In a traditional project structure where the engineers are hired as consultants the architect manages the information that flows to each engineer and if properly done brings the proper engineering consultants on board as the BIM model progresses, rather than having everyone working in the BIM at the beginning. This assures that the BIM reaches a proper level of development before downstream engineering disciplines engage in modeling and prevents model revision due to a BIM that is in flux.

A natural progression would be  (Civil - Building Structural) > (Mechanical -HVAC & Plbg) > (Electrical / Tech)

In an A/E firm this can be difficult to manage as the  downstream engineering disciplines can inadvertently be pulled forward in the process and be modeling while the Civil and Building Structural are still in flux.  This will result in the MEP BIM having to be revised repeatedly as they try to respond to the site and  structural elements which will be in flux.  Clashes will increase and the MEP BIM construct process will be less efficient / less profitable as a  result...................................................................................................................................................c. kilgore

We've identified 3 primary areas of focus in the Transition to Revit.

Revit Template Optimization
Revit Library (Organization, Content Creation, & Project Harvesting)
Revit Staff Training

It was determined that the templates represented the best return on efficiency given that every forth coming project could benefit from template optimization.  A single well structured template could be leverage by every project and staff member working on that project and significantly reduce the need to correct each project due to the use of an incomplete template.

Our engineering departments have a greater need for content and thus the secondary focus for their department was related to populating the Revit Library.  The architectural department also saw a need to focus on project harvesting on two recently completed very large projects.  As such the Revit Library became the next focus for improvement.

Staff training was  reluctantly relegated to level 3 of importance.  Partially due to the ability of production staff to operate at an acceptable level of efficiency for the interim period while the first two areas of focus were addressed.  With the presence of several high level Revit users in both the Architectural and Engineering departments, an on call Revit Support team was available to provide spot training and address technical hurdles that might otherwise be covered in a staff training session.  This eased the staff training priority being in third position .............c.kilgore

Harvesting in Revit is just the act of going back through a completed project and saving families, details, materials, annotations, legends, schedules, etc that were created for that specific project and driving those elements into the Revit Library and Templates.  Harvesting expands your library content, reduces time to recreate these elements and optimizes your templates for increased efficiency on future projects.

At GLHN I was approached by one of the Revit Techs on how he could help in the Revit optimization process.  This gentlemen has a depth of knowledge of previous projects and content location that is invaluable.  As such I suggested he create a spreadsheet that indentified the subject content and its location on the server. 

I didn't want to drive this content directly into the new Revit library we were creating without vetting it for appropriate attributes.  Specifically we want to:

> make sure it had the proper shared parameters so the new schedules could read its data and populate the
   schedule appropriately.
> categorize it based on the Masterformat spec number which drives the structure of our Library so we could 
   properly locate it within the Revit Library for future retrieval.
> review it for additional informational content.

This filtering and alignment of content going into the Revit Library is an essential quality control process that must continually occur.
                                                                                                                                                    c. kilgore

We recently completed the construction document prep phase for two very large projects at GLHN and it seemed like a golden opportunity to do a project debrief with the production teams. With GLHN being an A/E firm we have a unique situation where we can focus on the bridging aspects between A  & E as it relates to Revit.

After meeting with each discipline's production / design teams it became clear that there were key areas that needed improvement. These areas included Project Management, Communication, Revit Training, Revit Template Development and Revit Idiosyncrasies.  The Idiosyncrasies being like a software rock in the river you have to
learn to swim around.

All typical growing pains for a firm in the process of converting to Revit, but what really impressed me is that with all the adversities of two multi-million dollar projects having their schedules inexplicably align to the same due date, design shifts and refinements that continued right through CD’s and the struggle of moving to an unfamiliar production platform, both teams still managed to deliver the projects on schedule without sacrificing quality. 
A trial by fire no one would wish to undergo but one that speaks to the integrity, dedication and perseverance of the GLHN team.

I’m reminded of the birth of a Samurai Sword whose smith’s led a religious from of life; accompanying each step of the work with prayer and ritual, bringing the steel through a trial by fire & hand to create one of the finest and strongest blades of its time.

The debrief confirmed that our Revit Optimization Work Plan is on track & target to resolving many of our production concerns and ultimately will capture substantial efficiency gains.  The Architectural side of the Work Plan
is complete and in the hands of my MEP counterpart at GLHN, Tony, for finalization.  I’ve also begun work on a Revit Training Matrix to help us organize and target our training efforts.  Looking to finish the Architectural part this weekend and hand it off to Tony on Monday.
                                                                                                                                                   c. kilgore

Two keys to improved productivity can be found in the Revit Library and setting up project Templates. 

Templates are essentially bare bone projects that have the basic sheet organization and commonly used annotations, notes, schedules, families, line types, details, detail components, etc.  The template gets you off to a quick start and helps standardize the format and appearance of your construction documents.

An essential element of the Template is the titleblock.  The titleblock is a separate family that is loaded into the template or project (if a custom titleblock is required)  It contains instance parameters that allow you to input unique attributes for each specific sheet and type parameters that act as global controls for changes to the titleblock through-out the project.

I use various visibility controls to turn on and off attributes of the GLHN titleblock.  Type visibility parameters like the seal registration points, the disclaimer (that is applied to the record drawings set), Volumes I & II (given our 300 plus sheet sets), and our standard GLHN Logo (which sometimes is replace by a collaboration logo).  Instance visibility parameters control a segmented boundary line that defines our notes portion of the sheet.  It can be turned on/off in segments depending on the length of the notes field and defined independently for each sheet.

The above are all recent upgrades to the GLHN titleblock including the addition of a revision schedule that automatically reads the revision clouds on that sheet and reports the revision ASI number, date and description. Since it was determined that we would be using the 'by sheet' method of scheduling our revisions I did not include the revision sequence number in the revision schedule parameter fields. I just typed in the revision sequence 1 thru 8 in the titleblock.  When you use the 'by sheet' method the revisions are automatically numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, ...etc as they are issued to the individual sheet so the sequence number becomes irrelavent.  When you use the 'by project' setting the sequence number is essential to your revision schedule and replaces the "typed in" numbers I used with the 'by sheet' method. 
                                                                                                                                            c. kilgore

I'm one of those architects that went from mechanical pencils, maylines and vellum to pin-bar and mylar w/ plastic leads, to AutoCAD to Revit in 2000 and somewhere along the way got registered as a professional architect.  I operated my own small private practice up until about 2005 and after 5 years of using Revit I started helping other firms make the same conversion I had struggled through on my own.  The first convert was an architectural partnership of 10 people and the second an architectural group of 27.

As of February 2013 I've joined on with the GLHN team, a Tucson based A/E firm of around 90 people.  This is a firm that was already in transition from AutoCAD to Revit and has some very talented Revit staff already on board.  GLHN was/is specifically looking to me to take a leadership role in focusing and accelerating their transition to Revit.

This blog is intended to document that process and provide some insights on how others might approach the conversion process.

This weekend I begin to develop the work plan for that venture.                                                       c.kilgore