& Construction
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Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
& Manufacturing
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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Founded with the purpose of being 100 percent environmental, Brown and Caldwell is a leading engineering, science, consulting, and construction firm. With approximately 2,100 dedicated employees, the company is committed to making a positive impact on the environment and the world. Specializing in safeguarding water, maintaining vital infrastructure, and restoring habitats, Brown and Caldwell works tirelessly to keep communities thriving.
Brown and Caldwell faced significant challenges with their DWG files, which are the native file format for AutoCAD. These files were taking an excessive amount of time to open and save, often causing users' machines to crash. This not only wasted valuable time but also posed a risk of losing all project information due to file corruption.
To address these challenges, Brown and Caldwell partnered with Autodesk Consulting, which implemented two custom-developed tools to enhance the performance and reliability of their DWG files:
Model Performance Analytics (MPA) - This tool was designed to assess the root causes of poor DWG file performance.
DWG Cleaner - This tool was developed to repair the files and restore team productivity.
These tools were set up in a remote/virtual machine environment, allowing users to continue their day-to-day work without interruption. During the implementation, a total of five projects were scanned using the MPA tool.
The MPA tool revealed that the poor performance of the DWG files was primarily due to Registered Applications and Circular References. With these root causes identified, the DWG Cleaner tool was then used to repair the files.
Brown & Caldwell
The impact of these solutions was significant:
Improved Efficiency - The time required to open DWG files was reduced by up to 15%.
Enhanced Reliability - The likelihood of file corruption and machine crashes was reduced by up to 90%.
Additionally, Brown and Caldwell created a nationwide DWG performance assessment program to understand different trends across regions and offices in the USA. This program has enabled them to identify and address performance issues proactively.