Tag Archives: Project Management

Essentials: A Roaring Success!

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Essentials, AceCad Software’s new steel fabrication shop production system, runs the entire company, it is ready to use in no time with minimal training and can often be paid for within a month on material savings alone!

Commenting on Essentials, Richard Brotherton, the Managing Director at AceCad Software, stated; ‘We felt there was an excellent market for a low cost system that allowed smaller fabricators or indeed fabricators in need of IT systems to control their costs and run their fabrication more efficiently.

Therefore, we extracted the ‘Essential’ features out of StruM.I.S, our world successful fabrication management system, incorporated them in a user-friendly interface and placed it on our website for fabricators to trial it for a month. Essentials has indeed hit a note with significant numbers of company’s trialing, liking and buying it.’

The simple and user-friendly features have already proven to generate valuable returns on investment and sales have come from all around the world including Africa, Australia, Europe, Middle East, South America and the USA.

If you belong to a smaller to medium sized steel fabrication company and want to grow your business, then you too can benefit and compete using the same resource strengthening and workflow advantages that many larger organization enjoy from implementing StruM.I.S.

To download Essentials, click here.

Or, to discover what our clients think about Essentials, click here.

Watch our FREE Webinar on BIMReview

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AceCad is pleased to announce that a new webinar is available to view online highlighting the benefits of our recently released Building Information Modeling (BIM) collaboration and review software; BIMReview.

BIMReview is a low cost, feature rich tool that enables import of BIM models and associated data from multiple CAD sources for effective review and visual communication and much more.

This webinar is designed to answer any questions that you may have about the software and to show you some of the BIM project collaboration benefits that BIMReview can deliver on your next BIM based project.

Whatever your role in the constructional supply chain is, BIMReview can open a world of endless collaboration opportunities across the engineering, procurement and construction stages of your projects.

Features include clash verification, mark-up, sequencing and planning to deliver instant project information. Imagine what you could do! To watch our latest webinar, click here

Or, to trial BIMReview now please visit www.bim-review.com where you can download and start benefiting!

Bar Code Tracking with StruM.I.S

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Bar code data-collection systems provide huge benefits during the manufacturing and processing stages of fabrication. Murray & Roberts subsidiary company, Genrec, has extended these benefits further by tracking individual items within large scale projects.

The bar code data-collection solution enables faster and more accurate data capturing with lower costs, minimised mistakes and easier data management through the StruM.I.S system including site materials and piece tracking.

A successful installation simplifies fabrication management

With Genrec’s principal RSA steel fabrication site in Wadeville, covering over 55,000m2 of undercover workshops and open areas, tracking of materials and fabricated items represented a major issue.

As StruM.I.S users they had already decided to extend shop floor feedback automation through bar coding for an optimised workflow and real time tracking. This implementation has been highly successful for quite some time and has shown real benefits in terms of processing steel through production efficiently and gaining the most out of the management  system; StruM.I.S.

Overcoming the growing pains

Following successes in several large projects around the world, Genrec has become the main contract steelwork fabricator for a substantial domestic infrastructure project. This resulted in the need to develop their own onsite fabrication facilities alongside the creation of a lay down storage area covering an area larger than that of five soccer pitches!

The sheer size of this storage area created a number of traceability issues for both raw materials and fabricated items and as such Genrec approached AceCad to see if it was possible to create a way of implementing bar coding through StruM.I.S into a new onsite process to enable complete onsite traceability.

GPS location of items enables accurate location on demand

Following development work between Genrec and the AceCad team, StruM.I.S is now able to use the bar code tracking functionality through a specially designed interface to track all site movement of materials and fabricated items.

Originally, the brief given by Genrec required the ability to scan items into the Production Delivery notes to define that these items were leaving the fabrication facility and headed for the site. Once the shipment is received at the site, the items are then scanned again as a confirmation of receipt to ensure that they have not been lost during transit. On confirmation, StruM.I.S will recognise the location, including GPS coordinates, for easy onsite traceability throughout the entire construction process.

