesitate to put their unique designs on sale.

Knowing how precious these documents are, you need a drawing management system to secure them, and DCM’s drawing management system is the perfect solution.

Masterpiece 3D Renderings

The first NFT marketplace for architects and designers launched in late 2021. It undoubtedly marked the beginning of the new frontier for the industry, even though some professionals had already had phenomenal sales using the technology. Many designers and 3D artists have jumped headlong onto the augmented reality bandwagon, bringing their ideas to life using digital simulations.

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive 3D experience that produces versions of the real world using computer-generated elements. AR users can view AR environments from smartphones and computer screens, but the most immersive experience is through special AR goggles. Perhaps we need to distinguish between AR and virtual reality (VR) in that VR elements can be entirely fictitious, while AR uses components that you can find in real life.

AR gives a strong case for the growth of 3D NFTs. Architectural designs already started using them intensively.  It moves the designer’s work from a mere presentation into a work of art capable of fetching dollars in the hundreds of thousands on the NFT market. Architects can move design concepts that haven’t been actualized because of impossible technologies, granting users a glimpse of what life could be like in the future.

Start Securing Your Blueprints With a Modernized Engineering Drawing Library

NFTs can be easy to crack when you already have an extensive digital library of architectural blueprints and designs. DCM’s echo | Drawing Management System 6.3 allows you to organize your drawing and collaborate with team members and contractors from anywhere. 

Contact us today and discover how to build a drawing library that sets you up for success.

Auditing Buildings to Ensure They Follow Life Safety

by Tammy Mitchell | | Drawing Management Strategy Articles

No one knows when an emergency will take place. From a technical issue to a building fire, these scenarios can compromise business operations and the safety of everyone. This is where the importance of auditing buildings comes in.

As a facility manager, engineer, or architect, the health and safety of everyone around is crucial for success. Are you someone who manages a building? Then you need to conduct safety audits to assess practices as well as determine how to make your environment more efficient and safer.

Safety audits help reduce the risk of accidents by establishing security procedures. Understanding the importance of these standards and the basis of life safety compliance is essential for ongoing success.

Why Auditing Buildings is Necessary

Building managers should ensure their facility complies with the necessary safety measures. When it comes to analyzing your building to create a holistic safety solution, audits are crucial. But, they’re not usually considered this way.

If the term ‘audit’ entreats a variety of clipboards, interrogations, as well as inspections, you’re expecting the worst or had terrible experiences.

Safety audits are the key to determining the current situation of your safety performance and where it should be. Safety audits shouldn’t be a policing process. So, consider them a positive learning avenue to improving your team’s safety.

Building audits examine the safety and integrity of your industrial or commercial buildings and premises. They also identify and solve building safety-related risks, enabling you to ensure appropriate working conditions.

However, it doesn’t end there.

  • Auditing buildings unravel more than what is going wrong. It identifies risks in the building, including the levels of those risks.
  • Setting up an audit system also protects workers from issues ranging from accidents and illnesses. It motivates workers and makes them understand that their well-being is secure.
  • A severe health and safety incident could result in disapproving publicity that impedes progress. Thus, a well-conducted safety audit can protect an organization’s assets.
  • Auditing buildings identify weaknesses and strengths in safety procedures and processes. It also assesses if an organization and its safety program follow safety standards.

Through building audits, companies can ensure adequate resources devoted to safety as well as make recommendations for improvements.

How to Conduct a Proper Life Safety Audit?

Consider the following steps when performing a building safety audit:

1. Choose Your Audit Team

Choosing a team of experts to access the building environment is the first step toward performing a safety audit. Some companies may assign internal employees to perform the audit or hire a consultant to assemble an objective outlook. Irrespective of who you want to use, it’s crucial for workers to assess each other’s settings to prevent biased results.

After assembling your audit team, find out if they understand the standards of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This will give them the understanding to identify safe practices and building hazards.

2. Get Ready for the Audit

Developing a checklist and reviewing the company’s safety protocols may benefit the audit team. The checklist recognizes areas requiring more significant inspection. Knowing how the building’s current performance measures against the organization’s expectations is necessary. Safety audit preparations could also involve assigning tasks to particular team members.

Facility manager checking a building blueprint with an auditing expert - auditing buildings concept.

3. Visit the Building

Another step toward performing a building safety audit is visiting the building you want to evaluate. While taking a walk-through, it’s best to consider the following factors:

  • Equipment placement: Review where they place equipment to find out if it’s accessible and appropriately stored.
  • Lighting: Check the room lighting to see if it’s visible for people to view their surroundings. You can test the intensity of HID lamps in a room or check if there are good light bulbs.
  • Signage: Check for signs that warn people of hazardous materials and offer close directions on the operation of machinery. Some employees may already have the necessary training. But, placing signs around buildings could exemplify a company’s safety culture or reinforce safety protocols.

