echo vs Google Drive

by DCM Team | June 8, 2020 | Phase 2: Drawing Management Software

Google Drive manages folders and syncs those folders across devices, making them shareable. Then there’s echo by DCM. Echo manages engineering drawings, preventing disorganized chaos with intuitive user controls, a powerful visual browser, a modular (by site, by floor, by discipline) search wizard, and a central command hub that supercharges what a Facility Manager can do. Oh, and it also syncs across devices making them shareable.

echo vs Google Drive: a rocket to firecracker comparison

No doubt about it, Google offers a powerful suite of business tools under its flagship product, GSuite. For a tidy $25/month/user, Google Drive gives companies a spot in the Cloud to store corporate documents in standard folders and sync those files across work desktops, home laptops, and smartphones. Google’s got the “everyday task” market in the bag; it gives companies a way to organize documents, photos, spreadsheets, and slide decks in a secure, searchable way.

That’s all lovely and well, but there are a few major problems with Google Drive that make it a bad choice for your engineering drawings:

Lacklustre search functionality
Limited visual display
Something we call modification freedom.

What’s modification freedom? It’s the way Google lets end-users play with folder hierarchies (how folders are structured).

That’s where things get messy.

It’s about preventing mess

The lifecycle of an engineering drawing spans decades. Keeping track of the right version over many years from many sources depends on preventing duplicates. Up-to-the-second real-time access only works if you pull the right version of a drawing and manage user access to it.

Google Drive would let Jim store drawings the way he liked (by facility) before he retired as Facility Manager in 2012. But Jim didn’t organize drawings the same way Betty did in 2018 (by discipline). And Betty doesn’t organize drawings the same way Kumar will in 2025 (alphabetically).

That kind of freewheeling user-preference permission causes the same sort of chaos that paper blueprints did in damp basements in 1967—which is exactly what Google Drive facilitates without any red flags. In fact, Google Drive builds duplicate functionality into the right-click menu that encourages multiple versions (then invites you to scroll down forever through version history to figure things out).

So even if your team agrees on a file folder structure within Google Drive, and nails down a best practices policy, and even if every single team member sticks to that structure… how do you know for sure that the drawing you need is the right one?

Google Drive stores and shares files. That’s it. It’s not a program that cares if someone duplicates a file then stores that copy two hierarchies down. And it has no idea if the drawing named Final_Version_2017_b is the working drawing that helps turn off the broken water main in the southwest zone of building #4 at the Idaho plant. Maybe the right drawing was actually Final_v2_2018 that didn’t even make it into Google Drive because Helen is a hoarder and she put that drawing on her desktop in a folder called “Make myself invaluable.”

You’re no further ahead with Google Drive than you were in that damp drawing room overloaded with musty-smelling blueprints.

Thankfully, there’s echo, by DCM.

Echo is an engineering drawing library that won’t let you create chaos and brings up the right document every single time.

Why is echo way better than Google Drive, exactly?

Because of the way echo restricts and permits control to guarantee accuracy.

Because of how echo displays your drawing in a dashboard.

Because of how echo helps you find what you need—fast.

Echo Drawing Management Software Live on iphone

Better control over your drawings and better visual display

The view options in Google Drive are “list” and “grid.” That’s it. It’s easy to preview a file, but that preview is isolated. It doesn’t appear as part of a control hub. Preview with Google Drive is simply a zoom command. There’s also the problem with opening a drawing in Google Drive. Depending on the format of the drawing, clicking on it will jump you to an outside app. That means you may need to open a PDF viewer, or image software like Photoshop or Illustrator, or CAD programs like AutoCAD. Your drawings will live in multiple places. Multiple places mean multiple opportunities for hassle and, worse, for errors.

Echo, on the other hand, controls the information you see in one spot within a user-friendly visual browser. Your drawings appear as large thumbnails in rows allowing you to swipe left or right to visually browse your most popular drawings, recent drawings, and drawings in the categories you set up.

Buttons and options that border the drawing let you do any number of things, like request a CAD file or add a revision or share a drawing. From one mobile responsive intuitive interface, you can easily send an electrician a schematic of the 2019 renovation of the third floor of Building D in Michigan while you’re, say, out on a date (while your date chats about your reservation with the maître d’). Secret send! … and done.

“The online echo system that holds our drawings is easily searchable and readily usable by all the facilities staff in the Board. The support we continue to receive is excellent and we would highly recommend echo and support to other school Boards.”

—Lewis Morgulis from Durham Catholic District School Board

User permissions and the green checkmark—to keep things organized.

Echo is a gatekeeper. It stops chaos and supercharges accuracy. It grants different access permissions to different users. It restricts access to one user at a time. It makes sure real-time updates are saved and not overwritten by two people looking at the same drawing. Echo prevents duplicates, flags problems, and identifies the right drawing with a satisfying green checkmark.

That green checkmark gives you peace of mind. Simple but powerful, when you see the green checkmark on your drawing, you know you’re looking at the most up-to-date accurate version available. In fact, echo flags old drawings that are outdated. Google Drive doesn’t do that. And since your facility runs on the accuracy of your drawings, Google Drive doesn’t make the grade.

