Finding the Digital Edge - Irish Building Magazine (read the original article here)
Ger Carton & Tom Daly, Co-Founders, PlantQuest, set out to create digital workflows that supported their team’s highly regulated project delivery - sourcing Bluebeam was just what they needed to grow whilst maintaining strict team collaboration.
Having had over two decades of delivering high end construction projects within the Pharmaceutical and Oil& Gas industries, Ger Carton & Tom Daly took the plunge and started PlantQuest in 2018 - “essentially a secure Google Maps type solution for pharmaceuticals and other large process facilities”. Despite being a software company, Carton and Daly were cognisant of the challenges presented by working with multiple data sources in older facilities and the project delivery standards and expectations put upon vendors by their multinational customers. Turning from construction and commissioning to software meant that PlantQuest had to adopt a whole set of new tools and processes to plan and execute projects.
One challenge that PlantQuest had was the remote implementation and delivery of software projects that were built using data harvested from PDF, CAD, BIM and site surveys. PlantQuest needed a tool that bridged the gap between a software development environment and a pharmaceutical engineering department, both in terms of managing and processing the engineering documents, and also handing over the project deliverables. Having a background in process and instrument engineering, the team looked to Bluebeam Revu as a means to manage and standardise their project execution and hand over in a way their clients could understand.
MAKING BLUEBEAM PART OF THE PLANTQUEST WAY
Moving to a model of nearly 100% remote implementation, PlantQuest needed a way to execute and collaborate internally and also with clients. Bluebeam Studio’s set of features such as Sessions Version control, review workflows, secure document storage and sharing meant that teams could work seamlessly throughout the pandemic and beyond. Studio Sessions were especially helpful as it allowed the project team to work on documents in real time, allowing decisions to be made without having an endless back and forth over email. In turn, a shorter project turnaround for their clients
CREATING INSIGHTS FROM INFORMATION
With most of PlantQuest's work being in Brownfield facilities, they were faced with the conundrum of managing modern and legacy drawing data, with formats ranging from scans of old hand drawings, PDF, CAD and BIM. Here, the PlantQuest team found that Bluebeam came into its own. Features such as Object Character Recognition created exponential timesaving benefits allowing data to be extracted from old documents in seconds, turning a job that would have taken hours into literally seconds. The Javascript API was transformative for PlantQuest as it allowed PlantQuest to seamlessly integrate Bluebeam markups into their software development workflow, creating the perfect bridge between the physical built environment of their customers and their software team.
DIGITAL PROJECT HANDOVER
Conscious of the environmental impact of their business, PlantQuest moved to being a 100% paperless company, which meant completely overhauling their project handover process. For this they adopted the forms, signature and folder features of Bluebeam to create high quality, secure and green project completion documents that met and exceeded their clients expectations, as well as saving hours of time that would have been spent printing, scanning and assembling handover dossiers.
DIGITAL EDGE
Adopting a digital project collaboration and delivery tool such as Bluebeam has provided PlantQuest with the perfect solution with which to grow and expand their innovative mapping, navigation and productivity tool in the Pharmaceutical space. Its suite of features has impacted every aspect of its project delivery from inception through to handover. The Javascript API has been critical in providing a live link between Bluebeam markups and the PlantQuest API, ensuring the PlantQuest system and the documentation underpinning the solution are always in sync.
For more information see plantquest.com and rdsbluebim.com
Read the original article here
