One thing you'll never hear at Apex is "We've always done it that way." Our team is committed to adaptability and open-mindedness, constantly exploring ways to elevate the quality of our work.
In fact, one of our firm's guiding values is efficiency: "By embracing cutting-edge technology and continually refining our processes, we aim to deliver designs that are efficient, buildable, and logical."
This commitment to efficiency led to the formation of our Research and Development team, which focuses on staying ahead in a fast-paced world of evolving technology. The R&D team creates tools and resources that empower our engineers to design quicker, more effective structural solutions for our clients.
As technology advances, our firm's approach is to embrace and leverage it rather than resist it. Our R&D team's ongoing initiatives reflect that mindset, continuously pushing for innovation in design and engineering.
Learn more about what the Apex R&D team does day-to-day and the engineers who make up the team.
So, what does the Apex R&D team do?
The Apex Engineers Research and Development team consists of a small yet mighty group of engineers who spend the majority of their time writing code, troubleshooting, and creating new tools to enhance our work. Here's an inside look into what our R&D team currently has in the works:
Member Designer
What it is: Member Designer is the program that our engineers use to perform calculations for structural components such as beams, columns, and walls within the Revit environment. Starting with bearing wall design, our R&D team has developed software to apply loads to wood-bearing walls and run engineering analysis on everything from headers and jams to sills and wall studs. Our team has also developed a "heat map" that visualizes load distribution across walls and associated load takedowns. All of this can be done by leveraging the 3D model used in the creation of our construction documents.
How it benefits our team: This tool reduces the time our engineers spend on calculations by reducing the need for separate design models or time-consuming manual calculations, allowing them to design structures faster and more efficiently. It also enhances quality control and safety by giving engineers and project managers a clear view of load paths and implications.
How it benefits our clients: Beyond improving speed and quality, these tools allow us to quickly adapt to last-minute architectural changes, like shifting walls or windows, by re-analyzing load paths within seconds. Additionally, visualization tools make it easier for non-engineers to understand load distributions, helping us communicate complex concepts clearly and collaborate effectively on problem-solving.
Project Management App
What it is: The Project Management app is an internal program that centralizes all project information in one place. This includes project proposals, contracts, and project documents, such as RFIs, field reports, submittal reviews and more.
How it benefits our team: By centralizing all project data from the moment a draft of a proposal is started, this app ensures that no information is overlooked. It makes essential information easily accessible and keeps our team aligned from start to finish.
How it benefits our clients: The app streamlines communication, allowing us to keep clients informed and address needs more efficiently.
Automation Tools for Revit
What it is: Our team has developed automation tools within Revit, our 3D modeling software, to streamline project design. Examples include:
Our QA/QC tools allow us to track drawing standards in real time. Shown here, we are tracking overlapping schedules and provide tools that automate the organization and spacing of schedules on a sheet. QA/QC (Quality Assurance/Quality Control) tools: These tools automate quality checks on drawings, helping to ensure our standards are met on every project.
This GIF demonstrates, in real time, how our team imports 42 windows and 4 doors from a client's model into ours, automatically creating correctly sized openings, jambs, and headers in the right locations. Model openings tool: This tool automatically places and sizes windows based on architectural Revit models, speeding up initial layout and design.
How it benefits our team: Overall, these tools save hours of drafting and review time, allowing our engineers to focus on quality and precision without sacrificing efficiency.
How it benefits our clients: Our ability to quickly model and adjust designs makes it easy to incorporate last-minute changes. This flexibility is also valuable in the early stages of a project, allowing us to guide initial pricing and help the project team make informed design choices based on accurate cost-estimates.
And the best part? The potential of each of these tools is limitless! There's always more to improve, and our R&D team is continually rolling out new features every week.
Get to Know the Team
Matthew Umberger, PE - Associate Principal
Matthew leads our R&D team while managing design projects remotely from his home in Pagosa Springs, CO. He oversees the strategy behind Apex's R&D initiatives and enjoys turning big picture ideas into practical tools and processes for our team. Matthew is optimistic about the advancements of technology and AI in our industry, and believes that by harnessing their potential, we can spend less time doing repetitive tasks and more time focusing on things that add value to our clients.
Linda Estrella, PE - Associate
Linda is primarily responsible for the implementation and company adoption of the R&D team's products. Linda is a driven self-starter who thrives at seeing inefficiencies and finding solutions for them. This led Linda to learn C# in order to leverage the language's strength and open the possibilities available to the team. Having done so, Linda functions as the team's C# lead and has been responsible for the build out of C# products to enhance performance, speed, and overall user experience. Linda is passionate about AI, technology, and engineering and gets excited about bridging the gaps between the three in order to move the engineering field forward in the future.
Jeffrey Bloss, PE/SE - Associate
Jeff is responsible for the technical direction/implementation of the R&D initiatives. He primarily works remotely in Lee's Summit, MO, but can occasionally be found in the office - especially if there is free food. He and Matthew work closely together when brainstorming solutions to the various challenges engineers and admin face. He also works closely with Linda and Mark on the actual implementation of the software. He enjoys finding solutions to tricky technical problems that raise the capability of others. To boil down his philosophy - he loves serving engineers (and their support staff) who serve their communities.
Mark Spero - Sr. Design Technician
Mark focuses on the Revit side of things, helping with the limitations of Revit and helping on the ideas side. Mark works in the Kansas City office, Revit modeling for Aaron's pod, updating the templates and standards, and helping with IT management. He's working with our R&D team to implement their tools within our Revit standards and updating our standards and workflows where necessary to make things smoother, our work more efficient and more precise. His goal is to help engineers produce the best drawings Apex can, whether that's through implementation of new tools to make sure things aren't missed, or through making it easier to follow the standards and practices.
Plus, there are many other individuals within our organization that contribute to the R&D team on a variety of items.
Want to learn more about our R&D team and discuss a project? Reach out to Matthew!
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