Search Wizard—site-level and modular

The power of echo lies in its friendly user interface, its safeguards, and the way it helps you find what you’re looking for. Just like Google, you can search by keyword. But if that doesn’t work (because if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, you probably don’t have the right keyword), you can tap into echo’s advanced search wizard functionality.

Start by selecting the site—echo is location-based and handles multiple sites like buttah. Select your site in a single click. (In Google Drive, navigating to another site would mean clicking into a separate parent folder and drilling down through the folder hierarchies again—bummer.)

Then scroll through custom modules. Drill down by floor. Do you think the drawing you need is for the basement? Click basement. Now select the appropriate discipline. Do you need an architectural drawing or a mechanical drawing? Mechanical. Okay, click that. Is the drawing related to HVAC, plumbing, piping, or safety systems? HVAC it is. All relevant HVAC drawings for the basement of that building appear.

There it is! Click to view that drawing—because that’s when the magic happens.

Powerful dashboard—custom views for engineering drawings

Unlike Google Drive that provides a preview button (that greys everything else out), echo displays your drawing in a screen-sized preview with tools available around your drawing. What kind of tools?

Verify it’s the right drawing with the green checkmark.
Review drawing data (available formats and revision history)
Request a CAD file
Zoom in to high-resolution detail
Add a comment
Star the drawing as a favourite
Download the drawing
Share the drawing
Create a report

Live support (from friendly folks)

Echo comes with amazing support and guidance. We aren’t a multi-billion dollar conglomerate like Google. Nope. We’re a North American firm built entirely around engineering drawing management. We’ve processed millions of drawings over the last XX years, which is long enough to know where the shortfalls exist in the world of drawing management. We filled one of those gaps with an online app that quickly became the most important tool in Facility Manager’s toolkits across North America, Europe, and now Australia.

“Best in the business! I have been in FM management for 25 years and DCM gets it from a practical operational perspective because they listen to their clients.“

—Timothy Mackey from BGIS

Shameless plug

As leaders in the Drawing Management industry, DCM created echo engineering drawing management software to put all the things you need to do at your fingertips and prevent chaotic duplicates and unnecessary versions. You use echo to make sure you can’t do the things an ordinary storage drive lets you do. You use echo when you have hundreds or thousands—or millions—of large-format engineering drawings that call for a level of user-functionality that doesn’t exist in Google Drive.

With echo, everything is visual, organized, secure, and searchable—from anywhere at any time on any device.

You’re investing in tailor-made, drawing-specific functionality over and above a basic cookie-cutter file manager. You’re investing in accuracy delivered when you need it.

Combine this functionality with DCM’s hands-on support and you have the most optimized digital library available today that gives you swipeable search-and-share functionality—and a backup crew when you need them.

DCM leads the way in all major industries including: healthcare, education, engineering, manufacturing, utilities, recreational, government, insurance and more. And our powerful cloud-based echo drawing library makes managing digital drawings faster and easier. Access the information you need the moment you need it.

4 Ways to Digitally Enable Facilities Managers Working Remotely

by DCM Team | April 30, 2020 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Summary

You’re a Facility Manager and you need access to drawings to do your job. But right now, those assets are locked away on-site at the facility. We can help! DCM serves Canada, the United States, and countries around the world with industry-leading drawing conversion services in all major industries. Convert drawings in almost any format to AutoCAD quickly and cost-effectively. Want even more control and optimized efficiency? Our powerful cloud-based drawing management software makes managing your new high-quality digital drawings fast and easy. We’re here to help your remote team when they’re working miles apart, across the country, across national boundaries, or around the world.

The work world changed overnight on March 11, 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus a pandemic. Offices locked their doors and working remotely became imperative. Millions of people are now out of work and trillions of dollars are being thrown at the corporate machine to control damage and curb collapse.

For some companies, this sudden change away from the centre wasn’t a big transition. They had already adopted a partially- or fully-remote business process and were unexpectedly prepared to hit the ground running. But most of North America wasn’t set up that way. Most companies operated in-person, on-location, in analog.

In the coming months, businesses are going to become more reliant than ever on their digital strategy. Without wanting to sound too alarmist, in many cases, it will be the deciding factor in whether they make it through the tough times ahead. —Forbes

Remote work has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last decade. Before COVID-19, roughly 5% of Canadians worked from home already. Almost 5 million Americans worked from home half the week (Global Workplace Analytics). And 70% of the world worked from home one day a week. At the end of 2019, the number of remote workers was projected to grow to as much as 66% by 2030 (Zapier).

These numbers all pointed to a fast trend away from the office. But no one anticipated the kind of acceleration that would happen because of a virus. And not every company was ready.

Solutions for facilities managers

With physical locations suddenly closed, that left many facilities managers scrambling. Without access to drawings, operations ground to a halt. Operations grinding to a halt is bad for business.

But DCM can help. It’s time to get the gears turning again!

There is an affordable way for facilities managers to survive this crisis—and come out of it even more productive and profitable than before. The answer is a digital document management strategy designed by DCM.

Below you’ll find a detailed list of services and tools that you need to keep up and running. Read on!

4 tools Facilities Managers need to work remotely—successfully:

1. A workspace

2. Document conversion (redraw)

3. A Document Management System (DMS)

4. Support

WORKSPACE

Let’s talk about the basics: working from home means you need a secure internet connection protected by a VPN and a firewall. You need a home computer, tablet, or at least a cell phone. Then you need to download tools that keep your employees talking and working through the same problems they had before the office shut down. Take a look at Monday, TeamWork, Asana, Slack, Google Hangouts, and Zoom for task management, file sharing, chat, and video conferencing. These apps are easy to download and use. And right now, many of these collaboration apps have provided their premium level for free. Get those tools in place and you’re back up. Yay!

Then what?

Well, just because you’re up again, doesn’t mean you’re up and running. How do you run your business from a distance? By digitizing the drawings you need to work with.

GET A FREE DRAWING CONVERSION!*

Contact us to see if you qualify for a free conversion. Attach your source files or samples, scans, PDF, JPEG, TIFF files in just about any format (good or poor quality drawings) by email (or upload to FTP). Send hard copies, prints, and scans by courier.

CONTACT DCM

2. GET (PROPERLY) DIGITAL

Paper drawings and old digital drawings on degrading CDs have been a problem to productivity for a while. And now, a digital solution makes more sense than ever—because you can’t work without drawings. And you’re tired of searching for lost drawings. Get all your drawings into a digital format so they’re accessible and shareable. Digital doesn’t have to be AutoCAD, but it can be. Start by scanning paper to PDF.

3. REDRAW (CONVERT TO CAD)

DCM’s redraw service converts drawings to AutoCAD when you need to make edits (planning, gathering scaled measurements) to working document. Our powerful technology converts files in almost any format into a workable, digital CAD format. We’ve been helping facilities just like yours streamline their drawing situation for over 15 years and we do it in a way that delivers the highest quality at the most affordable price.

Our process takes the hassle off your shoulders. It starts with a no-obligation chat with one of our amazing Account Managers. We estimate the time and conversion cost—as fast as 1-3 business days to get things rolling. From there, you send us your files (or we can come and get them!), we convert them, clean them up, add things like attributing, custom colours, and layers, then send them through our innovative 8-point quality control. The last step is to deliver your digital drawings.

4. Echo DMS (Drawing Management Software)

Once your assets are digital, you are functional. You’ve organized and repaired the scattered, unstructured chaos. But now you have hundreds or even thousands of digital drawings to manage. Better than before, but not as streamlined as you could be.

That’s why we built echo, our DMS digital library that makes finding the drawing you need almost effortless. We feed your company’s drawings into a shared software system so remote workers can continue from where they left off. Login authentication keeps drawings secure for your team in the shared cloud environment. Your digital drawings are searchable, shareable, and instantly updateable. Retrieve drawings as you need them, know they are the right version, and send them to the person waiting for them in seconds. Then create reports for even better management.

echo is tailor-made for your business. You need software that keeps up with engineering drawings coming in from many sources with revisions. You need a way to manage many versions over a long life-cycle. You need up-to-the-minute accuracy for your team.

If you’re a facility manager, the best way for you to bring your facility out of the chaos and into the future is by transforming your old process into a digital workflow and letting all of the bonuses that come with that transformation turn your stress into profits.

cost savings
time savings
disaster prevention (fire, flood, or theft)
no more lost files
physical storage space reduction
improved customer satisfaction
boost in employee morale
reduced errors.
industry compliance
drawing security (password protection and tracking)

5. Support (technical + friendly)

Once you have your DCM drawing management toolkit (digital drawings and software to manage them) you’re charging forward again—hooray!

But you’re not used to working at home, are you? And that might mean you’re struggling with a different kind of stress. We care about that too! Our account managers are here for you. Whether you have questions about drawing conversion, want a walk-through quickstart of our echo software, or you need some positive encouragement, please reach out. Isolation has a way of… well, making us all feel isolated. And communication helps combat that. Communication is also key for business continuity. DCM’s team of drawing professionals is dedicated to client success. We back our technological services with impeccable customer service—you’re never alone!

We’re here to keep your facility functioning at its best. Help your remote team when they’re working miles apart, in different provinces or states, across national boundaries, or around the world.

Whether you want paper drawings redrawn to digital, or an online drawing library to keep track of everything, DCM is your one-stop shop. We simplify your workload with a seamless and convenient process that ends in high-quality drawings at value pricing. We deliver hands-on perfection that’s hands-down the best on the market. That’s why we’re known as The Drawing Specialists.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you right away. It starts with a conversation and a no-obligation quote.

Leave a Legacy

by DCM Team | March 15, 2020 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Modernize. Grow. Take the lead.

Leave a legacy.

In your twenties, you looked at your career as an open possibility toward greater things. You were idealistic and eagre. In your thirties, you moved upward and sometimes onward, trying out various roles for various companies. In your forties, you settled in and made some good strides. Maybe you directed some crucial projects or mentored the new wave of twentysomethings entering the workforce. You did a good job—or even a great job—of things, and you were proud of your accomplishments.

But right around the 50-mark, you started asking yourself if it was enough? Did you do what you set out to do all those years ago? Did you make a difference? Had you self-actualized? When you go, will people notice that your contributions mattered?

Making an impact takes courage

Month over month, quarter after quarter, you pushed the needle up. You delivered positive results for your company. But doing a great job, though praise-worthy, isn’t something that will stand out years from now as a memorable thing. Because your results are individual. Your drive to succeed is of personal benefit.

