How do I start improving my workflows, speed and quality without a "deep time-consuming" investment?
In a Nutshell: Add the data you need to the Features you use.
How: the Technology is called Item Types. Define the data fields you need and attach them to the OpenRoads Features.
Background: the Fundamental Datatypes in OpenRoads are Feature Definitions. You can add your own data fields to the Feature Definitions (and/or to individual Features) via Item Types. Item Types data - YOUR data - behaves just like the native data.
All the things you can do to native data, you can do with your data: Reports, Selection, Queries, View Display Rules (very powerful).
What do you do and who do you do it for?
(Just because you think about something, you don't have to do it. But it is important to think.)
A lot of waste occurs at the periphery and at the handoffs. It costs little to think about your current processes, current opportunities, and opportunities you can defer.
Step 1) identify what you have.
What do you have and what do you do that's valuable? Data. Processes. Expertise.
Are there adjacent opportunities that can easily be seized?
Step 2) maximize value
How do you maximize your value? Hint: it's going to involve making it usable or more useable to other people and organizations. Ease of use maximizes uptake. Maximize your Total Addressable Market.
Think about adjacent workflows and services. Think about their adjacent workflows and services.
If you're Design, think Construction, think Operations and Maintenance.
Once you identify information that is valuable internally (for clarity, self-documentation (much faster than having to refer to external documentation) or valuable to downstream consumers, decide whether binding that information to the feature.
Add that information via Item Types.
Bentley was promoting the "Going Digital" with these concepts:
- Digital Context - this is adding what you need to the default that Bentley delivers (although Bentley emphasize Reality Modeling as their idea of "context)
- Digital Components
- Digital Workflows
These concepts are described here: