Providing pioneering safety

Allegion (NYSE: ALLE) is a global pioneer in safety and security systems for buildings, with leading brands like CISA®, Interflex®, LCN®, Schlage®, SimonsVoss®, Von Duprin®, and others.

For over a century, Allegion has been keeping people safe and secure with category-leading products. From inventing the “panic release bar” exit device in 1908 to pioneering the first-ever electric-controlled lock, Allegion and its many subsidiaries have been innovators in this industry for nearly as long as people have been locking doors.

Allegion secures people and assets with a range of solutions for homes, businesses, schools, and institutions. The company specializes in security around the doorway and adjacent areas: everything from residential and commercial locks, door closers and exit devices, steel doors and frames to access control and workforce productivity systems.

Building a connection

Allegion’s strategy is not merely to sell doorway security products but to provide its clients with turnkey, working safety and security solutions. One of the hallmarks of Allegion’s services is the connection between architects and their Allegion consultants. These specialist personnel have in-depth knowledge of local and national building codes, the unique needs of various types of facilities, and access control and egress requirements. Architects utilize Allegion’s skills on their projects because this knowledge is so specialized that it would not be practical for them to retain it in-house. The value for the client is having an expert involved in the final deliverable.

This connection is enhanced by working within the architect’s design environment, specifically, the Revit Building Information Modeling (BIM) desktop tool from Autodesk. As Revit is the tool of choice for many of them, Allegion made a strategic decision to develop an Overtur plug-in for Revit.

In-depth knowledge of Revit

Overtur is Allegion’s cloud-based digital platform that brings together all stakeholders to enable better access to information about Allegion products during the design, construction, and operations phases. The scope and requirements of Overtur are managed by Allegion’s Global Digital Business (GDB) team, while the Allegion IT team provides the means and methods of development. The Development team’s skills are focused on web and database development.

After the initial development efforts with the plug-in and client feedback to add more features and capabilities, the Allegion team needed to make a decision on how to continue plug-in development to reach its full potential.

They knew they would have to either develop a greater depth of Revit development expertise within the company or find another solution. Both the Business and Development teams decided to find a third-party development partner that would be able to take over the project.

The involvement of a Subject Matter Expert (SME) with hands-on experience in Revit API would allow Allegion to extend their development resources and upgrade the plug-in faster. So, it made business sense to find the needed Revit expertise outside of the Allegion team.

Allegion’s Overtur team developed a set of requirements and a scorecard to help choose an external partner for the ongoing project. Through an extensive interview process, AMC Bridge was selected based on their in-depth knowledge of Revit, combined with large client base and experience, including consulting and sub-contracting with major software providers such as Autodesk, Trimble, DS SOLIDWORKS, and Siemens PLM. Steve Kottlowski, Allegion’s Overtur Business Analyst, stated, “AMC Bridge brings a ton of knowledge to the table, very resourceful, not a lot of questions…they know what they are doing.”

A path to success: Implementing enhancements

Many architects use Revit as their primary design and construction document tool. It contains the architect’s project information, including the plans and door schedule. The Overtur for Revit plug-in provides the means for the Revit user to push data to and from the Overtur project. In some cases, it is the primary method by which an architect interacts with Overtur when utilizing Allegion’s Architectural Services.

The strategic business goal for improving the plug-in was to expand the client base by reducing the effort required for synchronization of security product information between Overtur and the architectural application.

The enhancements to Overtur included:

• Create PDFs: Allow a user to select sheets from Sheet Views and create PDF files prior to uploading sheets to Overtur.
• Room to Door Renumbering: Implement an all-inclusive tool to allow a user to quickly renumber Door numbers to align with Room numbers. Additionally, the room names and numbers can be adjusted as needed.

• Smarter PDF: Allow Overtur to search for a PDF file matching with overlaid intelligence of door.
• Wall/Door Rating Compare: Capture the native Revit parameter wall rating to enable Wall & Door Rating review for analysis within the Overtur web environment.
• Wall Thicknesses: Capture the native Revit parameter containing wall thickness for door frame analysis within Overtur.
• Apply Hardware (HW) Set to Door: An extension added to get additional technical information about the door allows users to retrieve new door parameters.

“I cannot tell you how big of a pain door renumbers are,” says Brad Brown, Overtur Customer Success Lead. Brad explains that door numbers are usually provided late in the process, and it’s difficult to transfer such information accurately. A lot of manual operations can lead to inaccuracies. “Not only is that a waste of effort,” Brown says, “but every time you make someone retype something, there’s a chance of mistype or misspellings or transposing of numbers, which can cause huge implications in errors and omissions. We want to take as much retyping out of the equation as possible.”

To fulfill the client’s requirements, AMC Bridge undertook development of the plug-in and provided Quality Assurance for the following services:

• Optimization of sending door data and drawings​ to Overtur
• Retrieving door data from Overtur​
• Plan tools:
  • Room and door renumbering
  • Export schedules

The resulting plug-in has the following enhancements:

• Optimized collection and distribution of additional door-related data
• Creation and sending PDFs that are generated from the sheets in the Revit model
• Tracking and processing necessary information from the linked models attached to the current Revit model
• Checking and updating any parameters
• Recognizing users by different account permissions

Outcome

In the area of Information Technology, it’s common to utilize outside specialists in very specific cases or for “one-off” needs. In the case of Allegion’s Global Digital Business and Information Technology’s Front Office Delivery teams, that decision to work with an external partner has led to successes and new opportunities for the Overtur environment.

While cooperating with AMC Bridge, the plug-in has made forward strides in capabilities, making the relationship a very successful one. The work AMC Bridge provided on the plug-in has borne fruit on multiple fronts:

• Feature improvement: New features ensure compatibility with Revit 2023, interaction with Revit parameters is improved, and Revit schedule capabilities are enhanced.
  The client highlighted AMC Bridge’s ability as a Subject Matter Expert as the development team identified issues and fixed bugs that had been in the program for months.
• Communication: Having a third-party partner with a contract and a clearly defined scope of work ensured the Allegion team had a clear focus on communication and collaboration, tight deliverables, and minimal scope creep.
• Deliverable quality: The quality assurance and testing procedures ensured AMC Bridge used the plug-in as multiple personas: a novice user all the way up to an expert. Using this quality process combined with Revit expertise, the AMC Bridge team provided excellent, nearly bug-free deliverables on time.

The cooperation between AMC Bridge and Allegion empowered each team to focus on their own core knowledge and the final deliverable to get expert value in every subject.

Future projects and plans for innovation

The exceptional work done by both internal and external teams has allowed new ideas and possibilities to flow. Both Allegion and AMC Bridge have called this a success and happily continue this partnership going forward.

The dedicated efforts of the AMC Bridge team have been highly appreciated by the client:

“To me, the most helpful thing is the fact that we don’t have to keep track of things like room name and number changes, and therefore opening changes,” explains Brad Brown, Overtur’s Customer Success Lead. “Overtur has taken the tediousness out of specification writing.”

The potential future activities are as follows​:

• Improvement of Overtur for Revit premium utilities
• Integration with ArchiCAD

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