StabiCAD at VMH - Belgium

De company Van Meerhaeghe NV is a building services contractor located in Tielt, Belgium and employs 35 people. Van Meerhaeghe NV has been using StabiCAD for nearly 10 years now and since then they have been able to reach a high level of standardisation and design automation when it comes for building services drafting.

Frederick Caestecker, lead engineer at Van Meerhaeghe, states it would be very difficult for him to do the same work without StabiCAD. “Without StabiCAD we would have been lost. The cost of the StabiCAD license exceeds the benefits by far. In the past we would try and program our own in-house tools for AutoCAD using LISP, but in the end this was not efficient and sustainable. The extra effort you have to spend upfront with StabiCAD during preparation pays off nicely during the remainder of the building process. I am sure I could not cope with my workload without StabiCAD.”

What benefits does StabiCAD have? “O there are many. We use the edition that is based on AutoCAD, so it leverages your investment in AutoCAD. StabiCAD contains all the content we need, as well as many very specialized functions that are must-haves for building services engineers, like tools for automatically cleaning up architects drawings. Another feature I like is the ability to sketch pipe networks in single-line, and then convert to 3D and back, just to generate 3D visualizations I can then place somewhere in the drawing.

This way it is very easy to see what room you still have in the plant room, without having to use a full 3D software package; it can all be done with AutoCAD. Generation of bills of materials also is of great importance to us. Because we know beforehand how many lengths of pipe and fittings we need, our fitters are always well prepared for their jobs on site. Last but not least, with StabiCAD we never fail to impress our customers with our full colour as-built plans.

“As far as document- and project management is concerned, the StabiBASE module is a must-have”, says Caestecker. “it is a joy to see how by entering all relevant drawing and project data upfront in StabiBASE, all required information is then automatically entered into the titleblock”

“It took us very little time to get up to speed with StabiCAD. In the beginning you have to find your way in the menus and its icons, but StabiCAD is very easy to operate so the learning curve in our company is short and steep, also thanks to the StabiCAD training class that we attended, as well as the technical support from the Staiplan helpdesk. I dare say that StabiCAD is easier to learn than plain-vanilla AutoCAD.

So you are a happy user? Caestecker: “Definitely! I can recommend it to everyone, really”