Friday
Alex shares 40 separate drawings through the CDE, each with its own name, sent together as one issue.
Part 3 · The Journey
Making It Together
What are we making, and what actually moves?
Before you start
In the story
Forty drawings in one file meant one change caused chaos. This lesson shows what should travel instead.
Back to the story
The right way: Everything for Area 2.pdf
Same Friday, forty separate drawings
Wednesday
Alex: Just 042 has changed. Here's the new version, on its own.
One drawing changes, one drawing goes out.
Wednesday
Dave: Got it. One drawing, one change. Back to digging.
He knows exactly what moved, and so does everybody else.
One giant PDFForty drawings squashed together, and nobody knows what changed.
Forty drawings, one issueChange one, send one. Everyone can find, check and use each drawing on its own.
Look at the last thing you sent. Was it one drawing on its own, or forty squashed into one file?
Continue your journey
Story 7: Four files called FINAL
Rex's diary. Week 11. Alex says his file names explain themselves. I've seen his folder. We'll see.
The right way, explained
What travels between people is a parcel: one drawing, one model, one report, each on its own, like one box of a flat-pack order. Drawing 042 is box 42. Several can travel together as a shipment, but each one keeps its own identity. When one drawing changed, one parcel went out, and everyone knew exactly what had moved.
In the town See it in the town: what actually travels between the buildings?
The scene
People come and go. The work travels as parcels.
People move between buildings to do their work, as long as they have the right access. But the work itself travels packed into parcels, so it can go where people can't, and arrive in one piece. Drawings, models, questions, photos and registers: each one is its own parcel. Several parcels sent together make a shipment. Pick a parcel to see what's inside.
Open a parcelOut of the Design System
A drawing
- Examples
- IM calls it
- Watch out for
And nobody makes it alone
Your own room, then the shared table
Each team works in its own room until its parcel is ready for others to build on. Then it goes on the shared table in the CDE, so the drainage team draws round the beams that actually exist, not the ones from three weeks ago. Clashes get spotted on the table, not on site.
This is an Information Container!
Every parcel is an information container: one thing, with its own name, that can be sent, changed and found on its own.
ISO 19650 calls any named, persistent set of information an information container: a drawing, a model, a document or a set of data. Containers travel together in information exchanges, which is what a shipment is. Putting work in progress into a shared state so other teams can build on it is collaborative production, and it's how coordination happens.
Fix it Got a bundle? Unpack it.
Got a bundle?
Unpack it.
- Split it back into one parcel per drawing, model or report.
- Give each one its own name.
- Send them together as one shipment.
A note for the Coordinators (that's IM): if people keep bundling, make shipments easy! One click to send a set of parcels together, each still with its own name.
The parcel test Is this one parcel, or several pretending to be one?
Is it one thing?
One parcelOne drawing, one model, one report.
A bundle"Everything for Area 2." Everything, and nothing in particular.
Can it change on its own?
One parcelChange it, re-send it, done.
A bundleOne change means re-sending the lot.
Could someone ask for it by name?
One parcel"Send me 042." Here it is.
A bundle"It's page 17 of the big one. I think."
The real town Why do people bundle everything together?
Because one big file feels tidier than forty small ones. Right up until something changes.
It's quicker to send
One attachment beats forty. On Friday afternoon, anyway.
"The client wants a pack"
They do. They just don't want it glued shut.
Email size limits
So people zip, merge and squash.
It feels organised
A folder in a file in a zip. Lovely.
ISO 19650 Collaborative production, step by step
| ISO 19650 step | What happens | In the town |
|---|---|---|
| Check reference information and shared resources | Make sure you have what you need to start: templates, standards, other teams' shared work | Stocking your room |
| Generate information | Make it to the project's standards, coordinated and cross-referenced with what's already shared, with models spatially coordinated | Working in your room, watching the shared table |
| Quality assurance check | Check it's made properly before it goes anywhere | Checkpoint 2 (Lesson 9) |
| Review and approve for sharing | Check it does the job, then approve it into the shared state | Checkpoints 3 and 4 (Lesson 9) |
| Information model review | Review everything together before it's submitted | The whole table, checked as one |
Based on the ISO 19650 series: the ideas come from the standard; the plain-English wording, examples and advice are InfoTown's. ISO 19650 and its UK National Annex are © ISO and BSI. You'll hear the same language across the industry. Read more for free in the Information Management Initiative (IMI) Framework guidance from BSI and nima. For the full requirements, use the standard itself.