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LegacyFiles Plan Room
What is a plan room?
Who should use a plan room?
Does a plan room
save me money? (Owner - General Contractor - Sub Contractor)
Should a Reprographer offer me a plan room?
How does a Project Owner benefit from a plan
room?
Who pays for downloads from the plan
room?
Why should I use the LegacyFiles plan room?
How difficult is it to use an electronic plan room?
Who controls the plan room? (Posting latest releases? - Deleting obsolete
documents?)
Is using a plan room the same as using a document database?
What
is a plan room?
A plan room is a single location where all the
documentation for a given project is made available to all parties that may be
assigned as a team member of the project. The manual plan room has been
traditionally in the realm of the Reprographer or a company that has been
specifically designed to handle document distribution for construction projects.
Traditional Reprographic plan rooms were used because the Reprographic firm was simply in the area of the project and as a convenience to the contractors the plan room had readily available print sets for pickup or delivery when requested.
Hard copy was the process of choice for document sharing and distribution. Hundreds of hard copies were frequently made for each discipline of the project. Architectural, Electrical, Mechanical, Structural and several other discipline sets were simply printed and put on the shelf for the vendor to pick up. This process minimized the time that the contractor vendor would wait for a complete set of project plans.
Delivery costs and time frames were significant considerations when selecting a Reprographer. It was considered an un-necessary additional expense to have the contractor wait for a print set, as he was on the clock.
The new electronic plan room however, makes those traditional manual plan rooms obsolete and no longer economical.
The new electronic technology allows new companies such as LegacyFiles to provide these services instantly right over the Internet. The new plan room is far more efficient and significantly more cost effective that traditional hard copy plan rooms.
You are no longer trapped with the local Reprographer just because he has a building and a delivery service in you area.
Who
should use a plan room?
Any company that is contracted for participation in a
construction project should now be using an electronic plan room.
This includes the project Owner, Architect, Prime Contractor, Sub Contractor and
any other team participant.
Does
a plan room save me money?
Virtually all industry studies show significant cost
savings using electronic plan room technology. Even the Reprographic industry
leaders are telling their users that they need to participate in the new
electronic plan room services or simply expect to be left out in the cold.
Get a copy of the PWC white paper from our free downloads page. This white-paper study demonstrates a 5-8% cost savings per project. That means a minimum of $50,000.00 to $80,000.00 cost savings for every $ 1,000,000.00 project initiated.
In addition to the projected project dollar savings is the consideration of greater overall project communications and minimal legal battles at project completion. All parties benefit greatly.
Should
a Reprographer offer me a plan room?
If he doesn't offer you these new services look for one
that does. It is no longer necessary to deal with the local Reprographer just
because he has a delivery service in your area. Electronic delivery is available
world wide and virtually costs nothing. Any vendor may download the documents
they need 24 hours a day 7 days a week from anywhere in the world. They may take
them to any printing service company available for hard copy if desired.
You are no longer stuck with a limited local distribution
channel. Beware of Reprographic service groups that force you to use only their
printing services or only their Association printing service partners.
Your local Reprographic supplier must provide you with the
technology that is best suited to your requirements of today. If they chose to
stay in the past then you must re-consider your business relationship.
How
does a Project Owner benefit from a plan room?
Accountability significantly improves from all
project participants. Finally all the team players are on the same page with the
correct latest revised documentation.
Many more bidders have access electronically than will ever have access through traditional hard copy bidding services. This enhances the competitive process for all project activities.
Many more bidders will download electronic files than those bidders that have to drive to a hard copy plan room just to view the project documents to see if the project is worth bidding.
Best communications with all project participants. (24x7)
Faster project completion times.
Digital picture documentation from project start to finish.
Significant overall cost reductions.
Project tracking from the design phase through the as built project completion. No more guessing about who said what or when they said it or to whom they said it.
Who
pays for downloads from the plan room?
Downloads are provide at no cost to the team member. Whenever a document update is made to the plan room all team members are notified so
that they may download the latest released document. The team member may then
have a hard copy printed from any resource available to him.
Why
should I use the LegacyFiles plan room?
LegacyFiles provides straight up services for plan
room activities. We have no hidden agenda to force you to use our printing
services. Most posting companies may even post your documents for free but force
you to use their printing services for hard copy distribution.
You may print only what you need, including individual sheets if that is all you need. Most posting services require that you print entire document sets even when only one document of the set has been revised.
How
difficult is it to use an electronic plan room?
For those that are familiar with typical Microsoft
Windows functions like directories and folders then using an electronic plan
room is fairly simple. The good news is that a typical (new user) can be taught
in about 15 minutes.
You may wish to implement some new naming conventions. (See our free software downloads page). You will see that several good sense ideas may save you lots of time when trying to access the latest revised file.
Many free FTP programs are readily available that will allow direct access to project documents using password authorization. (See our free software download page for an easy to use, free FTP program.)
Who
controls the plan room?
The project owner or his assignee. You should never allow
a service vendor to control the posting or manipulation of document releases on
the electronic plan room.
Is using a plan room the same as using a document database?
The plan room file storage structure is usually only individual project directories and folders for the different document types or disciplines.
A database program may allow document searching, tagging, editing and copying. A database program usually uses field descriptors that allow searches by date, project numbers etc. A document database will usually manage all company documents whether they are part of an active project or not.