Legacy is bigger than one person. And it lasts beyond one person’s time.

Want to leave a legacy?

Be kind to your people. Treat your team well and invest in them. Empower them. When you enable your team to succeed, you create a rippling positive change; those who model your behaviour contribute to a virtuous cycle.

By caring about those around you, you create positive change for others so that others carry that torch into the future.

The most visible way to care about others is to fix a significant problem on their behalf. But fixing major problems takes courage. Many times, that problem is a process that doesn’t work. Slow processes create bottlenecks throughout your organization. And bottlenecks create cascades of stress throughout divisions.

Streamlining workflows not only increases productivity, but it also reaches multiple levels of a workforce. It impacts many people. But streamlining workflows isn’t easy—transformative fixes seldom are. And yet, the fixes that matter most are the ones that create employee happiness. They decrease stress, save time, boost efficiency, and increase revenues.

Being the one who unclogs a jam of magnitude creates impact.

Leaving a legacy means being the one who turns a giant flashing amber pause button into a stable green play button. But the decision to set things in motion for the better often gets pushed off. The simple reason is that the beginning is the hardest part. The noise of current-day urgent demands takes focus away from the future. But legacies happen when “how it can be” finds a place in the daily grind.

The enormity of legacy

If you’re a facility manager and retirement is something you’ve started thinking about, your legacy can be to transform how your company manages its drawings.

Volume is usually the biggest initial stumbling block. You feel that there’s simply too much to tackle. But changing how you manage drawings doesn’t have to be a system you design from scratch. It doesn’t have to be one person handling thousands of pounds of paper. It doesn’t mean one person alone needs to find what’s missing. Because documents go missing over many years, hiding amid thousands of yards of square footage, on disconnected CPUs and dusty, locked-away CDs and DVDs. It comes off as too daunting to be worthwhile!

But it isn’t daunting. And it is worthwhile.

Transforming drawing management processes within a company is as easy as deciding to hire someone else to do it. Someone with decades of experience handling that very thing—from the beginning right through to the end.

That someone is DCM. And we’re actually a great team of someones.

The beginning requires a hands-on accumulation of all assets. Our team of specialists tackles paper chaos and digital disorganization every day. This part is dirty work. But once all assets are centralized, digitization begins. That is a multi-step process that ends with all drawings in the right format in the right place, managed by a drawing library that’s searchable.

READ MORE ABOUT OUR PROCESS

The hard part—the one that garners praise at the end—is deciding to embark on this process by hiring drawing conversion professionals. It’s realizing that hiring a drawing management company to manage your drawings will pay back dividends immediately and for years to come, saving your company hundreds of thousands of dollars after you’re gone. What you leave behind is a cloud-based system that makes finding and sharing your facility’s engineering drawings a clickable affair that takes mere moments.

That’s something everyone in an organization notices. That’s something that gets talked about by the water cooler years later—“Remember when we used to have to go to that dark room in the basement and sort through hundreds of rolls of blueprints?”

employees who benefit from leaving a legacy

Your legacy is your gift to current and future team members. That gift is efficiency, ease-of-use, retrievability, and shareability of digitized documents. It’s lower stress, higher productivity, better decision-making, and more time to devote to future profit-generating goals.

The legacy you leave behind is one of modernization. So take charge! Make the call. Put your name on transformation and help your organization move into the future.

Inspire your team, then pass the torch.

GET A FREE DRAWING CONVERSION!*

CONTACT DCM

Benefits of Outsourcing to DCM

by DCM Team | March 10, 2020 | redraw - CAD Conversion Articles

Five Reasons You Should Definitely Be Our CAD Buddy Today!

Here at DCM, we’re more than a little proud of how good we make our clients look. Our business relies on your trust that by outsourcing the conversion of drawings to AutoCAD, your business will thrive.

We’ll shout it from the rooftops: outsourcing rocks, and here’s why:

WE SAVE YOU VALUABLE TIME

Blueprints, and jpegs, and PDFs, oh my!

We know it can get a little overwhelming (not to mention time-consuming) getting all your plans converted to AutoCAD. Who wants to sift through those old, musty papers? Or dig out those CDs? Who wants to decipher that scribbly writing?

WE DO!

AutoCAD conversion doesn’t have to be painful. While you do what you do best, we’re here to do the rest: DCM’s Redraw Service saves you time (and gross visits to the basement storage area), and in the end what’s that?

It’s money.

Time is money.

Our Drawing Specialists deliver accurate digital files, ready for immediate use, for a fraction of the time and cost of doing them in-house.

You design. We redraw. You save. Win!

WE SAVE YOU ACTUAL CASH MONEY

We hear you… what’s the real cost of outsourcing?

Let’s cut straight to the chase: we know it’s a little intimidating outsourcing this stuff, but our team of real, live, amazingly talented humans are ready to answer any and all questions about the process to alleviate that loss of control feelings.

The reality is that you’ll save 75% or more by hiring DCM’s dream team to use our hands-on approach, creating master drawings that are easily stored and accessed, and will never smell like the back of your grandma Edith’s closet.

And we offer 60% off on multi-buys, too, so the more we work for you, the more you save. It’s pretty stellar, we know.

