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UFO
2016-05-22, 08:36 AM
Hi there,

I'm an architectural technologist working on a large project in Revit 2016. I tried searching for a similar thread, but couldn't find any.

A week or so ago we received a workflow diagram from our appointed structural engineer. The contractor has his own 2 structural engineers (one local and one overseas). The contractor is responsible for the horizontal precast elements of the building (i.e. floors), where the appointed engineer is responsible for the vertical elements (i.e. precast and insitu columns).

We therefore receive 2 Revit models from the appointed engineer after they verify that the local contractor engineer's Revit model has been verified with theirs.

The contractor's overseas engineer (within same firm) works in AutoCAD, the contractor's local engineer works in Revit and the appointed engineer works in Revit....now this is where it gets interesting. All 3 engineers believe that the design and approval process must either happen on paper hardcopies/AutoCAD dwgs/pdfs as the contractor builds from paper plots and not use the Revit model! Revit models will be shared, but the suggested information workflow is the formally issued drawings being revision clouded. Further to this, the workflow between horizontal and vertical approval processes are independent of one another (i.e. 2 production lines that never interact with each other).

To me it seems that Revit has not fully been adopted by the engineers' and are using an AutoCAD workflow process that is familiar. Your thoughts/advice?

Kimberly Fuhrman
2016-05-24, 02:18 PM
I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'll throw in some thoughts. Is there a BIM Execution Plan, and who is administrating that? Who is creating the paper documentation? All of the things that you described can be handled within Revit (documentation, coordination, etc.), and if CAD drawings are required, those can be exported as well. Personally, I'm not of the mindset that Revit and AutoCAD have to be exclusive of one another. If maintained properly, both can play nicely in the BIM sandbox.