4. Observation is Key

Observing experts while working could help you discover if they’re upholding company safety standards. Watch how they’re handling and maintaining machinery. For instance, if employees are working with a forklift, ensure they don’t take walkways and be careful when loading and transferring equipment. Check if employees wear gloves, goggles, helmets, as well as protective gear.

Try taking samples to test for hazardous materials before you go. Also, check equipment, countertops surfaces, and storage spaces’ temperatures.

5. Interview Workers

You can interview the supervisor of the building you’re auditing for record purposes. Find out how they’re replenishing materials and their training process for new employees. Discover how managers allow the use of specific equipment as well as their communication processes for direction and decision making. You can make the following findings:

  • What’s the duration for the training of new personnel?
  • How often do you conduct staff meetings to discuss safety protocols?
  • How often do you carry out walk-throughs?
  • Do your workers have to meet specific standards before operating heavy machinery?
  • Do you have records of those that run the equipment at certain times?

6. Evaluate the data

After observing the building and gathering data, you can evaluate your findings and conclude the facility’s adherence to safety measures. Confide in your team by sharing your concerns. Maybe they are already aware of the same thing and reaffirming your beliefs. Proceed by collaborating to suggest how to make the building safer for everyone.

Collaborate with the Drawing Specialists for Effective Auditing

Are you a facility manager, architect, or engineer? Do you manage many older buildings across a large complex or a city? Then you need to check whether your drawing systems and production methods are outdated.

If you’re auditing buildings to ensure they comply with life safety, you don’t need extensive paper drawings. Our paperless drawing solutions can help you streamline processes.

We are known as the Drawing Specialists. And there’s a reason why they call us so. We audit, organize, and maintain drawings. Let our professionals at DCM handle all your business drawings.

Trust us with your drawings and access a digital system that enables easy organization. By implementing an optimized and automated drawing system, you can bid farewell to the countless problems associated with outdated paper drawings. Contact us today!

How Much Money Cities Waste Each Year Handling Outdated Engineering Drawings

by Tammy Mitchell | | Drawing Management Strategy Articles

There’s no doubt about it – one of the most important components of every city is its infrastructure. The roads and sidewalks, the potholes and cracks, the structure of bridges, and any other number of factors. What a lot of people don’t stop to think about is how it could be causing these problems. Improper management of blueprints and outdated Engineering Drawings can make errors stand out, which can become costly to your business. Therefore, it is important to have best practices in place; one secure central location and an organized single source of truth as a document repository for your team(s). The right tools can help facility managers save time and money, and do their jobs more efficiently. In this article, we will talk about how much money cities waste each year because of outdated engineering drawings.

How Do Outdated Drawings Cause Problems?

Cities are facing a growing problem with unorganized and outdated engineering drawings. As the number of city employees shrinks, so does the number of people who know the history of the building.

This leaves cities in a bind. They have to decide between paying more and more money for contractors, new plans created or leaving old problems unresolved. The latter option means that some neighborhoods will continue to suffer from poor water quality, unsafe roads, and other issues that could have been avoided with a drawing preservation storage, FM technology and efficient operations to retrieve both hard and digital versions of their most accurate operational drawings.

Most cities have engineers who create drawings of every aspect of their infrastructure — streets, water mains, sewers, etc. These are usually stored in an electronic format on computers, and drives in silo’d departments throughout the city. They’re also printed out on paper and kept in desk drawers, piled in offices, or as we’ve seen levelling out a fridge in head office. Yikes!

Male engineer checking outdated engineering blueprints to review infrastructure construction.

Issues That Occur When City Employees Use Outdated Engineering Drawings

Cities and states waste money on outdated engineering drawings. The main issue is that as engineers work on projects, they use different versions of the same drawing. This leads to confusion and mistakes in construction.

If an engineer needs something that is not readily available at their local hardware store, they may need to order it from another state or country. This takes time and costs money for fuel and shipping fees. In addition, there are issues with city employees using outdated drawings because it can cause them to spend more money than necessary on materials or equipment.

Two engineers discussing engineering drawings.

What’s the Cost of Using Outdated Engineering Drawings?

When it comes to engineering drawings, the cost of using outdated ones can be quite high. The reason is that they are not only inefficient, but they can also lead to costly mistakes that risk the health and safety of the community and building. Some of the most common ways in which outdated engineering drawings can end up costing your company money include:

  • Inaccurate Quotes: When your team is using old plans, they will not be able to give accurate quotes for any work that needs to be done. This will cause delays in the project and make it more difficult for your team to receive payment on time.
  • Accidents: If you are working with outdated drawings, there is a much higher chance that accidents will occur during the construction process, which could lead to injuries and accidents for some workers on site. This can cause you to have to pay out more money in medical bills and compensation claims from families of deceased workers if you do not utilize FM technology and efficient operations in your facilities department.
  • Time Wasted: If your team has unorganized and outdated engineering drawings, it can lead to them spending more time decoding symbols and interpreting outdated language than actually being able to gain the needed information from them, like they should be able to do with up-to-date documents and organized plans.

