Generally, design teams approach modeling work with a set of familiar placement tools to construct models and complete designs. An architecture team may use an assortment of door, window, and space planning tools, a plant team may use a mixture of pipe, vessel, and stair commands, or a structural team may use several beam, column, and footing tools.

Architecture teams place doors that have different usage requirements. For example, doors in a hospital X-ray room are different than the bedroom doors of a private residence. Likewise, structural requirements for steel girders in a one-story shopping mall have different requirements than those placed in the 75th floor of a skyscraper. Similarly, plant requirements for piping used in a caustic chemical process are different than the requirements for pipe needed to pasteurize milk.

So design teams from every discipline need a system that enables them to assign important model data to model objects to distinguish their specific use. Assigned catalog item data must be placed with each item instance and the system must also track and manage the data for schedules and reporting. Furthermore, design teams need to be able to set catalog items and instance data for a host of placement tools so that workflow can begin and continue without interruption.

This is the DataGroup System.