WE BOOST YOUR EFFICIENCY

Sure, your staff can manage, and slowly convert plans, but it’s not their specialty. And while they do that, they’re neglecting their huge to-do lists. And here’s the thing: you can’t simply hire the caliber of drawing specialists DCM offers, with this kind of experience, which means you’ll have inefficiencies within your ranks – that’s not ok!

We’re here for you, project-by-project, minimizing time spent hiring, training, acclimating, and providing costly benefits to new employees. You’re able to laser focus your staff’s core skills, building a stronger team internally, as we support you from the back room bleachers. (Gooooo, team!)

WE HELP ALLEVIATE RISK WITH OUR DRAWING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Imagine the real value of your drawings, and how quickly that can all *poof* be gone. All those filing cabinets full of plans are a liability you cannot really afford. Water damage, fire, age… there is nothing that can protect your assets quite like digital files. You’ll no longer rely on Fred’s 30 years of tenure with the biz – instead, you’ll depend on slick new files accessible anywhere, any time.

WE MAKE YOU LOOK GOOOOOOD

There’s little sexier than your amazing drawings turned digital. (No? Just us?)

Well, we promise you’ll be thrilled with the results. Let us help you make your clients oooh and aaah over editable, modifiable drawings from anywhere!

We support your design team, giving you the flexibility and access you need – with echo, you’re able to view, modify, and share plans on the fly, so there’s virtually no downtime!

Client Spotlight Q&A With Facility Manager Richard Driscoll

by DCM Team | May 10, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Manager of Facility Services: Richard Driscoll

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Manager of Facility Services Richard Driscoll from Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board. He may have you daydreaming about a marathon.

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Tell us a bit about yourself?

I am an avid runner who has completed over 30 half marathons and 2 full marathons. I enjoy golfing, camping, and hiking.

I have been married for 35 years and have 3 children all girls. The 2 older girls are now teachers and the 3rd child is a social worker.

I have worked in Management for the last 22 years starting in the automotive industry, was the Manger of Facilities for Casino Rama before coming to the school board.

I worked at the Sudbury Catholic school board for 5 years and most recently have been working as the Facility Manager at the Peterborough Victoria Northhumberland Clarington Catholic District School board.

When it comes to self-improvement, do you prefer to read books, listen to podcasts or take a course?

I have taken a number of self improvement courses over my career.

What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

I had the opportunity to go to Jakarta, Indonesia.

Describe the biggest challenge you’ve faced when trying to reduce operational costs?

The cooperation and understanding from others for the reduction.

Tell me how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.

I use my calendar for scheduling all my work and use one note to keep notes of items happening through out the day. The priority of the work is Health & Safety, Legislative requirements, Board requirements, School requirements. All prepared through a 5-year capital plan.

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

I would pay off my daughter’s student loans, buy them each a house and I would retire with an around the world cruise.

Thank you, Richard, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

In the world of drawing management, keeping organized is key. There’s a lot you can do to put your organization at the front of document storage, retrieval, and updates. DCM is your drawing specialist. Let us help you Clean up your paper mess.

Ask how we can help!

Client Spotlight Q&A With Facility Manager Gordon Bartlett

by DCM Team | May 10, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Facility Manager: Gordon Bartlett

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Facility Manager Gordon Bartlett from Peterborough Regional Health Centre.

Tell us a bit about yourself?

A seasoned FM professional with over 30 years related experience industrial, commercial and healthcare. Gordon is an avid musician (guitarist) with some professional experience in the 80’s. Married 30 years with 3 sons, all enrolled in post-secondary education. He’s recently moved into “cottage country” with plans to rekindle a long time love for fishing.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

It’s not always a competition.

To get ahead you have to cooperate.

What is your favorite quote?

“That’s all turnips” Vladimir to Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot – after emptying his pockets looking for a carrot, there are none, and he points at the pile of turnips he has removed and says this…accept what we have because there is nothing better. Part of a much larger dialogue.

How would your co-workers describe you?

Intelligent, experienced. Sometimes, a bit of a goof.

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When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

I fix things. Mechanical things can always be repaired. Though they think that they are just looking to expedite repairs or installations, other managers in the organization look to me for improvements to operations and processes

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

In our office, this is often referred to as the “lottery bus.” I would take care of my family financially and then travel.

Thank you, Gordon, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

Ask how we can help!

Client Spotlight Q&A With Project Manager Terra Kitzul-Arens

by DCM Team | April 30, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Project Manager: Terra Kitzul-Arens

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Project Manager Terra Kitzul-Arens from Chatham-Kent Health Alliance behind the scenes. She may have you reminiscing about your childhood.

Tell us a bit about yourself?

A native of Chatham-Kent, I returned to the area in 2003 after completing my Bachelor’s degree in Architecture at Carleton University and a few months stay in Vancouver. When I returned home, I started work immediately on the same street I grew up, and the same street both of my parents worked. I interned at Jorden & Cook Architect Ltd. and received my license with the Ontario Association of Architects in 2008. Two years later I married my husband, Ryan Arens. Also, a native of Chatham, Ryan and I had attended both public and high school together and reconnected when we both returned to the area after university. When we married, I also became a stepmother to Ryan’s beautiful daughter, Mackenzie, now 18. I remained at Jorden & Cook until 2011 when I accepted a job at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. I was only with the Alliance a few months when I started an early maternity leave when our twin girls, Blake and Lila, surprised us 8 weeks early. Healthy and strong and just needing to grow, the girls stayed in the NICU at LHSC for only 3 weeks before coming back to CKHA for another 10 days. The girls are now wonderfully active 7-year-olds in Grade 1 at that same school where Ryan and I first met. We enjoy traveling, movies, gymnastics, reading, swimming, Rotary, golf and spending time playing games and doing puzzles.

