With the  products Apricon Visual Question Board and INTERAXO, you can simplify your work and make your projects even more efficient.

Visual Q&A

Now Apricon launches the Visual Q&A on a broad front. The cooperation with Skanska has resulted in a effective solution for management of issues and decisions when working with Visual design. The Visual Q&A has been tested in a number of projects for Skanska and features have been developed in close dialogue with their users. The service is now offered to all customers and several projects are already up and running.

The objective for the cooperation with Skanska has always been to create conditions for fun and effective meetings where the focus is on issues and decisions. With the Visual Q&A in Apricon meeting participants add their questions prior to the meeting. At the meeting itself, there is a clear flow for working with old issues, new issues, key issues and decisions. After the meeting taken decisions are documented in the decision log.

The latest version has new features to attach or link documents as well as a nice filter function which makes it easy to search in the question log and the decision log. This makes the digital benefits even better with clear communication and increased availability as a result.

Block Trollhättan. Illustration Yellon

Block Trollhättan 7 in Malmö is one of the projects using the Visual Q&A today. The Office building, which is about 12 000 m2 lettable floor area will be built at Universitetsholmen, close to the main train station and with a very nice view of the harbor. The buildings are built in brick with inspiration from old port warehouses.

Anna Björklund

“I have been working with Post-it notes for a while now and like working that way. But the fact is that the Visual Q&A is just as interactive and provides several advantages. You are able to write complete answers and attach files to the question which improves communication. At the same time, you get good documentation that is always available and that can be presented in different ways. ” Anna Björklund, Project Manager, Skanska Öresund AB

Brf Beach Promontory. Illustration T

Skanska is developing a new and exciting area in Tullholmsviken near Karlstad city centre and at the same time with a scenic location on the shore of Lake Vänern. Apartments in Brf Strandudden are planned to take advantage of the contact with water. Interest in the project has been very high from the start and all the apartments were sold quickly.

Fredrik Rydberg

“It’s very easy to get started with Visual Q&A, everybody understands right away how it works. No questions are lost and with the ability to attach files where you specify what is being requested makes the communication very clear compared to indicate doodles or explanations on tiny Post-it notes. It also saves a lot of time when the participants prepare their questions in advance. The analog version requires a lot of administration both before and after a meeting. ” Fredrik Rydberg, project manager for construction production, Skanska

Please contact us if you want to know more.

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New Hospital Malmö. Two new health care buildings (green), new service centre (orange), placement for replacement facilities (yellow). Lines show the culvert system.

Over the next eight years Region Skåne invests six billion in the hospital area in Malmö. The goal is a modern hospital that is well prepared for future health care. Malmö Medical Center will get two new buildings, a new health care building, a new service centre and an extended culvert system under the ground. With the modernisation of the hospital area conditions are created for a high-quality and safe health care in the future. Development takes place in close work with the City of Malmö.

Skanska has signed cooperation agreement with Region Skåne in respect of the construction of the new health care building at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö. The project places great demands on coordination as it consists of several different parts and to ensure that the day-to-day operations in the area will be affected as little as possible.

Staffan Andersson

Hospital building in the middle of ongoing operations is a challenge. The needs of the hospital staff, patients and visitors is extremely important to us. We want to build a hospital of the future without disturbing the daily activity in the area.
– Staffan Andersson, Project Manager for the New University Hospital Malmö, Skanska

Illustration of how the hospital area in Malmö may look like. The final design will be made by White Architects.

Apricon is used in the New University Hospital in Malmö. The project uses the feature in Apricon called  Linked projects to get increased availability and can seamlessly communicate new information across multiple projects.

Patrik Lambeth

Apricons easy user interface, the ability to control the design process effectively as well as ease of access for the production to obtain the correct documents makes Apricon the obvious choise.
– Patrik Lambeth, Project Engineer, Skanska

The Visual Q&A streamlines the design through focused meetings and minimal administration.

Jesper Bengtsson

With the Visual Q&A we get an effective design process with better coordinated actions and documents.
– Jesper Bengtsson, Project Leader, Skanska

Read more on Skanska’s home page
Read more on Region Skåne’s home page

The Visual frågetavlan can adapt to your way of working.

Now five pilot projects from Skanska have used our Visual Q&A for some time and the response has been very positive. One of the projects that switched over from the analog board to our digital variant is Kv. Norrland in Helsingborg. In doing so, they achieved more flexibility in the project and are not dependent on a specific meeting room. In addition, the design meetings are much more effective with meeting participants who submit their questions before the meeting’s start.

Jonathan S

The main advantage of using the Visual Q&A in Apricon is that the design leader saves time in managing the issues that come up during a design meeting. When meeting participants are required to prepare their questions before the meeting almost no administration at all is nessesary for the design leader.
-Jonathan Skoglund, Design Leader, Skanska

KV. Norrland is drawn by Jaenecke Architects.

Kv. Norrland is part of an urban renewal project in Helsingborg making the South side to extend even further South. Skanska has been commissioned by Magnolia Home to building the project which has modern architecture and includes 327 rental apartments spread over four buildings. Common to the four houses is the concept with an enclosed courtyard and loft resources due to tough sound volume demands with the Malmöleden and the Oljehamnsleden close by. The high requirements puts high demands on the design process and the project benefits a lot from the advantages of the Visual Q&A.

Apricon now offers the new module to all customers and several have already started using the Visual Q&A. This allows the development to continues at high speed and new applications will be presented during the year.

Please contact us if you want to know more.

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“This approach is intuitive and gives a quick overview of what the critical issues are. After the meeting everybody knows what questions need to be answered untill next week’s meeting,” says Caroline Grip, head of Visual design in Skanska.

