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Q. What kind of problems or frustrations were you having before you bought Caddie?
A. Having used Caddie since version 5.32 it is a long and distant memory, but for the most part the frustrations I had with another CAD package was the limitations of each command; one would have to use the same command over and over to achieve very simple things. Caddie’s toolset had always had a more extensive yet simple toolset that allowed greater flexibility in doing simple things. Also I remember the delight in discovering Caddie allowed me to produce drawings that were much more akin to the drawings that I was used to producing on the drawing board. It far outstripped the ‘mechanical’ look of drawings from other packages.
Q. Why did you choose Caddie over the alternatives?
A. Caddie also allows me to design on screen; whilst I still undertake ‘napkin’ sketches for initial concepts, I can quickly draft outlines of a project for further consideration and if necessary sketching over on a hard copy for further designing. Being an unobtrusive part of my workflow in this manner is one of Caddie’s biggest strengths. In recent years the reason for sticking with Caddie is that it has always had the presentation advantage over anything else out there, the sheer ease and speed with which I can produce good looking and legible planning and construction drawings outweighs that with which can be achieved with other packages.
Q. In what ways do you feel that you made the right decision?
A. I think ‘proof is in the pudding’ … the positive comments I get back from potential clients who see my work for the first time through to indirect comments I get back from clients from other professionals are testimony; I recently received favourable comments from a new client via a planning officer. The planning officer had remarked to my client that I was a good architect and this was helped by the standard of the presentation drawings he had received from other projects. I also get a lot of repeat work from certain clients, obviously pleased with the quality of work obtained from my practice.
Q. What type of projects do you work on and what advantages are there for you in using Caddie?
A. For the most part my workload is in the residential sector from small home improvements (loft conversions, extensions etc.) right through to multi million pound one-off houses. Some of the sites I have been working on in recent years could be considered as tricky in planning terms. This has involved the contextualisation of the project into the site with a high degree of realism, whilst being efficient with my time and ultimately cost to my clients. Being able to supply drawings which anchor the proposed building within a site context is very easy, and gives Local Authorities the confidence to approve potentially difficult schemes knowing that the resultant project will be comfortable in its setting. I find this particularly relevant with some of the more contemporary projects I have worked on recently.
Q. What benefits do you feel Caddie has brought to your life and business?
A. Caddie has given me the leverage to stand out from the crowd in terms of the quality of the drawings I can produce. Planning drawings are clear and legible, and portray the level of professionalism that I strive to attain. Construction drawings are achieved with the minimum of fuss and are instantly available in the .dwg format to other professionals in the design team which also saves time and money. Also editing drawings is quick and painless; nobody likes re-doing work so the ability to be able to stretch a building both in plan and elevation with a few clicks without having to redraw anything is invaluable.
Q. How much quicker are you with Caddie than your old method of drawing? For example; twice, three, four times as quick?
A. Compared to my experience with a previous CAD package I would say I am at least 50% faster in achieving the same drawing. But even within the different versions of Caddie, say the difference between v.9 and the upcoming v.14 I am drawing quicker - I would say that productivity has increased by 25% just in this area alone. Also the newer versions of Caddie have allowed me to do much more drawing for the same amount of time allotted for previous projects. By this I mean I can provide a much higher standard of work for the same fee as before. This can equate to the difference between providing a fully coloured set of drawings versus a more traditional black and white set of drawings. This again keeps me one step ahead of the competition and is an important factor in winning work.
Q. How would you describe the support you get for your Caddie software and how do feel you benefit from this support?
A. It’s great to know that any problem you have with Caddie can be answered, for the most part immediately, by picking up the phone and calling ACS. Having someone on the end of the telephone that can give you an answer, regardless of how trivial the issue is, is a great comfort, especially when tight deadlines are looming! If a problem cannot be sorted over the phone, then emailing a drawing to the support team and getting a response or a fix for the problem is mostly sorted out within a day or two.
Q. How many staff do you think using Caddie saves you?
A. As a sole practitioner this is difficult to answer. I like to think I can do the work of two people in pure drawing terms.
Q. How much time and money do you think using Caddie saves you?
A. If I am doing the work of two people, then Caddie obviously saves me the costs of employing that additional member of staff, it is such a difficult thing to quantify … I do have an example I can use … This week I have been working on a set of drawings I produced with Caddie 9 about two years ago. In reworking the drawings I have noticed a number of little things which I take for granted now; I now have the general arrangement drawings in one file, rather than them being spread across several files; large plans can be split across several sheets. The use of blocks speeds drawing editing immeasurably, as does the use of polylines. All of these little elements all add up to time, and therefore, money saving at the end of the day.
Q. How is Caddie different from the alternatives, and what do you see as Caddie’s major strengths?
A. For me Caddie’s major strength has always been that the drawings I produce are done so intuitively and in a similar manner to that undertaken on a drawing board. I spent the first 8 years of my working life as a technician, learning my craft on a drawing board; my transition to CAD from the drawing board during my first year out of university, was exciting but involved a lot of frustration. It wasn’t until I started using Caddie that I realised how much of my presentation and time spent producing drawings was governed by the limitations of the software I was using at the time. The speedy transition to Caddie 8 years ago allowed me to reintroduce all the techniques I used to use in hand drawings back into my workflow, and then in recent years developing those techniques to the next logical step. A good example is hatching in Caddie; in my hand drawing days I used to use a lot of coloured self adhesive film of the back of tracing paper for elements like ground lines, window shading and shadowing on elevations. Caddie replicates this methodology by allowing a user to just draw a hatch by picking points in a similar manner to laying a sheet of film and cutting out with a scalpel. Other packages I have had experience of do not allow such a direct method for achieving the same result, and therefore you do not feel inclined to do this kind of work because it is so laborious! Also, it is evident that Caddie’s development is very much driven by its users and feedback from users is taken on board and often implemented and enhanced from the original proposal. For me this generates tremendous loyalty to the product.
Q. Why would you keep using Caddie?
A. As long as it still retains it’s user driven development and core principles of ease of use then you will have to pry the product from my cold dying hands.
Q. Any other comments
A. Do you want me to keep going?
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