Pitas, Tacos, Sushi or Pizza? What do you like and how do you like it?

It’s a real toss up between sushi and tacos, but I think I have to go with sushi. One of our favorite things to do on a beautiful Friday night is to drive to Windsor to our favorite sushi restaurant. Even as little girls, the two of them would squeal with excitement when we were headed for ‘soosheee.’

If you could have dinner with someone famous, or a loved one from your past who would it be and why?

I’d really love to sit down and visit with my dad’s father, William Kitzul. I was lucky to have relationships with my other grandparents into my 20’s and 30’s, but my grandpa Kitzul passed away when I was only 5. I do have lovely snippets of fish kisses, an 80’s Grand Marquis and cherry blossom treats but I’d love to fill in the gaps.

Tell me how you organize, plan, and prioritize your work.

Some days it feels like I put out the most significant fires first. Thankfully not literally! But in general, that can be the nature of this type of work. I always try to be a step or two ahead of all of our trades so that they have no downtime. When they have what they need to do their jobs, I can prepare for the next one or catch up on my independent work.

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When people come to you for help, what do they usually want help with?

There are relatively standard requests. Corporate initiatives like ‘build this, renovate that’ – and then others that may start with ‘not sure what to do about this, so I’m reaching out to you?’ Which can include any and everything from ‘I need to fit this piece of huge equipment into this tiny closet’ to ‘we’ve had a fecal-incontinence event – we need to replace all of the furniture in this room’ to ‘every person down the hall is in a new role, can we get new signage?’

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

I think that until you actually have $10 million in your hand, you can only guess what you’d really do. I am relatively sure I’d plan a nice trip with my family – Ryan and the girls, my parents, Ryan’s parents, our sisters and their families – and sit around a gorgeous pool and think about life’s possibilities. I really do love my job, but maybe there are adventures I’ve never considered that would be possible. Perhaps I’d buy the Crock-a-Doodle down the street, or maybe I’d start a Youth Foundation in our community. I have a strong suspicion Ryan would be opening a Brewery – that would be something fun to design.

Thank you, Terra, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

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Client Spotlight Q&A With Manager of Planning Lewis Morgulis

by DCM Team | April 30, 2019 | Next-Gen Facility Manager

Manager of Planning: Lewis Morgulis

It’s World FM (Facility Manager) week and to celebrate we are giving a few DCM Inc. clients the spotlight! Grab a coffee and learn more about Manager of Planning Lewis Morgulis behind the scenes. You may just be planning your next adventure after you read his Q&A!

Tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a Planner by education and trade and have worked at the Durham Catholic District School Board for 8 years following 27 years with the Durham and York District School Boards. I’m an avid reader. Our family loves camping, hockey, and soccer. I have a wonderful wife who is my best friend, three amazing daughters, a daughter in law and a granddaughter. I have been a coach in four different sports over a 35-year coaching career, have volunteered with my professional association and with four minor sports organizations. Life is amazing and brings new challenges each day, and my goal is to see as much of this world and have as many amazing experiences with my family that one full lifetime will allow.

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What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home?

This year we traveled to Vietnam at March break, and so far that is the farthest I’ve been away, but my daughter is at school in New Zealand, and in December we will likely travel there to see her. We have traveled to China, Morroco, Greece, Italy, and France in the last 3 years and travel will be a large part of our retirement as well.

Pitas, Tacos, Sushi or Pizza? What do you like and how do you like it?

I have a life long love of great food, and the answer is all of the above! But…. If I have to pick just one, I’d say a simple ham, and prosciutto pizza with buffalo mozzarella on a thin crust served with a very cold beer in Amalfi Italy. At 8 euros and with a spectacular view of the Mediterranean it was about the best pizza experience ever.

How has DCM helped you?

We have transformed the way we look at our facility drawings from using a simple cluttered storage room, with an inventory that was not complete, and at times duplicated or missing to a much more usable system where online access makes all of our drawings available to users without risking the integrity of the originals. Over the last 3-4 years, DCM has transformed how we give access to architects and staff, how we manage our drawings and related documents, and how we integrate new drawings into our system. With our missing drawings, we are able to know what we do and don’t have, and what to look out for or reach out to architects to get. We have added an upload of all drawings electronically as part of the requirements from architects and going forward as new staff take over from older ones we will have all of the underlying data preserved permanently in a readily searchable manner.

How has your education prepared you for your career?

In my current job, I do less traditional urban or regional planning now, than before in my other jobs. My formal education helped me with a body of knowledge that got me my first job. After that, creativity, inquisitiveness, restlessness and wanting to make things better helped shape what I did and with whom I got to work. What my education taught me was how to build processes to identify and solve problems, not just for planning problems but for a great range of issues. Like any excellent education it didn’t stop as I left the school, I wanted to learn more at work, in the field and in new areas of interest. My informal education continues and will continue the rest of my life forever.

