When discussing the benefits of color construction documents, one of the most common questions is this: “How do I choose and use colors for printed documents?” The users of color had to go through quite a process to put together a color coding system that works, and it differs depending on the trade, the project, and the individual contractor.

Since there is no construction industry standard or guideline for printed colors, I’ve been researching how other industries utilize color to improve communication. A fortune has been spent on understanding the way the human eye interprets and reacts to various colors. One great source of information on the subject is the Color Research Lab at the NASA Ames Research Center. Their website has a wealth of information about design methods, color science and color guidelines.

I want to share with you a section from the NASA site called Designing a Color Graphics Page. The idea is to create a color scheme for complicated graphics or high information load. They use this kind of color decision-making for aerospace applications such as air traffic control, cockpit design and other “high threat decision” environments.

Below is a simplified version of NASA’s checklist for the color graphic design process. The key is to understand what the user of the data is trying to do and how. This checklist can be directly applied to the process of designing a color scheme for printed construction documents. 

1)   Compile a data inventory
      a. What information needs to be displayed?
      b. Who is going to use it and for what tasks?
      c. What data might be added in the lifetime of the design?

2)   Plan for management of users’ attention
      a. Create an urgency hierarchy – how important are the data to the activities that the users will be conducting?

3)   Design perceptual layers
      a. Choose contrast polarity – design with dark colors against a white background
      b. Match the salience (prominence) of the data layers to their hierarchy
      c. Manipulate salience by adjusting contrast, symbol/font size, line weight, screen pattern, etc.

4)   Decide where color will be used and why
      a. Color can make data “pop out” but overuse of color can dilute its impact. Therefore, use color only for the things it does well:
            i. Grouping related elements
           ii. Labeling data with color
          iii. Creating pop-out to distinguish elements

5)   Choose colors. Consider possible constraints:
      a. Cultural – Be careful with the safety code (red, amber, green)
      b. Standards – Deviations from legacy practices can induce errors
      c. Consistency – Color use should be consistent with other applications in the user’s working environment
      d. Legibility – The colors we want may not give our symbols significant contrast to be legible
      e. Perceptual layering – The luminances required may not be available in the preferred hues and saturations
      f. Identifiability – The identification requirements of the color coding scheme may restrict the set of usable colors

6)   Solve problems
      a. Return to the “perceptual hierarchy” stage
      (several iterations may be required)
      b. Isolate symbols from backgrounds with in-fills our outlines 
      (not recommended because it takes up space and adds complexity)
      c. If no solution is found, remove data or move it to another page

I recognize that the checklist is a lot to digest. I will plan to dig deeper into it as well as explore some of the Color Science topics in a future blog entry. My goal would be to include some examples of the actual application of these instructions to a plan set.

This checklist should be a useful guide for a CAD Manager, documentation specialist or anyone who has the responsibility to produce the best construction documents possible.

One significant trend in facility management over the past few years has been the demand for digitizing as-built information. Most large facilities have document storage areas where decades of hard-copy records are managed for generations of buildings and renovations. Maintaining paper archives is labor-intensive and difficult, plus there is a huge risk of loss from fire, flood and mismanagement.

Much of the critical data on these hard-copy records is in color, having been added later in pen or pencil as changes were made over time. Therefore, capturing this color data is critical in the digitalization process. I’ve spoken with more than one firm recently that acquired a wide format color scanner for digitizing their as-built archives.

In their recent white paper about color construction documents, Lyra Research stated this:

“Project owners benefit from...reduced operation and maintenance cost due to more accurate and detailed as-built drawings.”

This was listed as one of the benefits of using color construction documents.

I saw a post this week on the BuildingSMART Group on LinkedIn introducing the term SMART Blueprint. FacilityONE Interactive appears to be an online service for managing drawings and facility information. I noticed that the example drawings on their website all include color information. It seems to me that a wide format color plotter would be a natural extension of this service because the drawings are worthless without the color.

