Distributed Collaboration as Thought Leadership: An Interview With Simon MacArthur
Simon MacArthur is Co-Founder of DocuPing and has considerable experience in the construction software industry.
Having co-founded Union Square back in 2001, his work as founder and CTO was instrumental in developing the leading enterprise management system for the UK construction industry, known today as Deltek PIM and remaining one of the leading project and document management systems in the AEC industry. Having been acquired by Deltek Inc. in 2016, Simon was then appointed Chairman of Flo10, a leading software solution for the AEC industry, bringing his knowledge and creativity to help Flo10 grow.
We caught up with Simon to provide us with his insight into the background of the industry and where, in his opinion, DocuPing positions itself in the industry.
In terms of document sharing, what are the current solutions available to the AEC sector that have led to the need for DocuPing?
The construction market contributes to 7% of GDP, but it is a very fragmented market with lots of work being subcontracted. Currently, the big solutions are for the big projects, and these are often very expensive, and complex needing dedicated BIM Coordinators and Document Controllers to operate. When you get down to the smaller projects, there’s not the budget to spend on IT solutions to deliver this, and/or the personnel and experience to spend time checking the documents and drawings. Because of this, they usually just fall back to Excel and email or generic file sharing platforms like WeTransfer or Dropbox.
The problem with using these general purpose systems is trying to guarantee accurate version history of who has what version at which point in time, which makes it extremely difficult to track and identify the most up to date version of a drawing.
People are starting to use Microsoft Teams, which while fast to upload content, doesn’t support the underlying contractual obligations to record formal revision issue status.
DocuPing gives people visibility of the current version, irrespective of whether they are currently finishing something. DocuPing will naturally suit a scale of project which is unserved by some of the heavyweight document management solutions. It will manage the quality of the process of sending out drawings, allowing people to keep good record copies and making it quick and easy for the users who want to use it.
What was the driving force behind creating DocuPing?
The big driver in the centre of the creation of DocuPing is an issue that hasn’t really been resolved through all my years of experience in the industry. Companies have tried to solve the problem of document sharing in the industry, but all try to solve the problem in a similar way: A big expensive enterprise solution that is costly to set up, complicated to use and does not provide a positive user experience. The Management often wants users to use these systems, but the users don’t want to use them as they feel it slows their daily work down. The users ‘just want to get on with their tasks [...] so we thought there’s a real gap in the market there, and hence DocuPing [was created]!’
What was the driving force behind creating DocuPing?
‘There have been lots of internal point solutions to [the issues], but I don’t think anyone has ever just said ‘we’re going to do something simple’. So we thought, ‘Let’s make it really simple - let’s make it like Dropbox. We know users are using generic file sharing platforms, so we don’t need to go that much further to add some real value for the needs of AEC companies.’ DocuPing’s overarching goal is that it’s got to be easy [to use], because if the users don’t use it then it isn’t solving the problem we set out to solve!’
I think once people start using DocuPing they’ll prefer it to generic file sharing platforms - That’s our goal. I think that’s an achievable goal, because actually what people are wanting to do is find some files and send them to each other, with the added detail of having an audit trail and that they know which is the most recent version. It’s going to take some dedication to make sure this process is as easy as possible.
Where do you see DocuPing heading in the future?
We have a big roadmap of features on the cards for the future. Our ultimate goal is to streamline the receipt of drawings, not just the sending of them, automating the process and making it much easier for users to accept drawings that have been sent to them. DocuPing are aiming to create a distributed environment, meaning that the sharing process between architects, engineers and anyone on the project will be more streamlined and safer.
Are you looking for an easy document sharing solution for your project that will save you time, hassle and money? Sign up to DocuPing today to discover how document sharing for the AEC sector can be made simple.