There are a lot of different variables to take into account when estimating construction costs. However, there’s no doubt that using outdated drawings will cause problems throughout the project. Whether more money is wasted on extra materials, more time is wasted on extra labour hours, or more time is wasted making mistakes due to an inability to read drawings, there is a clear cost associated with using old documents. And did we mention the enhanced sustainability going green will have on the future generations and the future of FM’s work?

How Can echo Help?

Updating blueprints can seem like a difficult, time-consuming task. However, physical blueprints can get lost and other issues can arise that make it difficult for Facility Planning Managers to do their jobs efficiently. With that in mind, there are plenty of ways by adopting DCM’s four synergistic drawing management solutions including echo Search can make updating your engineering drawings as simple and efficient as possible.

The cost of using outdated engineering drawings is higher than most would think. Cities across the US are wasting millions of dollars on defunct engineering drawings and take-off lists. We’ve seen the effects that these budget leaks have had on cities such as Los Angeles and Cedar Rapids, IA. We can help you save money by preventing this problem. 

One way that echo Search can encourage a more fluid workflow for your planning team by giving you access to feed data from your latest .dwg (e.g., live material even on drawings older than a few minutes), so you don’t have to worry about wasted time and effort trying to track down the latest version of a drawing or the correct format. Did your team forget where they saved the design file? No problem. With echo Search you can search through millions of files with ease in one single source of truth no matter how many sites you are managing. Narrowing down the search no matter what and who is looking for the most up-to-date version. With an easily accessible web-based storage system, echo Search can allow your team to quickly find previous versions, check in and out, markup the latest changes and submit for approval. This can help managers save a lot of time wasted looking through cabinets. 

Cities waste time and money through outdated engineering drawings and unorganized blueprints. Visit DCM Inc. to find your drawings in seconds. The Drawing Specialists an help you save time and money by creating the drawings and blueprints you need to avoid costly errors and by adopting these four synergistic drawing management solutions will provide your team with one secure central location and an organized single source of truth as a document repository.

4 Unique Projects Facilities Managers Can Implement to Improve Operations

by Tammy Mitchell | | Phase 2: Drawing Management Software

Facilities managers (FMs) can make transformational changes to the long-term running of facilities, aiming to cut operational costs and improve service delivery. These are some areas where drastic or incremental changes can have far-reaching consequences:

4 Uniques Projects Facilities Managers Can Implement

1. Facilities Improvement

Optimizing space usage and minimizing energy wastage remains a critical part of the FM’s role. Here are some projects worth considering:

Space Redesign

Layout optimization is almost necessary post-COVID, as teleworking and hybrid working models force organizations to downsize office space. For the Facilities Managers, it could mean:

  • Reorganizing floor plans and moving furniture
  • Breaking walls in cramped-up spaces to ease movement
  • Transforming office space into storage areas

Facilities managers facing increased product volumes at warehouses can increase the vertical storage space by installing racks and shelves. However, reimagining the space should not come at the expense of layout optimization. It wouldn’t be wise to spend half an hour fetching something that would have previously taken five minutes.

Improved Energy Use

Consider green retrofits for your properties to lower your energy consumption and boost business revenues. However, this can be a massive investment, and you’ll need financial support from the bank. Most would be willing to help if you can prove that it makes you money or saves what you’re currently spending. 

Alternative funding sources could come from state or federal incentives. Here’s what you could do to cut energy costs:

  • Replace older lights with energy-efficient LED
  • Replace HVAC equipment with modern, energy-efficient models
  • Improve the building’s insulation to lower heating and cooling expenses

2. Process Optimization

Facilities managers need to make the best use of resources assigned to them. Some targets where they could increase efficiency include:

Eliminating Workflow Bottlenecks

Think of a parking space allocation requiring five different approvals. Finance is one of the departments involved, but they’re already swamped with work, and approving parking space is the least of their priorities. Parking attendants don’t have much to do as they await authorization, while customers are agitated by the delays.

Workflow bottlenecks create unnecessary delays and may cause some employees to suffer burnout. Fortunately, it is possible to smooth out the process flow by cutting the number of sign-offs and redistributing unbalanced work schedules.

Supplier Sourcing

Finding good suppliers as well as aligning them to your organizational goals can be time-consuming and difficult. However, adopting strategic supplier sourcing decisions reinforces long-term stability, and your customers are assured of quality and reliability. It also helps you control operational costs thanks to well-negotiated long-term contracts.

Prequalifying suppliers will streamline the procurement process, ensuring that you have the best deal for your facility without compromising quality. 

Preventive Maintenance

Always aim to go a notch higher on preventive maintenance. It takes a proactive facility manager to identify and prioritize maintenance needs. The goal is to create a long-term strategy for improving the service life of growing equipment inventory while minimizing breakdowns as well as user complaints. 