Skanska has developed Visual management and planning during project development and call the method Visual projekt development. One of the tools is a Q&A Board, which today is a physical board with dimensions of 2 x 1.5 meter. During the meetings they work effectively with questions and answers through post it notes that are placed on the board. All questions and answers are documented in a decision-log. This approach creates effective meetings where the participants are involved and engaged.

“With Visual Q&A i Apricon we strengthen Visual projekt development even more. By digitalising the work with Q&A, we create the conditions needed for more projects to start using Visual projekt development” says Caroline.

The Visual Q&A in Apricon offers greater flexibility and the projects are not tied to large wall spaces or specific meeting room. The digital solution also allows meeting attendees to prepare their questions and send them in before the meeting. The result is more fun and more effective meetings!

Starting this autumn Visual Q&A is being tested in five Skanska projects and the response is already very positive.

Please contact us if you want to know more.

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The project, which consists of five buildings, two squares and four streets with a combination of office, hotel, retail and restaurants will be done by 2019.

Urban Escape consists of several subprojects and are using our new function connected projects. It allows that selected information can be accessible across projects without user being members in the linked projects. Please contact us and we’ll tell you more.

www.urbanescape.se

New acute care building, Danderyd hospital. Illustration: White

The new Emergency Department will be between the hospital’s Central and southern parts will be completed at the end of 2017. The building will serve as a hub that connects the different parts of the hospital.

Project Wards are carrying out reconstruction and the technical upgrading of six wards in 3 stages where everything will be done by 2021.

Project goods reception is reconstructing the reception that will be re-equipped to adapt to increased capacity and will be done by the end of 2017.

To facilitate collaboration between the three main projects and Locums overall project management uses the new ability to connect projects in Apricon.

By using a comprehensive project in Apricon for the common information and link the three main projects we can make governing documents available to all with no loss of integrity. It gives a clearer and more secure communication and saves time.” Said Kent Söderström, project manager at Locum.

 

Right from the start we used case management in Apricon to deal with issues and document decisions during design. Now we have set up our own case series for production of the acute care buildings to manage questions and answers. It is convenient to have it collected in one place, easy accessible to those concerned.” Said Robert Sahlin, responsible for information management at Ebab.

 

Now we are documenting all important decisions from various forums in the decision-making log sorted by projects and decision-making forums. It makes it clear and easily accessible in one place for everyone involved.” Said Maria Viklund, project administrator at Locum.

Read more about the projects on Locums website.

Now we are launching our own Apricon App which is designed to give you greater mobility and more efficient work outside the Office.

By combining the availability in “the cloud” with local storage, you can easily look at the documents you need even in places without Internet access. It’s never been easier to take your drawings with you when you leave the Office!

More and more of our customers currently use an iPad on the go. We often get praises to Apricon that it works fine on the iPad. But it is not always that there is access to WiFi or 4G everywhere on a construction site. The Apricon App has a custom interface for the iPhone and iPad that allows you to quickly search through all documents in your project to make a selection that you want to save locally on your device.

When you are online The app shows when there are updates and you can download all new versions with one click! With the built-in Viewer, you can also browse between different documents and you do not have to constantly open and close the files one by one.

With Apricon App you can quickly open the contact list for the project directly from your phone. If you need more functionality you can start the Web client from the app and get to your project in Apricon without having to sign in again.

Please let us know if you want to know more. You can download the Apricon App here:

The App Store

The following is a description of the app’s features.

My projects
After logging in you will be on a portal page that displays news from the industry as well as a menu of your project. At the bottom of the menu, you can also start Apricon in a browser without having to login again. This choice is always there if you need additional functionality.

Home page
When you have selected a project will take you to the project’s home page. Here you can see the info box at the top that tells you how many documents you have saved locally on the device, when you last downloaded new versions and how many new documents have been added (which can be downloaded under “Select/Download documents”). In the info box lists the project’s members and you can easily call and send sms or email directly from the list, keep in phone number or e-mail address.

Menu
When you are inside a project will show the following options;
My project Goes back to selecting projects
“Project name”-Go to the project home page
Local documents-See description below
Select/Download documents-See description below
Search documents-See description below

Local documents
Here are the documents that are stored locally on your device. They are located in the same structure as they do in Apricon. Browse to the documents by clicking on names in the structure. To go up a level, drag your finger across the screen from left to right. When you are at the document level, you can open documents in the built-in Viewer by clicking on them.

Select/Download documents
Make your selection to save the document locally on your device. When you have made your selection, you can always see or change your preferences here. Each level has a button to enable. You can choose to download all the documents in a category, or go ahead and define the discipline, document type and specific documents by enabling retrieval of the level you want. The button becomes blue when activated. A light blue button indicates that the download is activated at a level below the current. When you have made your selection, click on the button “Download” at the top of the page. It is also here that download updates and newly added document. You could say that the button “Download” syncing your device with Apricon based on your preferences.

Search documents
This is your opportunity to quickly find and open a document at Apricon. The search will be made among all the documents in the project and feature requires that you are online.

Viewer
When you click a document in the app opens the built-in Viewer. Here you can read, zoom in and navigate quickly between all the documents in a folder or search the list.

Please let me know if you’re wondering about something. Otherwise you’ll find Apricon app here:

The App Store

Malmö Live (Image: Skanska) 

Skanska developed strongly and the continued cooperation based on a renewed framework agreement strikes me as proof that even our services evolve, says Lennart Klintmalm, Managing Director, Apricon

Skanska uses Apricon at all stages of the building process, from project development, design and production to management.

One of the many on-going projects is Malmö Live, a project that connects Malmö with the Western Harbour and provides a variety of features that make a city attractive. There is a living area with the new Clarion Hotel, Congress, restaurants, concert venues, workplaces and homes. The first buildings will open in 2015.

Read more about the Group’s activities

Read more about Malmö Live