...including 12 architectural and engineering firms. These firms provide new engineering design and design changes for non-nuclear components in the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, as well as energy and national security projects, including the design and subsequent field layout for all phases of buildings, parking lots, drainage and utilities systems, and facilities.

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But maintaining updated facilities records to reflect the ongoing work completed by multiple firms is no easy task. For some time, Sandia Labs functioned with an assortment of software products from different vendors for the creation of CAD, geospatial and building design documents. This, however, added to the difficulty of maintaining current and accurate as-built drawings that were often used to locate underground utilities, such as gas lines. And without accurate information, the firms had a great chance of colliding with utilities during construction, creating an unsafe work environment. "Damaging a buried utility costs as much as $250,000 and creates safety hazards for workers," says Mark Coffing, CAD technical lead for Sandia National Laboratories. "We once ran...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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