Smaller, faster-drawing management with Baseline Master CAD Plans.
Facility managers and project champions! Imagine one set of accurate, optimized master drawings at the click of a button.
The Purpose of Baseline Master CAD Drawings?
They make you look good! No, seriously. And here is how:
- You get compressed years of history into one set of master plans with all the necessary discipline details to maintain your facility.
- Produce efficiency and productivity throughout your organization.
- Supporting the 3 primary disciplines Architectural, Mechanical, Electrical, while capturing all the critical data behind the walls.
- Built-in processes to keep these drawings update with all future projects.
Save time. Lock in certainty. Minimize stress. Prevent expense.
What will you do in 2030 if a drawing that was drafted in 2019 can’t be found quickly… or at all?
Lose money, that’s what. Don’t waste time searching for the right project drawings ever again. That’s why we created DCM’s Baseline Solution.
Let's talk about why your team needs Baseline!
Knowing they have the right information at their fingertips.
- Built-in success formula to keep the drawings up-to-date moving forward.
- Team(s) will have one complete set of master drawings to reference for new projects. One. They won’t have to search for drawings anymore. They won’t discover that a drawing is damaged or lost.
- The version they’ll access is the right one. Every. Single. Time.
Here’s why Baseline boosts productivity!
Its simple one is better than thousands.
DCM's Baseline is your go-to drawings instead of filtering through project drawings.
Baseline merges the drawing history of your building (the minor and major construction projects) into one set of plans. This is much easier to reference and maintain.
Your time is the companies money.
Baselines save time locating and planning future maintenance projects. When an emergency happens, Baselines save precious time.
And you get relevant information fast.
Baseline makes it easy for users to see what they are looking at. Irrelevant information is removed to produce clear and relevant drawings.
Why DCM's maintenance clients don't stop talking about Baseline.
Working in maintenance with Baseline means you have more time to knock down your to-do list.
- Consolidate/merge and edge-match all sketches, notes, and mark-ups.
- Instead of pulling up 10 or 50… or 200 project drawings that show the lighting situation on the first floor from the day it was built, a Baseline drawing called “First Floor Lighting” would show all the relevant details in one place.
- Thousands of drawings taken down to one merged Master Drawings that are right where you need it for every floor and every primary discipline.
- When your drawings are not updated you start to reply on senior staff as the go-to. But what happens when they retire? Read more in this article.
- Baselines are in the cloud and available in a few clicks.
Another reason why you need Baseline?
In 2022, when an electrician needs to rewire the basement…
Click.
There’s your one current master drawing, ready for review and to apply new updates.
In 2025, when a contractor is quoting on a reno?
Click.
There’s your Baseline drawing with all projects relating to that renovation merged into one master drawing.
In 2027, an architect needs a drawing!
Click. (You get it…)
One single-source reference drawing that’s updated as projects happen.
Why Baseline helps your contractors!
During the planning and construction stages, Baseline is key!
- Bids for new construction is made easy with Baseline.
- Having the concept info at your fingertips.
- You'll spend less time and money on change orders.
- Fewer changes during planning stages, builds, and renos. Change orders resulting from inaccurate or wrong drawing information accounts for 2% to 3% of construction project costs. An 80% reduction in these costs is realized by the implementation of DCM’s echo system and Baseline drawings.
- Your Baseline is shareable to any tradesperson who needs it, updatable (with check-in and check-out status to prevent duplicates) and—it’s just so gosh-darned easy to pull up one file for all of your needs. Did we mention that already?
Finally, you're not helpless during an Emergency; here's why Baseline helps.
What's behind the wall or ceiling?
Baseline image of what's behind the wall or. No more guessing games when the pipe explodes or when leaks occur you will be the first on the scene and save the day. Knowing what is behind the wall is why Baseline stands up against 2D and 3D.
Your response time.
Your response time will show your confidence and efficient process in your department. The first on the scene with the right drawing in your hand never felt so good.
You gain control.
Pipes will burst. Vents will fail. You can pull up what you need the moment something goes wrong. Deploy the plumber to the right spot, the first time. Avert chaos with Baseline.
The best measure in your Loss Control Plan is DCM’s Drawing Management Services including Baseline.
It took more than four hours to locate and shut off the water supply valve. During that time, five feet of water collected in our labs. We poured money into emergency teams. reroute ambulances, cancel surgeries, turn away walk-in patients and visitors. The damaged totaled millions of dollars.
- Don't let this happen in your facility.
Client Case Study one:
Lakeridge Health – Oshawa site only.
When you search “Floor 2 Lighting plans” in echo you get 52 Project Drawings with a date range of 1944-2008. But with Baseline, Oshawa has 1 Baseline drawing for Floor 2 Lighting Plan.
In this scenario, the end-user can reference 1 Baseline drawing vs 51 project drawings in echo.
For example, Lakeridge Health – Oshawa site
- Through our Hands-on service, the Drawing Specialists sorted through 50,000+ project drawings narrowing down to 7,062 after DCM Stage 1 - Audit, Data Collect, File processing, and echo.