Preventive maintenance is also easier with:

  • An up-to-date asset inventory
  • A suitable monitoring schedule with clear hierarchies or equipment priorities
  • Reliable service technicians
  • Reliable parts suppliers
Male FM working on a tablet computer while conducting preventive maintenance.

3. Human Resource Design

Finding, developing, as well as keeping talent remains a challenge for many facilities managers. Here are some unique ideas on how to address those challenges:

Recruitment

With many organizations adopting a project-based approach, FMs need to find talent that can easily switch roles without losing sight of the organizational goals. The sheer variety of roles and responsibilities means that there is no one way to recruit a candidate. Every potential candidate is unique and often requires experienced screening to determine suitability, and here’s where specialist recruitment firms might need to step in. 

Beyond job boards and recruitment firms, the FM also needs to design new strategies for attracting top talent, like redesigning job roles and rebranding job descriptions. They can build talented communities on social media and engage them by sharing exciting developments within the industry.

Retention

Winning the talent war during recruitment only guarantees short-term success in the job marketplace. Many managers rush heading into recruiting without fully considering the costs and challenges of retaining top talent. And things can be a little expensive on this end, with competitors offering higher-than-average pay packages to lure top talent.

The facility’s manager also needs to review their value offering to employees, hoping to fit as many personal aspirations as possible into the big picture. To succeed in the new realities, the FM might need to trigger a culture shift, even if it’s just for their department, and review their hiring attitude. They might also need to design new in-house training models and innovate winning career development goals.

Outsourcing

Facilities managers are changing their HR strategies by shifting some roles to contractors and subcontractors. Increased competition for top talent coupled with high labour costs makes it nearly impossible to keep some services in-house. Some tasks, after all, are only cyclic, and keeping permanent staff would only blow up your expenses.

Though it looks like HR’s forte, the FM’s responsibilities here would include:

  • Identifying roles that would suit the outsourcing model
  • Participating in contactor sourcing and evaluation
  • Managing contractor groups on site
  • Ensuring that contractor tasks remain within budget and scope
Facilities managers operational improvement - a male FM walking between rows of employees in an optimized workplace.

4. Technology Integrations

Technology integration simplifies the facility manager’s work by aggregating data collection, storage, as well as reporting. Working with the IT department, FMs should ensure that the following roles are covered by selected software:

Drawings Management

What would happen to your decades-old engineering drawings if an accidental fire broke out in the filing facility? You’d be better off storing copies of these precious documents digitally rather than crossing your fingers, hoping that the drawings are safe. A streamlined drawing management system uses architectural industry best practices to index, store, as well as manage access to scanned engineering drawings.

Automation makes it easier to pull out the floor plans when you need to investigate and solve the source of flooding in the basement.

Asset Tagging and Serialization

Asset tagging occupies a special place in facilities management because it helps manage valuable assets. Assigning unique labels to an asset has the following benefits:

  • It makes it easy to trace asset movement and usage.
  • It allows the FM to track asset maintenance histories.
  • Likewise, it helps in physical verification during audits.

Movable assets can be tagged using RFID as well as GPS devices, and the internet can be used to track their locations. Barcode printers and scanners can also be used on low-value inventory.

Safeguard your drawings with a modern software solution designed with engineering and architectural specialists in mind, get in touch with DCM Inc. to discover how.

How to Maintain Customer Relationships and Build Brand Loyalty

by Tammy Mitchell | | Corporate DCM Inc. Articles

What keeps a customer loyal to a business? What has them coming back for repeat purchases? But most importantly, what turns a customer into your biggest brand ambassador, where they tell everyone about how amazing your company is? Marketers and businesses all around, have been trying to unlock the secret to that formula for years. So how does one maintain strong client relationships and build brand loyalty?

At DCM Inc. we truly value our customers. In fact, we have customers that have been with us for over 17 years – the first year our founder created the company. At our core, we truly believe that investing in personal relationships over time, has been a part of the reasons why our clients stay loyal.

How we maintain our strong customer relationships and build brand loyalty

We listen to our customers

When Darrell Sr. our founder, retired from his Executive Management Career, a huge percentage of his staff at his previous job wanted to come with him. Why? Because Darrell’s leadership and management strengths came from a deep desire to serve and truly listen and support his staff.  

They in turn gave him the encouragement and support to follow his love of engineering. He acquired a paper to CAD conversion service business and started Drawing Conversion Management, DCM Inc.

Those listening skills translated to the client-side and have been an integral part of the company since day 1. Our Drawing Specialists always listen to our customers and potential clients. We ask questions about their concerns, their worries, their biggest struggles.


Pay attention to the customers needs


Every customer has different needs and there is no one size fits approach to what they need help with. We customize programs and solutions tailor-made to their drawing issues. Whether a customer has 10 engineering drawings they need help with or one hundred thousand drawings, every customer gets the hands-on treatment. 

