Meeting with an electrial supplier

[Bryan Thatcher]

I manage the BIM department at a full service AE firm. I have a structural background and strong architectural and structural modeling experience. Revit MEP has not been used enough for me to have much experience with it.
I have a meeting next week with an electrical supplier and they are expecting us to supply them with information. The bulk of what they supply is hardware, hangers, conduit, stirrups, terminals and the like. Going through their catalog my first thought is that they need to offer families PE's and designers can use to model with that take-offs can be created from.
I am looking for any information that you have regarding this. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thank you.

[cadclips]

If you are going to spec their hardware etc that is one thing but if you want it all in the model for full quantification then someone is going to have to create (modify existing) the familes and setup the project template file. This is all 'up front' work and no small task.

The information you need to give them is to tell them as nicely as possible to "get their repetoir of supplies converted to RFA files and create a new project template taylored to their environment". Then they can approach many more AE's and advertise their BIM content on their web site and let people download it for free.

They need to invest in BIM and provide the data in the correct format. Someone is going to have to build it. There should be (by now) 3rd party companies that will create intelligent RMEP RFA files for them. It's all about the 'connectors'. The modeling is easy.