Large Scale Project Organization

[info264098]

We're doing a large scale project that we are taking into Design Development. This project encompasses several office towers, several residential towers, two shopping malls, an opera house, and two hotels. It's the equivalent of about 4 NYC city blocks in size. Any ideas as to how to avoid disaster? File management tips? Currently we have the site split into 18 parts- one per building and one for the cores. Thanks!

[info264098]

Thanks. We've already received approval on the 3D model and our SD Revit model and are going ahead to DD with our current Revit models. We are wondering what the best way is for a small team to develop such a large project in Revit. Here are two specific questions:

1. We currently have 18 files that are xref'd into one file where we have all the annotation. Should we have our annotation on the smaller xref files or on the file where they are xref'd?
2. Our team is very small and we have one person working per building/Revit file. Do you advise creating a central file for each file as a safety precaution?

Also, if you have any experience in dealing with such giant projects, do you have any other sage advice to offer as to how to go about quickly developing this giant project in Revit?

[BMcCallum]

There are lots of good posts about worksets and central files. With a bit of reading you'll be a lot more comfortable deploying worksets across multiple files. Our approach has been to communicate our workset names to the consultants and stick to a naming scheme that is predictable.

This is a must-read: Autodesk's Model Performance Technical Note (http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.autodesk.com%2Fadsk%2Ffiles%2Frevit_tech_note.pdf&ei=HMxKTcXKE4P_8AaF7u2ODw&usg=AFQjCNHPIniU9mHWCOjdPs4reDKPbBehKg&sig2=F9lTZswUjnVvvSbrGfRpcg)

Steve Stafford's blog (http://revitoped.blogspot.com/2010/10/workset-visibility-in-linked-files.html) is a great resource.

A recent article from AEC Edge (http://digitaleditiononline.com/publication/?i=49355&p=11) about large projects.

We're doing a 1.5M SF project in Revit using many of these techniques. The project team is 20+ users in Revit from multiple cities. Not only is a project of this size possible, it's manageable.

The biggest thing you can do is communicate. Always. Frequently. Revit requires communication.

Keep reading on the forums, there's a wealth of knowledge out there.

[cdatechguy]

One person per building? You must have a pretty long timeline! We have 7 buildings we are working on at once and have only 5 Full Time people working on them and need more!

Definitely suggest working with central files and worksharing, even though you have one person per building, you can shutoff worksets to help speed up the model.

As for annotation stick with all sheets per building. You can use your model with all the projects linked to populate your drawing index if needed. Most people don't have the computer power to load in all the files and work on DD and CD sets...

BTW....Worksets are not that hard...the only issue we have is remembering to check which workset your working in, as when you create your new local file each morning you inherit the workset from the last person to synchronize with the central file.

[Steve_Stafford]

My 0.02 cents. 18 separate buildings all as part of "one project" are still 18 buildings and you and Revit would be better off trying to tackle each building on its own, assuming they aren't all one building with 18 distinct occupancy/functional zones. For the composite presentation/analysis you can use Navisworks.

My prediction is that one model as the documentation model for everything will probably not survive for linked file limitations, performance and project demand reasons. What if the buildings get phased and delivered by multiple contractors and suddenly you need completely separate construction packages all with differing time lines.

[BMcCallum]

Good point Steve. In fact, we've had discussions here about multiple plot files (our term for the documentation model) with only the required model files linked into each one.

We see that multiple plot files might be a solution to staggered tender packages as we need to track revisions on each tender package while still keeping the model up-to-date.

[gvluisi]

We're doing a 1.5M SF project in Revit using many of these techniques. The project team is 20+ users in Revit from multiple cities. Not only is a project of this size possible, it's manageable.

Bruce, would you mind ellaborating on where your central model is located and the dynamics involved when a Revit team is not in the same office. thanks

[BMcCallum]

Initially, our central files were located on the file server in the studio with the most team members. Those in other studios were essentially accessing files at internet speeds. Save times locally were about 5 minutes but could take up to 30 minutes when saving from another studio. It was a drag.

