COLLABORATIVE CAD MODELING PROCESS ANALYSIS TO SUPPORT TEAMWORK FOR BUILDING DESIGN

Collaborative tools are information systems which allow document sharing through local area networks, intranets and extranets. Collaborative design can be a solution to increase the productivity and the final quality of the product in a building design office. In this way it is possible to assure the information integration and also the data integrity during the design process based on computer network communication. The goal of this article is to analyze how one CAD system based on BIM concept (ArchiCAD software - Graphisoft/Nemetschek) can support a collaborative teamwork structured on an integrated model for different design views. In this model, the tasks are assigned by a coordinator and executed by the designers in different places following the client-service scheme. It is intended to contribute with the diffusion of this information technology tool and to present its potentiality for the improvement of the design performance. The research method used was a case study of the development design. In this case study, communication guidelines had been applied to verify the software behavior in relation to the task execution in a shared framework. The use of the collaborative CAD modeling in the development design provided information sharing, track and control of document versions and also the integration of design modifications in such automatic and simultaneous way between different computers used.