Of course there are numerous document management solutions that have been around for years. It’s just interesting to see that the amount of color data being stored and retrieved is quickly increasing over time. It was cost-prohibitive to scan and print sheets in color in the past, but facility managers are now placing more value on color data.

Another interesting way that as-built information is being digitized is through the use of a new solution from Autodesk Labs called Project Photofly. It is a technology preview that allows you to create a 3D model by taking numerous photographs around an object with your digital camera and converting them into a “photo scene” using a Web service. You can then import this model data into design applications like Autodesk Revit.

To see Project Photofly in action, check out a customer generated YouTube video that shows how a model of Chicago’s Wrigley Field was generated. My friend Scott Sheppard has a couple more photo scene examples on his Autodesk Labs blog as well.

The possible applications seem endless, but it is clear to me that this kind of data is worthless without the color. Let’s keep an eye on these new technologies and see how they get applied in the field.

On July 23 I was in Columbus, Ohio for the Construction Specifications Institute 2010 Great Lakes Conference. I delivered a presentation on increasing accuracy with color construction documents to a receptive group of mostly architects and specifiers. I had an interesting discussion with one of the attendees that I’d like to share.

I met a project coordinator who described herself as a “color coder” for a local design firm. She explained that she’s the one who walks around with a bunch of colored pencils and marks up their plan sets. She was very interested in exploring the possibility of transitioning from her current color coding process to a digital color coding process.

She asked me if there was such a thing as a software application that with the push of a button could apply different colors to different disciplines in a standard way. I am not aware of any such solution, but I’ve always thought this would be an interesting opportunity for a creative CAD software developer.

Just because a CAD design contains colored line definitions doesn’t mean you can just print it in color and expect it to be useful. Typically colors are just used to represent plotted line weights, or possibly to represent what layer an object was drawn on. These colors have no meaning to a contractor. In order for color data to benefit a contractor, a new method is necessary for assigning colors to the printed page.

My colleague received email feedback from an architect about the Lyra white paper that I introduced in a previous blog entry. Although he was somewhat critical of the white paper, he acknowledged that properly designed color construction documents could provide downstream cost savings. He believes the key question is; how can color be used to improve document quality?

I think that is the key question architects should ask general contractors. If architects and contractors are committed to improving collaboration and reducing errors, they must communicate about the contents of the documents. The creator of the documents should ask the consumer of the documents to articulate his requirements, and the consumer of the documents should do just that. Only then will we see an improvement in document quality.

Determining what colors to use for what purpose and how to apply them is still a key barrier to the widespread adoption of color. One approach would be to use an industry committee with representatives from numerous disciplines to create guidelines or standards. Only then could a push-button software solution be created.

Interesting July reading:

Cadalyst article on the future of color printing  

upFront.eZine CAD newsletter article “All About Blueprints”  

My colleagues in the field send me relevant links that support the ideas from this blog. I want to share a couple of them with you that I think are particularly timely.

The first comes from The News Tribune of Tacoma, Washington where a “misplaced” bridge ramp on the Nalley Valley Viaduct project will cost the state nearly $1 million. The ramp was built 12 feet out of alignment and had to be torn out.

1. Cause: The mistake was blamed on poor communication during the design review process. The DOT chief said the blame “goes up and down the agency.” The plan set is the one thing everyone in the project has in common, and it is a critical part of the design review process. Therefore, color documentation might have improved communication and helped prevent the oversight.

2. Budget: This $164 million project has a $6.2 million contingency fund. This represents about a 4% contingency, although some projects allocate as much as 20%. While the scale of the mistake seems large, $890,000 only represents 14% of their contingency fund. My point is that they actually expect and plan for these huge problems because they are so common. They can make that mistake seven times and still be within their budget. Tolerating such inaccuracy seems unfathomable, and the costs render the color price premium insignificant.

