Article Title:  Better, Cheaper and Faster Author:  Mark Mathias Date Published:  01/04/05 Better, Cheaper and Faster   In this competitive world our business goals seem to be a quest for better, cheaper, and faster to obtaining a competitive advantage. One of the most popular methods for attaining these goals comes from the implementation of a computer or Internet based solution. Interestingly enough ironing out these new concepts seems to take more time and money than the traditional methods, but once they have been resolved progress is made... this is the case with printing CAD drawings! Since the advent of CAD, plotting has been the single most reliable solution for displaying an Architect's or Engineer's designs. The efficiencies of CAD made it possible to create better, cheaper and faster design drawings however plotting these designs isn't necessary the best, cheapest or fastest way of putting them on paper. In fact the term plotting congers up the image of a slow methodical process. Time and technological advancements improved plotting methods from pen plotters to inkjet plotters, to LED plotters. But interestingly enough these advancements are still not always the best, cheapest or fastest solutions for getting these design concepts to their final destinations because copies still needed to be made! Plotting design concepts on paper to send to a printer to make copies almost defeats the concept of better, cheaper and faster. Consider the time it takes to get the plots to the printer, the time and loss of quality of scanning the plots and the time and costs to ship the copies to their final destinations; not the best, cheapest or fastest solution today... printing is! Printing sets of drawings are first generation reproductions from the design files, therefore providing the best quality out put. Printing sets of drawings eliminates the time and costs of plotting an intermediate set of the designs. And with the advancements of computer & Internet technologies today these designs can be printed at the final destinations eliminating the time and costs of shipping copies... so why do most Architects and Engineers still plot their designs and having copies made for distribution? The answer to that is lack of standards! In our quest for better, cheaper and faster we run into numerous solutions providers, each requiring some proprietary solution intended to make it difficult to spend money with other solutions providers. This closed architecture makes it difficult to create standards for operating across service providers and therefore difficult to move forward with a better, cheaper and faster solution... until PDF became available for CAD documents! Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) creates a standard for distributing CAD designs electronically that finally allows for a better, cheaper and faster solution for Architects and Engineers to distribute their design concepts. Creating PDF files directly out of CAD applications allows for the ability to distribute the designs electronically to be printed at their final destinations eliminating much of the inefficiencies of plotting and copying! To take this discussion to the next level please review the "Remote Printing & Electronic Distribution" article published 01/19/05. Also please forgive my use of terms throughout this article. It was done intentionally to make everyone understand the differences between them. In today's quest for better, cheaper and faster "terms" are thrown around fare to often confusing and misleading. Understanding the terms brings you one step closer to a better, cheaper and faster solution.