Internal Revision VS External Revision

[darthyoga]

In our title blocks we consider the revision as external ( Issued for Tender, Construction, etc.) Some of my designers want to change that to reflect how many time it has been through drafting. ie, original markup rev 1, next change rev 2.
We are a large scale consulting firm and could reasonably go through 10 or more revisiosn before the client see the design package.

What I'd like to know is: How do your designers keep track of thier designs? I really dont see this as something drafting should be tracking as three drafters work with an office of over 30 designers and as many projects.

[david_peterson]

I would tend to agree with you. I would never dream of trying to track internal "Design Changes" by our designers, or changes via redmarks. I'd be over 100 before DD's were done. Not to mention, IMHO Designers change their minds about every 30 mins on a question. So what ever you did yesterday to make those design changes, in about 2 weeks, you may be right back where you started.
The only useful thing you would get out of this, would be the ability to show your boss how why the project was over the budgeted hours. We do this in a different way. In our billing system for tracking our hours we log them as either new work, or re-work (changes). The client never sees that but Mgmt does.

[cadtag]

tracking strictly internal revisions is not useful IMO. Far to many interations, tentative or otherwise happen before anything gets submitted. A design concept can swap three or more directions in a single design meeting!

Once a set of construction documents has been submitted for agency approval, it's appropriate to start tacking revisions. As a rule, I prefer using alpha characters for iterations post-submittla and pre-bid, along with a "Issue Date" and "Issue Description" for each set of drawings that is created.

At bid time - all revision identifiers are removed from the documents, and the bid set is released. Any edits or changes after the release for bid stage is trakced as a numeric revision, where each sheet maintains its own revision sequence.


Howver, informally, if there ia significant change in design during the ealy stages of a prohject, I may well archive the previous iteration to a temporary folder on the server, just in case we end up reverting.

[jaberwok]

Perhaps it varies by industry.
I've always preferred numeric issues until "release for manufacture" then alpha revisions.

[dgorsman]

Some of our clients have very complex internal revision numbering. For example, we get a drawing for a project identified as Rev. 2. As we issue for review, HAZOP, bid, etc. it becomes Rev. 3A1, 3B1, 3C1, and so forth until IFC (issued for construction) and return to the client where it becomes Rev. 3. In some cases the same drawing may be assigned to multiple small projects, in which case those drawings are Rev. 3A2, 3B2, and so on, and prior to Rev. 3 being returned to the client those changes from the different projects are incorporated back into the same Rev. 3. All I can say is thank Boole for the draconian project control people on both sides who keep it all straight.

[jaberwok]

Some of our clients have very complex internal revision numbering. For example, we get a drawing for a project identified as Rev. 2. As we issue for review, HAZOP, bid, etc. it becomes Rev. 3A1, 3B1, 3C1, and so forth until IFC (issued for construction) and return to the client where it becomes Rev. 3. In some cases the same drawing may be assigned to multiple small projects, in which case those drawings are Rev. 3A2, 3B2, and so on, and prior to Rev. 3 being returned to the client those changes from the different projects are incorporated back into the same Rev. 3. All I can say is thank Boole for the draconian project control people on both sides who keep it all straight.

Ouch !

[kimlance]

Here in our office we keep it simple. Revisions do not start until after the drawings have been signed & sent out to bid, job done. This way when asked for a revision, we charge out on a T & M bases. This way they are not eating up all of our profits. Plus this cuts down on the number of revisions.