Then we switched to Revit Server. Same save times in each studio. Awesome.

We have an MPLS VPN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPLS_VPN) between our four studios that is accelerated by Riverbed devices. We have just deployed Revit Server in two studios with another expected to be online by the end of February.

As I said in an earlier post, it's all about communication. Everyone in the firm has access to Microsoft Office Communicator. We use that, email and phone to coordinate with the team. MOC provides voice, video and desktop sharing.

RS doesn't talk to the Worksharing Monitor so we're doing more with MOC now than ever before. We've decided not to install Bluestreak Desktop.

[echo]

Glad to hear someone having success with the Revit Server! We went a different direction with a private cloud, similar collaborative environment across state and national borders. We also use Spark internally, but Skype has outpaced the tech and allows screensharing now. While our cloud allows users to run Worksharing Monitor, there are many people running Terminal Servers (we dabbled, too) where Worksharing Monitor does not function and as you experienced MOC and other tools are useful. We also saw a significant uptick in demand for Webex and GoToMeeting.


...one model as the documentation model for everything will probably not survive for linked file limitations, performance and project demand reasons.

This is very true. I hate to refute my colleague who wrote the article, this strategy does not work for all projects, and is not generally adviseable with a team larger than 12 FTE's in Revit (total, period). This works for one smaller building, or part of one building only. For a truly large project, it will not function. The article is one example of many strategies.

Generally, we try to advise teams to break down models by scope as much as possible. We currently have a 500,000SF project with a CUP that connects to an existing building and there is renovation scope in the existing building. Therefore, we are up to 25+ models. The sheets live within each scope model (Shell/Core, Interiors, Existing, Furniture/Equipment, CUP, Site, etc.). And, we picked one model to house the Drawing List, Cover Sheets, etc. We did not create a separate "Sheets" model because the team is upwards of 25+ Revit users, it would be total chaos when we went to print the sets. The sheets and scope parallel staffing assignments, keeping the "attendance" in each model to under 12 personnel at at time, whenever possible.

Just sayin'.

-LC

[antman]

And, we picked one model to house the Drawing List, Cover Sheets, etc. We did not create a separate "Sheets" model because the team is upwards of 25+ Revit users, it would be total chaos when we went to print the sets.

How do you handle detail sheets? Especially for details that are common to multiple buildings. I haven't seen a way to reference a detail callout from one project to a view in another project. Do you just manually check references like in the old days of hand and CAD drafting? The automatic updating of references is in my top 5 favorite things in Revit.

[chodosh]

Good question. It depends on the project team, and how comfortable each group might be with different methods. Sometimes, one model for detail sheets works, and is maintained from one place always (always) using only Drafting Views, then Insert View From can be used to update all the other models and while it will duplicate the sheets in other models, it does create a standard central repository for them to be maintained. It's a lot of work, though, but easier in some respects because some of the innanity of checking things as we did in CAD is semi-automated. Again, that's just one method of many, I am sure.

[david_peterson]

My 0.02 cents. 18 separate buildings all as part of "one project" are still 18 buildings and you and Revit would be better off trying to tackle each building on its own, assuming they aren't all one building with 18 distinct occupancy/functional zones. For the composite presentation/analysis you can use Navisworks.

My prediction is that one model as the documentation model for everything will probably not survive for linked file limitations, performance and project demand reasons. What if the buildings get phased and delivered by multiple contractors and suddenly you need completely separate construction packages all with differing time lines.
We are in that same situation. We do have a model for each building and discipline. We also have all of them linked into a site/civil model (which we can't open without all the links loaded). So we have the site/civil model with all the links (unloaded). Site/civil only loads the struct models (since they are the first to go in) when they want to re-draw the outline of the buildings.

[info264098]

Thanks for all your input. Cheers!