- After DCM Stage 2, Lakeridge Health Oshawa site has 140 Baseline Drawings.
- One for each level and Primary Discipline
Client Case Study two:
Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board original situation totalling thirty-four sites.
Client Case Study four:
TGH (UHN) original situation with one site.
Client Case Study six:
This facility has six sites.
- 98,000 total drawing files handed over to DCM in 2007 for Hands-on service.
- 24,000 relevant drawings uploaded to echo Drawing Management System.
- Since 2015 this client has been creating Baseline Master CAD plans in-house. It's been a long slow process and a learning experience for staff and co-op students hired on. We believe they will have 500 potential Baselines. Now, five years in, they do not have one site with a complete set of Baseline drawings. However, this client has decided to process Baseline on their own DCM still manages and processes their new projects.
Echo, and Baseline drawings are used throughout our facilities and by project staff. When we engage in projects our consultants receive access to echo, and they are able to view, print and/or download files they need.
- Richard Driscoll, Manager of Facility Services, Peterborough, Victoria, Northumberland, and Clarington Catholic School Board
“Okay, that sounds great, but!”
“My company has tens of thousands of drawings and DCM’s Baseline solution seems perfect…But what do Master Baseline Drawings cost?“
We knew you'd ask!
Baseline costs are as low as $475.
On average a 1 million sqft facility with 10 floors will need around 100 Baseline drawings and can cost around $0.08 per sqft. Which works out to average $800 per Baseline drawing.
The cost depends on a number of factors, like; the facility's size, age, number renovations, number of floors, and number of project drawings available.
DCM will need to review each situation on a per-project basis to provide the best cost-effective solution.
Look at it this way, you make money from a Baseline Drawing.
How many hours are lost by your facility manager as she walks around the building or surfs around a computer looking for that drawing a contractor needs of the electrical changes that happened six years ago on the third floor, in the MacIntyre Wing?
- What does a delayed project cost you?
- Would you save money down the road when that same electrician puts in a change order because of an inaccuracy on the found drawing (that wasn’t the right one after all, after a 4-day search)? What do you pay her annually for her abilities?
- Is searching for drawings the best use of her skills?
- The best use of company time?
- Would your facility manager be able to focus on projects that make your company money, instead of searching for drawings?
When does Baseline make sense?
If your ROI is covered within a few months (or years) of investing in it, right?
When time is saved, and frustrations are minimized, your staff is happy. A happy team does good things for your company. Good things push up your numbers. Numbers going up equals to a good investment.
A few scenarios.
The following scenarios took place before the Drawing Specialists were implemented.
- A single facility in Canada has 3 full-time people on staff locating drawings, printing and distributing to internal users and sub-contractors. This facility estimates their annual cost to perform this service is a minimum of $180,000.
- Another 40 year old, 1 million sq. ft. facility reported a loss of 3013 man hours per year finding drawings.
- Our data shows that some facilities access drawings as many as 5,000 times, on average 1212 drawings are accessed annual.
- Typically there are 100 users per facility accessing drawings a minimum of 12 times per year, each. Our customers estimate it takes between 45 minutes and 3 hours per drawing search in their manual systems.
- An Ontario facility has 7 campus locations as far as 100 km from each other. The Engineering and Planning group are located at one of the facilities but drawings are stored at each individual facility. In order to get access to building information, the group has to physically drive to a location costing time and mileage. A typical trip of ½ hour and 15 km, sure adds up.
How to keep your investment up to date?
As new project drawings get added to echo the Baseline drawing will get updated with the new information, keeping the Baseline drawing with the most current information available.
Please note, this is a manual process performed by DCM and here are the finer details:
- 1.On average, a typical 1 million sqft facility adds an additional 1,200 project drawings each year.
- 2.echo has built-in tools to maintain baseline moving forward, things like;
- a.System notifications when new drawings are added to echo or existing project drawings have been updated that may affect the integrity of a baseline drawing.
- b.Version control to know when/what and by whom has been applied to your baseline
- c.Direct links to show what source files were used to create the baseline drawings.
- 3.Staff can update baseline drawings by applying markups to catch the changes that have happened that didn't or aren't produce project drawings. Than submitting these changes for approval and then to be updated.
How do you get Baseline Drawings?
How we recommend the implementation of Baseline:
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- Per discipline, DCM will review the current drawings available and create a project scope of work on how we will utilize these existing drawings.
- We will then consolidate/merge and edge-match all relevant drawings, sketches, notes, and mark-ups.
- Resulting in the creation of Baseline Drawings as one set of master drawings for each floor, discipline, and all on the same CAD standards related to the daily operations of a facility.
- Baseline drawings are then uploaded into your echo for immediate access and use by your staff.
- We make the implementing Baseline within your facilities, seamless.
Contact Julie
Julie Mitchell | Linkedln | Phone | Email | Website