In fact, the paper to CAD to conversion service that we later named redraw, stemmed from Darrell Sr’s listening to his initial clients’ frustrations where they could not find the correct drawing. This frustration came up repeatedly in conversations, and he sought out a way to build a hands-on solution to solve this problem for them.

To this day, that thought process continues as DCM Inc. grew bigger. Our client care team regularly checks in with our customers across the country, to make sure everything is going well. We want to know what’s going well, if something is wrong, or if there are any changes we can help with. 

Earning Trust

Most people don’t give engineering drawings a second thought until they need them. Then when they can’t find the right one, it’s usually a mad panic, especially if there is an emergency. This is where DCM comes in.

When we do a hands-on audit, we really get into all of the drawings at a facility. Then we carefully extract those drawings, and we take them to our facility to get them pared down and digitized. Some are over 100 years old and in extremely delicate condition. Oftentimes they are that facilities only copy.

Imagine handing over your building history. That takes a lot of trust in the company that cares for them. We make it a point to ensure the well-being of those drawings and care for them as if they were our own. Even our Co-CEO Darryl Jr. goes to many of these production audits to help retrieve the drawings. It’s all hands on deck to ensure they are cared for.

“We have to continually earn the right to lead our business.”

– Darryl Mitchell Jr.


Exceed Expectations

Many would say it’s the small-town roots. The ones where you know your neighbour and support your local business. We took that same feeling and ensured all our customers feel like they are our neighbours right next door. 


For example, after we either pick up or receive a shipment of drawings to digitize, it’s not unusual that mid-way through the digitizing process, our production team would get an emergency request for a drawing needed by a facility manager. 

Our team is well known to be able to not only continue the job of digitizing but will stay the extra time to help find the correct paper drawing for our customers. No easy feat when you’re looking at crates with up to 25,000 drawings per shipment. 

There’s a reason we’re called the Drawing Specialists. The way we audit, organize and maintain drawings, follows through from the time we get the drawings, the way we process the drawings, and all the way until the drawing gets into our engineering drawing management software, echo.



Looking ahead

DCM Inc. has grown substantially in the last couple of years, and we have no plans to stop. If anything, our desire to build strong relationships with our clients has increased. We have invested in new technology, enhanced our software program echo, and have branched out our communications online. Come say hello to us anytime across social media, whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, we are there to connect with you.

Our staff is growing every month and counting because the demand to go digital has never been higher. We cannot wait to help you with your paper or digital chaos.


DCM echo vs Bluebeam Revu: Why echo is the Go-To Facility Management Software Choice

by Tammy Mitchell | | Phase 2: Drawing Management Software

For Facility Managers searching for a powerful engineering drawing management system to get the chaos of their disorganized facility drawings under control, echo by DCM Inc. is the ideal choice. Other software may appear similar on the surface, but a deeper dive shows that no competitor can match the one-stop, all-in solution echo provides for facility drawing management.

DCM echo vs. Bluebeam Revu 

Take Bluebeam Revu for instance. It significantly differs from echo in its focus, features, and licensing criteria. Echo is designed to empower Facility Managers by putting them in full control of their drawing and document management situation. In contrast, Revu seems more limited in scope towards architecture, engineering, and construction professionals.

As the leading drawing management company, DCM Inc. aims to provide facility management personnel with a complete suite of features that will take their existing paper and digital drawings, and seamlessly integrate them into our cutting-edge engineering drawing management software.

 A Suite of Supporting Services 

With echo, Facility Managers can choose to opt into a variety of the supporting services provided by DCM Inc. for a drawing management strategy custom-tailored to their facilities’ needs. By outsourcing drawing management to DCM Inc., savvy FMs will find an all-in-one strategy that is vastly cheaper than having drawing management done in-house. These services elevate the echo experience into a true partnership between your organization and The Drawing Specialists.

Our certified Drawing Specialists get hands-on with your digital or hard copy drawings mess, including scanning, organizing your master drawings in echo where you will find your drawings in seconds. We can redraw old or damaged drawings, and create CAD drawings from existing PDF drawings. We even compile several master drawings into a single Baseline Master Plan that consolidates years of engineering drawings into much easier-to-manage operational master set plans.

 An All-In-One Drawing Management Strategy 

With Revu, each device used to access the software requires its own purchased seat. This pricing structure may be workable for smaller organizations that only need one or two users to access the drawing management software, but DCM Inc. aims to create a solution where it isn’t necessary for everyone to go to “the drawings person” at their office to locate the drawing they need.

With echo, your facility’s drawings are immediately accessible to any user at your facility who needs them—and we don’t limit our users to a certain number of devices or require a charge per user. By our estimate, a license to use Revu with CAD and technical support would cost approximately $548 USD per user!

In fact, many standard features of DCM’s echo are only available in Revu as an additional charge. Let’s go over the differences between the two facility management software options:

 DCM echo vs. Bluebeam Revu: Feature Comparison 

Have the Leading Drawing Management Company  Supporting Your Facility’s Needs We are the Drawing Specialists, and Facility Managers around the globe are trusting us to support them with our acclaimed Drawing Management Strategy. Our team would be happy to discuss how we could best serve your facility’s needs. Book a discovery call today for more information about echo from DCM Inc.