3. Schedule: “DOT officials say it won’t delay completion” which means they also expect and plan for these types of delays in the scheduling process. In fact, the public wasn’t even aware of the mistake until they saw the demolition taking place. Apparently the contractor didn’t deem the mistake significant enough to report. Again, this is tolerated because it is so common. The DOT wouldn’t think twice about mandating color plan sets if they thought it could speed up project completion.

My next article comes from the Winnipeg Free Press where the city offers as much as $100,000 to construction companies that finish city road and bridge projects ahead of schedule. Also, penalties are charged if work is completed after a pre-approved deadline.

City pays bonus for speedy work

I’m all in favor of accountability, and I think this bonus and penalty system can be effective at accomplishing delivery schedule goals. It does show in real dollars just how important the schedule is to the project owner.

I think late delivery penalties make perfect sense. After all, the contractors signed up for a specific delivery date. I’m not so sure about the early delivery bonus. It gives me that same queasy feeling I get when I fly and consider that my airplane was built by the lowest bidder. Do you really get the same quality product when you rush delivery?

What this says to me is that owners believe contractors can work faster. They are giving them incentives to become more efficient. To get the incentives, contractors have to make fewer mistakes, which means reducing errors and omissions and reducing RFIs and change orders. You know where this is going.

The article mentions a $10.2 million project with a $10,000 per-day early completion bonus. Using a figure of 1/4% of the cost of the project as in the Lyra white paper, the color price premium is estimated at $25,500 for this project. If color could help deliver the project three days faster, the premium is justifiable. This doesn’t even take into account the value of mistakes that might be avoided.

Contingencies and bonuses are tools of the trade, just as mistakes and delays are planned and expected. If you come across similar articles, feel free to share them using the Comments feature.

As you might expect, BIM products and services made up the bulk of the Technology Pavilion exhibits at the AIA 2010 Convention and Design Expo, which took place in Miami June 10-12. “Design as Exploration” was the theme as an expected 14,000 attendees came together for over 200 programs and 800 exhibits.

I would have enjoyed sitting in on some of the educational sessions, but I was relegated to my company’s trade show booth showing off the latest wide format printing equipment and software. I did walk the exhibit hall and found some interesting new technologies.

One of the most impressive exhibits was Zebra Imaging, which “prints” full-parallax holographic images and mounts them on a sheet of rigid plastic. When the image is illuminated from above, the 3D image jumps up from the surface and you get remarkable views of all sides of the subject matter. The images can be produced from a 3D model, a laser-scanned point cloud, or a merged set of photographs. An example of each was on display and I couldn’t stop looking at them. By the way, they were all in color.

I saw one example of a 3D model of a baggage handling system. As they rotated the image, different mechanical components appeared and disappeared based on my viewing position. The audience response was fun to watch. The image below is nowhere near a fair quality representation of an actual holograph, but you can get the idea from watching one of the videos in Zebra’s online gallery.

Holograph from Zebra Imaging
 

While I don’t see many AEC firms rushing right out to spend $3,000 on a 2-foot by 2-foot holographic print, the applications for the building industry are immediately obvious. This exhibit convinced me that AEC firms want better ways to image their data, and color is a mandatory part of the communication process.

In our booth we printed a residential project plan set that contained beautiful color floor plans and elevations. We left them scattered on the edge of the aisle carpet. The prints’ stopping power was remarkable. They initiated numerous conversations from people that want to work this way but feel limited by their in-house printing equipment or prohibitive outsource prices. However, they acknowledge the benefits of color readily, especially with regard to color output from their BIM models.

I asked attendees what they actually use wide-format color prints for, and I got a broad range of answers. MEP coordination sheets, GIS maps, Microsoft Project schedules, marketing proposals, cover sheets, red-line mark-ups, thermal analysis reports, and any number of other creative uses. However, it seems color prints are still generally considered a luxury and only used for special circumstances.

It reminds me of when cell phones were introduced and we paid by the minute. We called sparingly and cut conversations short. Once bulk minutes rendered the issue moot, the “all you can eat” mentality took over and now we call liberally without a thought to the minutes. People are just beginning to recognize the financial implications of using color, such as reduced RFIs and change orders. Once these financial benefits take root, we may feel similarly about using color for all of our plan sets.

