4 Benefits of Being Data-Centric

The data you accumulate over the history of your projects is a valuable asset. When you put it at the center of your company and put it to use beyond your current project, your company can benefit from being data-centric.

Data-centric is different than data-driven. AEC businesses operate best when they are driven by and act on the data they accumulate and acquire. In a data-driven business, you acquire software tools (often with proprietary formats) and develop your capabilities around those tools and the ways they manipulate your data – functionally, that’s application-centered.

Conversely, when data is a primary and permanent asset of your company and endures beyond any particular software tool, your company is data-centric.

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Transitioning to a data-centric business model is a big move and involves a change in an organization’s mindset. The decision makers must be behind the transition, and the digital tools must be in place to support the centralization of data in a single source of truth, located either inhouse or in the cloud.

The interconnected collection of project data can include:

• Contract Details
• 3D models from engineers and trade contractors for running clash detection
• Content and finish libraries
• Specifications
• Schedules for running simulations
• Procurement details
• Costs

Making this information available to multiple disciplines and teams in real-time leads to a data-centric process, and the main benefits are:

1. Accuracy – Every AEC business owner realizes the serious implications of accuracy, some through costly lessons learned. When you have the opportunity to leverage your data for the most accurate estimates, designs, decisions, evaluations, and reports, it’s wise to pursue it. A prime example of a data-centric process is building information modeling (BIM) – a strategy to collaborate with all teams involved in a project. The vast majority of BIM models are developed in Revit, and information is central to 3D Revit BIM models.
2. Speed – Making project data available to all stakeholders on a project is critical to keeping a project data-centric. With company data stored in a central location, employees and stakeholders can access exactly what they’re looking for without having to wait for another team to provide it. Once they locate it, they can get back to productive work quickly. Ideally, the BIM model is available to stakeholders in the cloud, accessible by mobile devices and allows the use of competing applications. This is the most efficient way to establish the joint effort needed to efficiently work through revisions, changes and interference issues among all systems and installations.
3. Confidence – With the accuracy of having the data centralized in a Revit model, your teams can be confident they are all working in the same single database. Straightforward, timely access to project data is what lends it value and enables it to be leveraged usefully. Operating in a data-centric way not only makes your decisions more reliable, it gives you a secure foundation for evaluating high quality versus low quality ideas.
4. Insight – Organizing and analyzing your company’s data can give you useful insights into internal and external trends that can affect your business and inform better decisions.
5. While retooling a data-driven business model into a data-centric one that makes data central to its processes can be complicated, most companies that have made the move to Revit report that it pays off in the long run. Harnessing data has tangible value for planning insights, design accuracy, confident collaboration, and construction efficiency
   and speed. Companies that embrace the transition to data-centric processes are reaping rewards.

While retooling a data-driven business model into a data-centric one that makes data central to its processes can be complicated, most companies that have made the move to Revit report that it pays off in the long run. Harnessing data has tangible value for planning insights, design accuracy, confident collaboration, and construction efficiency
and speed. Companies that embrace the transition to data-centric processes are reaping rewards.

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Are you at the station and getting ready to board the Revit train? A healthy project database is critical to your transition success. Contact the industry-trained Applied Software specialists about Revit database services.

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