The stats behind the Adobe-Bentley Systems deal are staggering: More than 360,000 users use MicroStation, the Bentley platform on which more than 100 separate applications facilitate bidding and execution of design, construction and maintenance of buildings large and small--annually a multi-trillion-dollar architecture/engineering/construction (AEC) marketplace.

Right now, the process is enabled via paper, microfilm and several electronic document standards, including native application files. But in this business, time is money, and paper breeds a lot of extra time in transit as well as money when it comes to shipping documents overnight for approval, markup and revision.

And there are other issues involved, too, such as liability. When application files--such as CAD designs--are exchanged between clients and designers, it not only means that proprietary information sometimes has to be distributed, but also that files are at risk for getting altered, either intentionally or by accident.

Enter PDF, a fast, lower bandwidth and eminently secure format that not only eliminates the time and expense of courier delivery of paper but keeps proprietary information at home--in the hands of the people who created the application files. Bentley has licensed the Adobe PDF Library to integrate into MicroStation as the standard for document exchange.

"People in this space are probably more nervous in sharing native files than any other," says Adobe's Rick Brown, Acrobat group product manager. This is "largely because the asset represented by a drawing has a lot of liability and legal obligation associated with it. They're very nervous that file recipients might advertently or inadvertently change it."

Outlining their vision together on behalf of their companies, Brown and Bentley spokesperson James Dyer said that PDFs can enter the process as early as pre-bidding for an AEC project and of course can be used all through the design and construction phases. It's not just drawings that will be committed to PDF, but many more potential e-paper documents, from financial records to schedules to many different others--all of which are considered project assets.

Turning those documents into PDF files will not only make each phase of the construction process more efficient, but will do the same later on when it comes to maintaining a building and its systems--or when the firm starts anew with constructing an addition or adjunct buildings. At that point, the original documents--recalled from an archive--can aid engineers in their work.

"We're looking at how you can provide solutions that address not just the requirements of document interchange for the types of CAD information you would need in a typical AEC project . . . but the full AEC project lifecycle from design, redlining and approval to archiving, maintenance and operations phases," Adobe's Brown says. "You can include a very broad range of document type, from drawings . . . to specifications and change orders and documentation."

Searchable PDF archives, of course, are superior to paper in that they don't have to be de-archived from a warehouse when they're needed--and they obviously don't degrade when subject to the rigors of use and storage as paper sometimes does.

The initial joint announcements in October from the two companies said that PDF will soon be integrated into Bentley software in the short term. A longer term commitment, Brown says, calls for Adobe and Bentley to work together to "optimize" the use of Acrobat in the AEC market in additional ways--to be outlined at a future date.

For more information, visit Bentley Systems.