I spoke with more than one visitor from higher education where students are being raised on a steady diet of BIM and IPD. Color is part of the core curriculum these days and students can’t imagine working with B&W sheets. Soon when we tell them “I remember when we used to build everything from B&W plan sets!” they will just roll their eyes like our kids do when we talk about having to watch B&W TV back in the day.

I am back on the road next week to visit a dozen firms that use color heavily. The goal is to understand the details of how and why they use it and how they justify it so we can replicate this success in other areas. I look forward to sharing some of the knowledge with you soon.

I hope that in my next entry I can share with you a link to the new color ROI calculator and accompanying whitepaper from Lyra Research. It is due out shortly. Meanwhile, thanks again for your participation in this Color For Construction blog.

“You can’t expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday’s tools and expect to be in business tomorrow.” This was the closing statement of Bob Middlebrooks, Industry Programs Manager at Autodesk, in his “Paperless and Virtual” presentation at the International Reprographic Association 2010 Convention in Palm Springs on May 20.

The audience seemed shell-shocked after learning about the trends driving paperless, and being bombarded with fascinating technical innovations that make paper look like yesterday’s technology. Bob gave a great profile of our new clients, the “Millennials,” and how their mindset differs having been born into a digital world.

Bob explained digital reality capture (3D scanning), BIM-based building code checking, real-time analysis and clash detection, direct rapid prototyping, whole team collaboration, photorealistic visual scheduling, model-based estimating and digital-based fabrication. This is our new reality in AEC, and get ready for this folks, it is not in black-and-white.

“If you don’t like change, you’ll like irrelevance even less” said retired General Eric Shinseki, as quoted by Stephen Jones, Senior Director of McGraw-Hill Construction. Stephen presented “How BIM is Transforming the Design and Construction Industry” at the convention. Stephen co-authored The Business Value of BIM, the 2009 SmartMarket Report from McGraw-Hill Construction.

Stephen made it clear that paper is not going away over the next few years. His March 2010 survey of 200 BIM users (>50% w/ 5+ years of BIM experience) shows that users expect a need for 2D documents linked to models.

Image from McGraw-Hill Construction 2010
 

Stephen’s recommendation to reprographers is to “change how you perceive your value” and he gave some excellent suggestions for how to address the evolving needs of AEC clients. Here are a few possible new services:

My colleague Bob Honn joined me to present “Market Research Results: The Impact of Color on Construction” where we provided a summary of four market research projects on the subject. We introduced topics from our upcoming white paper and color ROI calculator which I plan to profile in a future blog entry.

The closing keynote was delivered by Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America. He provided an outlook for the US construction industry, and gave an update on the political environment and ramifications of the economic stimulus.

While there is hope for improvement in 2011, the outlook for 2010 is still very bleak. The U.S. construction industry currently has a 25% unemployment rate. The statistic that stuck with me was that 10% of contractors are bidding below their costs. The implication is that the winning bidder has no margin for error. It’s not that they want to work at a loss, they are just taking the chance that they will make up the margin through owner-initiated change orders.

We can assume the winning bidder on every project has bid below cost. With no contingency in their bids, these contractors simply can’t afford errors and omissions in their construction documents. This is the perfect storm for using color to improve documentation and reduce errors.

If there was one key take-away from the IRgA convention, it is that all the technology changes in the AEC industry present far more opportunities than threats. Many AEC firms can’t keep up with the changes and they look to their partners for guidance and education. Firms now recognize that they must change to survive, so let’s capitalize on this mindset to introduce color into construction document workflows.

I’m in a different city almost every week and I see widely varying levels of BIM adoption from region to region. What I typically see is the larger the city and the bigger the company, the more likely they are to have fully embraced BIM. This seems to be even more applicable to Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), which I most often see being used on only the largest, most complex projects.