How to create a work culture that your team will love

by Tammy Mitchell | | Corporate DCM Inc. Articles

Never has a topic been brought up as much as it has in the last year. The one where we talk about how to create a work culture that your team will love and thrive in. The pandemic shifted how people see their careers, and how their work impacts their lives. Countless articles about the great resignation, also dubbed the great re-evaluation has been written. People who were stuck in jobs that felt like groundhog day, began to question if this was how they wanted to spend the rest of their life.

How to create a work culture that your team will love

While we will make suggestions on how you can create a work culture that your team will love, we especially want to share what we do at DCM Inc., and how our work culture has evolved. 

Being a new, yet a touch older startup, our team has seen unprecedented growth in the last year. Creating a work environment, where not only employees enjoyed their work, but also thrived, was no small feat. 

Many meetings and discussions were had about how everyone could benefit from this – from our CEO, right down to our production staff. How do we balance work and family, remote staff, and on-site teams? How do we train staff to become drawing specialists and ensure we have given them the tools and skills to do their jobs successfully? What are the goals the company has, and how can encourage employees to want to be a part of them?

Work cultures have evolved over the years, and no longer are free lunches and ping pong tables going to cut it. Culture is no longer about material items. It has changed into employees wanting meaningful work, supportive bosses, and a collaborative environment where their voices and time matter. 

After many inspiring conversations, we took these ideas and put them into action at our company. The ongoing feedback we get from everyone, speaks volumes about how important it is to create a work culture that your team will love. And as you’ll read, our team really loves their jobs.

Here are some of the most important ways we did it.

Hire the right people

It seems simple enough, but it’s amazing how this part is often overlooked when you’re growing and need staff asap. We take great care in our interview process to make sure that we find people who are a good fit for our team. It’s not just about qualifications and crossing a checklist of educational requirements. Making sure that they’re a good person comes first. Are they eager to learn? Supportive of their colleagues? Are they comfortable getting their hands dirty – because we work with a lot of old papers and dark basements.

We are a team through and through. We grow as a team, work as a team, and also support each other as a team. There is no room for egos here. That’s not for everyone, and that’s ok. But we want to make sure that when a new member joins us, they’ll be just as happy for their colleagues’ success as their own. We support each other through good times and learn from our mistakes. We are accountable for our actions and how they impact everyone. And it reflects in how much staff care about their peers.

I love my career for many reasons but if I was to pick one it would be my teammates!

The team – the people I work with. I don’t know the actual hours we spend with our colleagues but it’s A LOT!! In a successful work environment we need to be able to do what we love and feel empowered by our contribution to the company and truly enjoy our teammates! I am surrounded by people who I truly enjoy working with!

I see a lot of resumes – team players are always mentioned.  It is recognized that is what is needed on a resume but many do not truly understand what that means. We do a lot of interviews and search for the diamonds that truly understand what a team player is. It means being humble and the attitude of knowing my contribution is no more important than my colleague, and the success of our company and our team is due to our team effort. We have a company filled with people that truly understand this and excel in working as a team!

We have built an environment where no one works in fear. Make a mistake! Announce it! Own it! Grow from it! We grow together as a team!

Being surrounded by these diamonds allows me not to wish my days away for the weekend – but enjoy my journey and the path I have chosen in my business life. I appreciate each and everyone of these diamonds that surround me daily!

Julie – Business Development 


Encourage Training and Education

DCM Inc. greatly encourages staff to keep learning. In fact, we almost insist on it. We believe that staff should grow in their roles and their career paths. We start off with everyone in production, so they can understand the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the core of what we do, which is we are the leading drawing management company in the world. 

Then we encourage them to see what inspires them the most. We’ve had staff switch roles down the line because they gravitated naturally to one role over another. It’s something that we really support because we want our team to be happy with what they’re doing.

We have a multitude of software programs that we use on a daily basis, especially for our Client Success and Marketing teams. Some of them, such as HubSpot for example, offer countless certification programs, and we always encourage staff to upgrade their skills. The more training and education they get, the better we all will be as the company grows. 

It’s not a secret that I LOVE my job, but it may not be known why. There are so many why’s. 

Passionate and supportive co-workers. Every single person is ready to help whenever needed. Their strengths become my strengths and vice-versa. 

A management team that I respect, that I can learn something new from daily, and who are more concerned with the success of the team than for themselves. I love being able to tell people my ‘bosses’ are there in the trenches, supporting and serving every member of our team and are passionate about our services and our clients.

I love our clients. I love helping them solve problems, and hearing about their new nieces/nephews, the trip they are going on, etc., I get the best of all worlds, great people that I can build real connections with while providing a world-class product and experience. 

Work/Life balance. No need to sacrifice my family to get ahead with my work, flexibility and understanding are just part of our DCM world. 