We finish the interview, and you step outside the office and find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $10 million. What would you do?

$10 million is the kind of money that makes you think… maybe I don’t need to go to work tomorrow. I’d have a lot of fun finding new adventures every day.

Thank you, Lewis, for sharing your story and for letting us feature you in our client spotlight! If you’d like to be featured contact your account manager today! #We❤ToSupportFacilityManagers

For more client Testimonials click here.

Ask how we can help!

Water Damage Prevention. Save Millions.

by DCM Team | February 27, 2019 | Drawing Management Strategy Articles

Understand risk and pay for water damage prevention.

It is crazy when you think about it.

New medical technologies are purchased (and insured) by hospitals that want to provide the best healthcare in the world. But the building that holds these amazing medical machines is managed by hard-to-locate papers and antiquated filing systems. It’s time to pay for water damage prevention.

When something goes wrong in the basement, it’s a disaster.

Blueprints are dinosaurs. It’s time hospitals upgrade their engineering drawing management system—with real-time software, not back room shelves.

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50% of hospital insurance claims are from water damage.

Water damage exposures are the leading cause of property losses in hospitals. And yet, if you look at a healthcare center’s loss control plan, you’ll be hard-pressed to find mention of a digital drawing management system. Engineering document management software should be step #1 – Water Damage Prevention With echo drawing Management System!

DCM is working hard to change how hospitals and facilities manage their building schematics in order to reduce exposure to water damage.

DCM’s powerful engineering drawing management application is the best, most efficient, most affordable way to control plumbing disasters. It’s the best way to manage loss dollars from liquid damage.

The best measure in a Loss Control Plan is DCM’s software!

On a typical insurance checklist, this is what the #1 and #2 items read:

Is there a written plan detailing what to do in the event of a leak and liquid damage?
Is the plan reviewed for changes and discussed at staff meetings at least quarterly?

Whoa! What?

A written plan? This isn’t 1980. That plan needs to be in the cloud and accessible to everyone who needs it from any device—in seconds.

A quarterly review? The last time we checked, quarterly means that plans would get updated four times a year. Quarterly reviews should be replaced with immediate ongoing updates. Any time there is a change, an online engineering drawing app would update those changes in real-time (around the clock).

The best way to mitigate damage is to identify water damage exposures, the leading cause of property losses in hospitals.

Gain control over future losses with DCM’s echo app.

When leaks occur, login to the echo online engineering drawing management system to locate and shut off the cause of the damage. That can be done with a phone while walking through the basement to where the shut-off valve is, as directed by the drawing that was found immediately in the digital app. Water damage prevention is key!

Prevention is the better plan. Reaction is too costly.

DCM Inc.’s echo drawing management system prevents the chaos and damage that happens with ageing pipes and outdated drawings.

Step 1: Open echo

Step 2: Locate the shut off valve in seconds

Step 3: Turn it off and save millions of dollars in damage.

The alternative strategy?

Pour money into emergency teams
Reroute ambulances
Cancel surgeries
Turn away walk-in patients and visitors
Pay millions of dollars in water damages

There is no reason to operate that way! An after-the-fact price tag is significantly greater than a preventative system.

With echo know what’s missing ahead of time.

Pipes will burst. Vents will fail.

Pull up what you need the moment something goes wrong. Deploy the plumber to the right spot.

Avert chaos with echo.

In a few swipes, echo finds what you need at top speed! Echo, created by DCM, loved by organized customers. Contact DCM to learn more today.

echosales@drawingspecialists.com

Learn more

All You Need To Know About echo Engineering Drawing Management System

by DCM Team | February 6, 2019 | Phase 2: Drawing Management Software

echo

Replace your paper and digital archives with an online app! echo is a browser-based engineering drawing management system that’s fast, easy-to-use, and secure.

Why?

Why choose echo as your engineering drawing management system?

Because accidents happen!
Because time is precious.
Because accuracy is essential.

Disintegration:
Paper is unreliable when it comes to engineering drawings. Water and fire destroy your physical assets. Over time, information fades as paper degrades.

Save time!
Let’s say you have the most organized archive on the planet with every piece of paper neatly rolled alphabetically. You still have to walk to your store room, locate the dusty document you need, unroll it on a table, and wonder if what you’re looking at is the right one. If your field workers are asking for it, you need to get it to them, or they need to come to you to read it. echo makes those steps unnecessary. Search for the document you need online and find it in seconds, then share it with the person who needs it at the click of a button. Or! Ask the on-site employee to log in from her phone and grab what she needs.

What if you could pull up a drawing on your smartphone and know it’s always the right one?

Accuracy

Paper creates problems. Duplicates, messy mark-ups, and lost documents cause stress.

Digital files are a nightmare. Navigating through the hierarchies of an excel database is a time-consuming, frustrating task. Your ability to find what you’re looking for depends on how the file was labelled and where it was put. If your digital files are stored on a CD, obsolescence is a problem—most computers don’t come with CD drives anymore. Not to mention that CDs degrade over time and become unreadable if scratched.

And, when you think you’ve finally found the document or digital file you’re looking for…

Are you sure that particular drawing is the most current version?
Is your team working off the construction drawings or the as-built drawings?
Is there a marked-up hard copy on someone’s desk?
Is the document missing because Norm took it home?

