Civil Engineering Firms are Facing Productivity Headwinds

Today Civil Engineering Managers are Seeking Options That Improve Civil 3D's Productivity

Civil Engineering firms are extremely busy with tight deadlines and are facing staff shortages. Improving productivity is a key objective.

What if there was a way to improve  Civil 3D  - Your primary Design Tool?

Civil 3D is Slow to Load

Every time your users open a Civil 3D drawing, they are losing time and productivity.

Civil 3D Crashes Frequently

The instability of Civil 3D is well documented. Work is lost and users have to begin again.

Civil 3D Lacks Automation

If you do subdivision design or road reconstruction then your users are spending hours manually updating intersections.  Automation tools are essential.

Civil 3D Users Require Training

New users typically require one or two weeks of training.  Experienced Civil 3D users say it can take two years to become proficient.

These are real issues that are reducing your productivity and negatively affect your bottom line. 


So what are the 3 critical requirements that would increase Civil 3D's productivity?

Requirement 1 -Improve Civil 3D's Design Performance

Civil 3D is a powerful civil design tool that has become a defacto standard in the United States.


There remain many well documented issues with Civil 3D despite 14 years of development:

  1. Civil 3D is slow to load and performs sluggishly
  2. Civil 3D lacks automation in basic functions such as curb returns
  3. The software crashes frequently – users lose hours of work on a regular basis

This recent blog post is only one of hundreds of examples related to Civil 3D's performance


The key take away is that designers are wasting a lot of time with native Civil 3D – and time is money.

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Requirement 2 -Maintain Your Production Standards

There are two key components to engineering design:

  1. Design efficiency
  2. Plan/drafting production

Most firms using Civil 3D have invested thousands of dollars in the development of layer standards and styles configured specifically to their corporate standards. 


These standards must be maintained for optimum productivity.



Requirement 3 -Overcome Staff Shortages

Virtually all civil engineering firms are working at full capacity. Experienced designers are being poached by competitors.  Designers are working overtime. 


Junior designers are inexperienced. Many have limited design let alone Civil 3D experience which negatively impacts corporate productivity.


Any solution must make it easier for new users to become efficient in days, not years.

Take Away

When you are busy, it is hard to make any change - but to get ahead, change is required!


Although it may be tempting to look for a Civil 3D replacement, this is a high risk option that does not address short term productivity issues.


Any solution to the issues associated with Civil 3D must:

  • Allow users to use the features of Civil 3D that they like
  • Safely add stability to Civil 3D
  • Add design automation with quantifiable benefits
  • Maintain existing plan production standards

In the next post, we review a Civil 3D companion product that has been addressing the above requirements since 2005.

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