Long weekends. This sounds trivial but 4-day long weekends are a game changer in preventing burn-out. We all need a break and DCM gives it to us on a regular basis. The same can be said about the week-long shutdown at Christmas that makes time for family.

Team connection – weekly check-ins, common goals, team events/socials (paintball, meals, the dinner theatre, campfires, skating, hikes, ice-cream runs….it’s a long list). 

In a nutshell, I would have to work at NOT loving my job. There are so many great things that happen in this group!

Diane – Client Success

Trust and Work Life Balance 

Perhaps one of the biggest requests from any employee anywhere is to not be micromanaged. Followed up with the expectation that work is their entire life. Is there truly anything else worse than a boss breathing over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing your job, and nit-picking every little thing you do? Not a chance. This is a sure-fire way to create a toxic work culture with high turnover.

A fair work-life balance is something we really stand by and is a key part of what we expect of our staff. Whether it’s a daycare pick-up time, a sick pet, or just needing a mental health day off, balance is everything.

As for trusting your team? This goes back to hiring and training. When you hire the right people and offer good training, you feel secure in your team member’s ability to do their job. Trusting your staff to do their job is probably one of the biggest culture and work environment must-do’s. Steve Jobs’ famous quote about hiring smart people rings true. 

Stay out of your team’s way and let them excel at what they do best. 

Having a work life balance is one of the most important things to keeping Moms in the workforce. I love that our company encourages and supports staff in working around a schedule that is best for their family life. Lots of companies say they offer flex work, but they don’t truly understand what that means. DCM does. To know that your employer trusts you to do your job in a way that you do it best, is invaluable. It makes you want to strive to do better all the time.

Alex – Marketing

Recognize Efforts

Maybe it’s our Canadian sides shining but we’re constantly thanking each other. That is when we’re not busy celebrating each other’s wins. We have a group chat on our work app Cliq, and we’re always sharing updates there about small successes and big successes. At our weekly staff meetings, we dive right into our weekly goals and we all truly offer our support to whoever needs it.

But it’s not just non-stop positivity. We know there are tough days and tough jobs. That support is there too. Sometimes you don’t get a win, but we all know how hard the effort was. Supporting those efforts is just as big of a deal as the wins. We ask for help, advice, and we’re comfortable saying when things are a struggle. Everyone is always happy to offer whenever they can.

I love that with DCM I am working a job that I’m passionate about, and I could not ask for a more supportive team! Whether it is viewing a draft of a video for feedback, or even just needing a quick double-check on phrasing. My Team is always there for me and I always feel like a valued member!

Sydney – Marketing

I love the team I get to work alongside; everyone puts energy, drive, and passion into the critical actions they execute daily. We’ve built a team that relies on culture and willingness to jump in and assist wherever energy needs to be at that moment. We believe in the mission to guide Facilities leaders globally that struggle to keep their engineering drawings organized, up-to-date and accessible for their teams. We meet this mission with grace and a bond I have never experienced before in the workplace.

Beyond the team, knowing that our company offers the best Drawing Management Strategy globally that ultimately boosts the overall facility’s health and safety while going paperless. Our mission feeds my soul and passion for a better world for our children. And no matter where on earth our strategy ends, it’s supporting a cause that truly is one big step in the right direction towards a positive environmental impact.

Bringing me to our recent addition to our business model, we will plant a tree for every new echo Software user, adding to the overall reforestation growth where the earth needs it the most. Another reason I love what I do daily.

Tammy – Marketing

I love knowing that the projects and people we work with contribute to the health and safety and well-being of users of all kinds of facility spaces! 

Jessica – Client Success

Goals and Collaboration

At DCM, we are always trying to better our company for our staff and the future. We believe in creating a collaborative work culture where all ideas are welcome. From projects to charities, to staff events, if someone has something they think we should try, we’re all ears.

We set goals as well. Weekly ones for our departments and the company as a whole. We recently launched a partnership with One Tree Planted, and we are always brainstorming ideas on everything from creative projects, to new office space – that’s coming! 

Fostering an environment where our staff feels excited and motivated to reach their own personal goals is also crucial. We celebrate promotions, first sales calls, successful marketing campaigns, and scanning 50,000 documents in a record time (true story). We also celebrate non-work life successes, such as new family additions, graduations, and anything that a team member is excited about.

I love that once I walk into the office, everything from the outside completely washes away and I am encompassed by the most beautiful souls. It makes for such a pleasant time working with the individuals I do on a daily basis, whether that be co-workers to clients, to potential clients. DCM as a whole is its own amazing world.

Hilary – Sales

I love our Team and the passion and energy everyone brings each day. We really take pride in understanding each of our client’s needs and I love that we are constantly adapting and improving in order to solve each of their unique problems. I love that we are able to make people’s lives easier and are able to give back to the community.

Tyler – Production

So how do you create a work culture your team will love? In the end, be the type of company that you would like to work at. The rest falls into place. 