Speaking on behalf of Genrec a spokesman commented; ‘With StruM.I.S, we have a system that enables us to manage projects from start to finish. Now with the extended bar coding functionality and the automation that this delivers we are able to benefit from the system more and more throughout our projects.’

AceCad interviewed by BIM Journal

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AceCad was delighted to be recently interviewed by BIM Journal; the leading online newsletter delivering impartial and authoritative information relevant to Building Information Modeling (BIM) industry professionals.

Aimed at everyone involved in the construction process – Developers, Project Managers, Engineers & Contractors, and with over 100,000 readers worldwide, the monthly BIM Journal editions reveal promising trends and the latest development projects from around the world.

Speaking to BIM Journal, Mr Brotherton, the Managing Director of AceCad Software commented; ‘We believe that the construction industry needs to deliver practical benefits into construction projects attainable by the implementation of BIM. Although BIM has resulted in benefits and advantages in many projects, we at AceCad believe that the data associated with BIM is still yet to be fully exploited beyond the virtual model and into the real world’.

When asked by BIM Journal to summarize what BIMProject, AceCad’s latest product for managing BIM data does, Mr Brotherton commented, ‘BIMProject allows users to extract BIM model data, apply it efficiently in the real world and track it, whilst updating the model, to help reduce RFI/variation costs which plague the industry’.

BIM Journal were interested in the development resource associated with BIMProject. Speaking on this, Mr Brotherton added ‘AceCad Software was certainly the leading company in bringing together the benefits found in manufacturing into the structural construction sector. We are now working to bring similar benefits into wider construction projects by the integration of model and data management through distinct and controlled processes that ensure information is integrated with knowledge to bring about powerful decisions – true BIM’.

BIMProject is in the final stages of development with an impending release planned, while the integrated BIMReview model collaboration tool, available from www.bim-review.com, was released in late summer. Due to high interest in the BIMProject product we have pilot projects running with beta versions. We already have a wide range of BIMReview users and feedback to date is extremely encouraging. A comment from one such pilot project user was ‘this is a dream come true!’.

To read the full article click HERE!

FREE Webinar – Steel Purchasing

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You can now optimise your steel procurement with StruM.I.S – More accuracy, reduced waste, costs savings!


StruM.I.S integrates your structural steel procurement with live contracts and enables the management of suppliers, with pricing and nesting automatically completed and all costs allocated for analysis.

Structural steel construction businesses need to purchase wisely and efficiently to deliver successful returns. The structural steel purchasing function is critical and often complicated by multiple simultaneous project requirements. StruM.I.S allows the management of suppliers and integration of purchasing for more accuracy, less waste and ultimately to save you money!

Watch our FREE webinar to find out how purchasing using StruM.I.S could benefit your business:

StruM.I.S purchasing and suppliers module features include:

  • Purchasing and supplier materials database
  • Wizard driven – linear and plate nesting/multing (optional), incorporating multi-suppliers, bevel nesting and butt welding
  • Visual nest representation and analysis
  • Request for Quotation (RFQ) and saved nest retrieval
  • Electronic Data Interface (EDI) with Suppliers
  • Automated Purchase Order generation
  • Purchase Order receipts enables good inwards management
  • Materials Classification, facilitating CE compliance, returns, damaged goods, etc.
  • Return to supplier for damaged or unwanted goods

So you’ve got your 3D or BIM model… What comes next?

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The main issue with interdepartmental and supply chain collaboration, is often the flow of information from one place to another. This is one of the areas where BIMProject comes into play, with its very simple workflow system doing all of the heavy lifting (figuratively speaking!) Processing 3D or BIM model data from design through the tendering, procurement and QS cycles to the construction site.

All of the information attributed to the models, and the models themselves, can be imported into BIMProject. Throughout the supply cycle the information is compounded and enriched and this data, along with all the documents involved, is then added to the system under controlled change management; through integrated workflows for the benefit of everyone involved in the entire construction project.

BIMProject and BIMReview also share an excellent and unique aspect; complete visual traceability in sync with the data held within.

‘Contractors are able to track the content from their suppliers through to the construction site in real time, utilising the BIM model in this environment, which we feel is a first.’

Paul Daynes, AceCad’s BIM Solutions Business Manager