Go Paperless with Bluebeam

Using an iPad and Bluebeam Revu software, contractors can leave paper documents back in the office and expedite construction with all the information they need and the ability to comment on or mark up those drawings on the mobile device.

"It opens the door for collaborative effort, to create a cohesive group and to deliver a project on a unique and tech-driven basis," says Brett Ivey, senior project manager for C.W. Driver of Pasadena, California, an AGC of California member, on the paperless Bloomingdale’s department store renovation project in Glendale, California.

"We created a set of documents that everyone had real-time access to," Ivey says. "It really sped things up, by allowing the opportunity to annotate our PDF documents with the iPad in the field. We could take photos and incorporate those into the informational exchange among all disciplines."

Revu’s tools are designed for construction, something important to C.W. Driver. Companies can customize the mark-up tools, such as pens or highlighters. They also can annotate the document using the iPad’s voice-to-text feature. Revu supports PDF form filling and video sessions. It offers built-in measurement tools to take length, area, perimeter, diameter, volume and radius measurements.

"Project managers can pull in the drawings from Dropbox or Bluebeam Studio or connect with Sharepoint and other services using WebDAV," says Patrick Keller, director of product management at Bluebeam Software in Pasadena. Revu offers the opportunity to place thousands of notes on the drawing, if necessary. The software clearly identifies who has marked up the drawings. It also will create a critical-items log to reference areas needing clarification or changes. The entire team can track the information electronically.

"There’s real-time collaboration with multiple users all over the globe," Keller says.

Users on a Windows desktop can search for keywords or symbols within the PDF documents or markups to make finding information quick and easy. Revu will scale and align two drawing revisions and highlight the difference, making comparisons a breeze to see. With overlaying pages, users can assign different colors to each page to visually check the differences.

"The overlay feature highlights the drawings in a way that clearly identifies the changes and discrepancies for all parties to see," Ivey says. "The project team in the field can pull up the information on the iPad."

James Gentile, a field superintendent with C.W. Driver, estimates using Bluebeam on an iPad eliminates up to 40 hours a month, by streamlining the exchange of information about minor changes.

"To eliminate the back and forth to the office and pull up our documents at the drop of a hat was great," Ivey says.

Revu for the iPad costs $9.99. It is a full-featured application and can be used alone, without Bluebeam’s desktop applications. Revu will work online or offline, with the document changes syncing when the iPad can access the Internet again.

The general contractor, typically, purchases Revu for collaboration and invites subcontractors to participate using Vu software at no cost. Everyone can mark up the documents. Ivey found the subcontractor community eager to learn the new technology. Some even purchased iPads for their foremen to facilitate communication with C.W. Driver.

"We’ve pushed it out company-wide," Ivey says. "It streamlines response time and gets us information faster on a schedule-driven project."