INNOVATION-September-October-2020

F E A T U R E

Bluebeam’s Revu software. I mage : B luebeam

keeping critical services like utilities going, it’s also about keeping as many of our fellow citizens of British Columbia as possible working in a time when many were experiencing, or were in danger of experiencing, pretty extreme economic hardship. So our focus really was on practical solutions to keeping construction going, keeping the industry open.” Included in those practical solutions were seven free webinars (available through ACEC-BC’s COVID-19 Resource Centre) on such topics as how to lead remote teams, provide effective scope and change management, and “one of the core aspects of engineering, how to sign your documents without actually using paper,” Andrewes said. “It was really timely because as much as we were supporting our members in learning how to make the transition to digital, we were also supporting our members’ clients to understand how to receive documents with a digital seal. Many of those clients had not contemplated making that shift until everybody moved to remote work.” Now, the COVID-19 working group ACEC-BC formed over the past few months—which includes major infrastructure owners as well as consulting engineers—continues to explore ways to keep the industry aware of better ways to work and ahead of any new issues COVID-19 might present. “We are a fortunate industry: essential but not frontline,” said Andrewes. “We are also fortunate in that engineers have a strong commitment to community. For us, they have showed up with their dues and with selfless volunteerism, joining working groups, sitting on web panels. They’ve also provided information directly to each other—even to companies that would normally be their competitors—and they are clearly dedicated to helping all of BC get through this unusual time. I see it as a hallmark of the profession.”

program called Bluebeam [Revu], which is a lot like Adobe Acrobat, but designed to manipulate drawings instead of text documents.” Bluebeam’s tools make it easy for engineers to take technical drawings and digitally mark them up, and also keeps a permanent record of all design iterations until the drawing is officially approved. “No more red markers,” said White, “and no more storing of each paper drawing. It’s one of the improvements that will stay with us even when things go back to normal again.” Other innovations that will stick are electronic meetings with clients—“we’ve found they work amazingly well,” said White, “because everyone’s at their computer and if you have to share something, doing it on screen is actually easier than getting the projector in the boardroom to work”—and direct deposit for cheques from clients and paycheques to staff. “It only took a pandemic to get us to finally change our banking.” One frustration still remains, however. Almost all building authorities continue to require “hard copy, wet signed and sealed and delivered drawings. We all have electronic seals now and could easily submit everything electronically, but they don’t want that.” Digital sign and seal technology has also been top of mind for Caroline Andrewes, P.Eng., CEO of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies British Columbia (ACEC-BC). When COVID-19 hit last March, the association narrowed its focus to helping ACEC-BC members deal with a myriad of practical issues created “really, really quickly” by the pandemic. Andrewes said it was clear from the Government of BC in the early part of the crisis that “one of the most critical things we could do as essential workers was to keep construction and engineering projects moving forward—that it’s not just about

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