PS – We’re hiring! If you think you’d like to join our team, we have monthly job fairs, both in-person and virtual, that we share across our social media. Or just drop us a note and your resume at: careers@drawingspecialists.com. We can’t wait to meet you!

How to be 2022’s Cutting Edge Facility Manager with DCM Inc.

by Tammy Mitchell | | Phase 2: Drawing Management Software

Technology is marching on, and facility managers need to keep pace with cutting edge technology to keep their facilities relevant. We live in an era of rapid change and evolution, so embracing this technology is a key component to being a successful Facility Manager in 2022. These new technologies are constantly being introduced into our lives and changing the way we interact with the world around us. 

As technology improves, the devices Facility Managers use to remotely operate their buildings will be swapped out for the latest model every few years. But the facilities themselves are built to last. The lifespan of a facility may last 20, to 50, to over 100’s of years! 

As innovation continues to shape technology, the standards and demands that facilities are expected to meet also grow. Facility managers must embrace new and innovative methods and technologies to keep their facilities relevant in the face of an ever-changing world.

As the leading drawing management company, DCM Inc. offers our customers echo: our acclaimed engineering drawing management software, and an accompanying suite of services that can be custom-tailored for your facilities’ needs.

Here are 5 Ways DCM Inc. Modernizes Facility Management to help you be 2022’s Cutting Edge Facility Manager.

Going Paperless 

In an increasingly digital world, going paperless is the future. Drawings stored in a dusty basement or storage room reduce productivity by forcing employees to search for the specific drawing needed. The average employee spends 2.5 hours per day searching for paper documents. All of that time spent searching for documents can result in a 20% loss of productivity for your company!

Through our hands-on service, your employees can stop searching through piles of disorganized facilities drawings and have the time to focus on the jobs you hired them for. Leave the chaos of your paper drawings to us, and we will scan them for you into your own echo database. Our auditing process will ensure each of your drawings passes through the hands of our of our certified Drawing Specialists, so you always know you’re looking at the most current version of a drawing.

Going Green 

By choosing to level up your facility by digitizing your drawings, you also take steps towards going green and levelling up your commitment to corporate social responsibility. Not only will fewer trees need to be made into paper, but there are surrounding benefits as well.

Having your files stored in the cloud reduces your company’s carbon footprint by eliminating the need to transport physical documents between storage and office sites or copy and distribute physical versions of those documents to the employees who need them.

DCM Inc. has partnered with One Tree Planted to take going paperless a step further. Now, for every new echo user, a tree will be planted on our clients’ behalf. Going paperless by choosing echo gives back to reforestation projects around the world!

Mobile Technology – a must have for every Facility Manager in 2022

The introduction of smart technology in the palm of anyone’s hand represented a total societal shift in how information is shared between people. Once your facilities’ drawings are brought into echo, your team will have access to powerful engineering drawing management software anywhere you are in the world. In 2022, every facility manager, will need to offer the ability for their team to work remotely. Whether that is from home, at a construction site, or at the office.

You will be able to manage multiple facilities unconstrained by the physical distance between them. Tasks and operations can be managed remotely, all through the phone you use every day. Your employees will also benefit by bringing up drawings directly on their phones, as they work on-site.

Baseline 

BIM is great for erecting new buildings, but it doesn’t effectively capture what’s behind the walls once the drywall is up. That’s where baseline comes in.

With baseline Master CAD Drawings, all of the years of changes to your facility are layered into one operational drawing that shows where the plumbing, electrical, and other critical grids are behind the wall. These master CAD drawings are fully customizable to your specifications. Facility Leaders will shave down their team’s time looking for drawings to 15 seconds with our baseline CAD plans service.

A lot of the things BIM can do can be done just as well or better by utilizing DCM’s Drawing Management Strategy. Like BIM, baseline + echo allows you to bring all your designs, including AutoCAD files, into a single database. Your echo database can be accessed by any employee you set up with an account, allowing your team to work collaboratively with ease while utilizing a single source of data.

Maintain 

Our maintain service is a powerful tool for outsourcing your drawing maintenance, ensuring your facility will stay on the cutting edge well into the future. Regular maintenance of your drawings is essential for maintaining your facilities’ health and protecting your investment moving forward.

You want to ensure your drawing assets remain up-to-date and accurate over time, but assigning your employees to drawing maintenance only dilutes their focus from your core business priorities. Outsourcing your drawing maintenance to the Drawing Specialists will provide you with on-demand service done on your schedule and your budget!

Make 2022 the year you become the Facility Manager that elevates your entire team and facility.

Have the leading drawing management company supporting your cutting edge facilities’ needs. We are the Drawing Specialists, and Facility Managers around the globe are trusting us to support them in leading their cutting edge, evolving facilities. Our team would be happy to discuss how our Drawing Management Strategy could best serve your facilities’ needs. Book a discovery call today for more information about echo from DCM Inc.