Your team will have one set of master files for new projects. One. They won’t waste time searching for drawings. They won’t discover that the drawing is damaged or lost. The version they access is the right one. Every time.

What?

What are the benefits of the echo app over paper and digital chaos?
Think of echo as the modern equivalent of “the drawing room.” But echo replaces mountains of disorganized, ageing, outdated documents stuffed on shelves and the nightmare that is your digital database mess, with a fast, searchable, online engineering drawing management application.

What can you do with echo?
A lot. Every detail has been captured with precision so you can find exactly what you’re looking for fast. Presto! It’s magic.

Access
Your drawings are always there when you need them. They aren’t lost in a basement, locked in Gladys’ cabinet, hiding in the dungeons of an excel file, or mislabelled in the wrong folder, degrading on a CD. Never rummage through backroom mayhem or desktop disaster again!

Interactive portability
Share the engineering drawing with your team. Log in from any device anywhere—on your office computer or your smartphone in the field. Every department and every subcontractor checks into and out of the same library.

echo replaces mountains of disorganized, ageing, outdated documents stuffed on shelves and the nightmare that is your digital database mess, with a fast, searchable, online engineering drawing management application.

Speed

Drawings are a few clicks away, which is important when a pipe bursts and the boiler room is flooding. Engineering document control software at your fingertips!

Version control

One updatable version means what you’re looking at is the right drawing every time. Update the document in real time using check-in/check-out status.

Easy to use

The user interface (UI) is intuitive. With on-screen tooltips, direct access to training videos and support, the ability to set reminders, make comments and post feedback, echo makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.

Reports

Create a report. Track relevant building information and cross-reference what you have with what you still need. Download single CAD drawings as PDFs, or download entire folders of drawings as zip files.

Secure backups

echo is an encrypted browser-based app that lives in the cloud, hosted by DCM. So you won’t lose your files when a hard drive crashes. And if something goes wrong, one click restores your database. Your files can’t be lost or damaged. Your drawings are securely protected for the future.

How?

How is echo different from other CAD drawing management software?

echo manages engineering drawings. Engineering drawings come from multiple sources, have a longer life cycle, undergo multiple revisions, and often have many versions. This creates an environment for inaccuracy where accuracy is essential.

echo keeps accuracy at your fingertips, replacing paper and CDs with organized digital drawings protecting the past for the future. We can also convert drawings into a workable CAD file (ask us!).

echo makes your life easier. A simple interface on a powerful database.

LET’S TAKE A SNEAK PEEK

echo Quickstart

Introducing echo! A digital library that keeps track of engineering drawings and makes your life easier. A simple interface on a powerful database.

echo is easy to use.

You’ll be up and running in about 3 minutes.

Log in.

The first time you log in, a short welcome video introduces echo’s user-friendly interface and shows you around.

With screen tips enabled, you will always know what options are available for the screen you are on.

echo gives you four main shortcuts:

Access these four shortcuts at any time by hovering your mouse over the echo logo in the top left corner of the screen.

Search
The search tool drills down by building, location, discipline, project, and author, allowing you to stay broad or get as specific as you want. Click on the “Advanced search” option for extra search fields. Apply filters and select multiple drawings.

Home
The home button opens a screen that displays all drawing categories. Click on any folder and scan the documents in that folder.

Folders:
Baseline drawings
Recently viewed
Popular documents
Favourites
By author
Project
Building
Discipline

My Activity
Continue where you left off last time.

Baseline
Go directly to your baseline drawings.

View large thumbnails organized in easy-to-view rows.

The top menu bar is your central command. Anything you wish to do can be done from here.

The menu bar contains the echo logo (to access shortcuts), a browse option, a search field, support link, and a logout button.

Support link

The support link drops down a menu with helpful tips, training videos, support contact info, and a feedback area. If you need help, support is a click away.

Open your drawing

When you find your drawing, click on it to open it. You can:

zoom in on the drawing,
view all document data,
edit the document details,
post a comment,
ask for help,
download a PDF CAD file, or
download all files as a zip file.

It’s that easy.
When you’re done, log out.
That’s it!

Who?

About DCM

echo is at the top of a detailed process that starts at the very bottom (literally—in basements and back rooms). DCM’s team of specialists makes the entire process a one-stop shop that comes to you. They gather every piece of paper in every condition, sort through smelly, damaged documents, outdated versions, and faded marked-up copies. They open stacks of CDs, scan databases from top to bottom, and grab all available files.

They consolidate, merge, and edge-match all sketches, notes, and markups into one integrated, architecturally-verified, master drawing that conforms to industry regulations.

Then, DCM uploads your new, organized, searchable, updateable, digital drawings to a powerful, super fast, online library—echo!

From chaos to organized management, your engineering drawings are now accurate and safe. You’ve protected the past for the future and everything is backed up in the cloud, accessible by you in a few clicks.

Powerful, simplified engineering drawing management brought to you by DCM Inc.

Clean up your paper mess and get digital files layered into one working document, managed by secure, searchable software as a service (SaaS). In a few swipes, echo finds what you need at top speed! Accompany echo with our other services. echo, created by DCM, loved by organized customers.

Ask about echo

A good read: Leave a Legacy