In my discussions with AEC firms, BIM and IPD practitioners readily embrace the idea of using color construction documents. After all, these firms are dedicated to making themselves more competitive and more productive. They immediately recognize the weaknesses of 2D B&W output from their elaborate 3D color models. They are also more aware of the price and speed limitations of their existing in-house inkjet plotters.

The more progressive firms have also recognized how to learn as you go, how to leverage new technology, and how to champion new processes among other project team members. This is why the most immediate opportunity for utilizing color plan sets is among those firms that practice BIM and IPD. There is a harmonic convergence of BIM, IPD and color, and it is gaining momentum.

What about the other half of the AEC market that is not practicing BIM? A huge percentage of small and medium-sized companies just don’t have the wherewithal, the financial resources, or the in-house skills to truly implement BIM. However, these smaller firms still want to be more competitive and operate more efficiently. Here is where an opportunity to use color plan sets presents itself.

As I’ve mentioned previously, many AEC firms track various project performance metrics. This might include the quantity and cost of RFIs and change orders, as well as the project status against the schedule and budget. Switching from B&W to color documents can help improve some of the very same metrics that BIM can help improve. However, the amount of risk, effort and investment to implement color is radically lower than it is to implement BIM. This makes it a great option for smaller firms that are looking for low-cost ways to improve the way they work.

Our research is telling us that firms that use traditional design-bid-build project delivery have the most room for improvement and are therefore the best candidates for using color. Though they may operate more efficiently, design-build firms are great candidates as well, because they have more control over the standards, processes and technologies that are used on projects. They can more easily gain acceptance among staffers rather than having to champion their working methods outside the firm. Color is a natural next step for them.

I know many architects and contractors are grasping at straws in this hypercompetitive market. They are looking at projects far outside the scope of their normal specialty and projects well outside their normal geographic range, and they are reducing their fees and contingencies in the hope of winning the work. For many, the thought of implementing BIM is just not a realistic possibility under these conditions. The time is right to look at color as a low-cost way to estimate more accurately, win more projects, mitigate risk, improve productivity and reduce errors.

By the way, I’m not the only one trying to bring attention to the cost of errors these days. Check out this May 3 article by David Dodd on the PrintCEO website called The High Cost of Preventable Errors. He takes a look at the impact of rework on profit. He claims that most rework can be prevented and he offers some suggestions as to how.

There is always resistance to change whenever a new technology or process is introduced, and color construction documents are no exception. We are so set in our ways that the effort to change sounds like more of a burden than any benefit we might achieve. We want proof before we take any risk or undertake any effort.

It is usually about the time our competitor gets a step ahead of us by using the new technology that we take notice and get serious. Once we understand it, we test it out for ourselves, and if it proves positive, we become advocates for it. Some AEC firms have become advocates for color construction documents because they have walked down this path to color enlightenment.

Webster defines the word “enlightened” as “freed from ignorance and misinformation.” In order to achieve that state, I believe these three steps are required. 

You may have seen the movie Pleasantville where the participants all start out in black-and-white. Their world never changes and they don’t know what they are missing. Along comes someone with new ideas and new information which some resist and some embrace. As they become enlightened, they also become in-color. I think this is a great analogy for the construction industry that is living in a black-and-white world.

Copyright 1998 New Line Cinema, Inc.

On April 28 in Memphis I spoke to a group of design managers at a meeting of fire protection contractors that are part of the APi Group. They are standardizing their team on the AutoSPRINK design platform, which allows them to create highly detailed 3D models of building sprinkler systems and fire suppression assemblies. Below is an example from the APi Group. The data is so detailed that it is easy to see why they are well on their way to color enlightenment.

It was interesting to hear one of the designers describe where the fire sprinkler installation fits into the project schedule. The way I understand it, they typically have to wait until the structural and MEP teams are out of the way. By that time, the project is often behind schedule and the fire protection team is expected to rush. This is the ideal scenario for capitalizing on color installation documents, because they are faster to read, easier to interpret, and less likely to result in errors and omissions.

 

When I brought up the idea of how spending time in the office cleaning and colorizing the documents could save them time in multiples in the field, they reminded me that “office time” and “field time” have significantly different billing rates. This gives the ratio more financial leverage and makes the argument even more compelling.

The APi Group is already using color documents in some of its locations and has clearly embraced the idea that color can help them be more competitive and more efficient. They are already on Step 3 on the path to color enlightenment because they are now focused on education and sharing best practices with their colleagues. They set a great example for how to embrace change and I salute them for it.

One key takeaway I got from the meeting was that there was virtually no discussion about the cost of color prints. All of the focus was on the savings that color prints could generate. The enlightened color user would find it unthinkable to produce a B&W plan set from a richly detailed and multi-colored AutoSPRINK model.
 

Across the country I’ve seen prices for wide-format color prints ranging from as little as $.25 per square foot to as much as $6.00 per square foot. I’ve also seen B&W prices from as little as $.04 per foot to as much as $.75 per foot. Our 2009 research tells us that reprographers charge an average of $2.87 per square foot for their lowest-priced category of wide-format color prints.

I recognize that color print pricing is a sensitive subject, but surveys have made it very clear that pricing is the number one barrier to increased use of color construction documents. If the reprographic industry hopes to convert bid-phase and construction-phase B&W print volumes to color, they must rethink their color pricing schemes.

Let me use an analogy based on organic food. If you value organic food, you will pay a premium for it. If you spend $1.00 on a regular banana, you may be willing to spend $1.30 on an organic banana. You’ve determined that the 30% price premium is worth the investment. However, there is a threshold. No matter how phenomenal that banana is, you’re not going to pay $30 for it. For that same reason, the construction market is not going to pay $2.87 per foot for color prints when they can make do paying $.10 per square foot for B&W prints.

Why is color print pricing so expensive to begin with? There are several reasons. First, pricing in many cases was established for the display graphics business which commands higher dollars and higher output quality. Second, color production was traditionally very labor intensive and required extensive color correction. Third, the cost of a color print was traditionally impossible to calculate, so pricing was often established based on the worst case scenario (100% ink coverage, etc.).

I understand that many reprographers are hesitant to lower their color print prices. After all, the price war for B&W market share in the USA left them with very low profit margins. The weak economy and the move to digital workflows have left them with lower print volumes. They hope that color revenues will make up for the lost B&W revenues. I believe this is true, but it has to be thought out carefully.

Let’s consider printing costs and margins for a moment. Here’s a hypothetical scenario: Suppose your B&W costs are 5 cents a square foot and you charge 10 cents a square foot. You have a 50% gross margin, but you’re only making a nickel a square foot in actual profit. Suppose your color costs are 15 cents a square foot and you charge 60 cents a square foot. You have a 75% gross margin, but you’re now making 45 cents a square foot in actual profit. That’s a 50% increase in gross margin but a 900% increase in gross profit. While 60 cents a square foot might sound low, you would have to print nine times more B&W to make the same amount of profit.

When I have this discussion with reprographers, they often think that what I’m proposing will lower their color print revenues. I’m not suggesting that they convert $3 per square foot color work to 60 cents per square foot color. I’m suggesting that they convert 10 cents per square foot B&W work to 60 cents per square foot color.

This usually means adding a new price category for prints with lightweight color coverage such as lines-and-text or red-line mark-ups. This kind of work must be differentiated from 3D renderings and other higher-coverage color prints. Here is a four-tier price category concept that I proposed in a presentation at the International Reprographic Association 2009 convention.



If the reprographic industry does an effective job of pricing, it will only require converting a small percentage of B&W work to color in order to make up for a lot of lost revenues. There are certainly many pricing variables that I have not discussed. Reprographers will have to consider their local market conditions to optimize their own pricing schemes. In the end I believe that the AEC industry and the reprographic industry can experience a win-win scenario when it comes to capitalizing on color construction documents.