"CAD Management" and Revit

[Scott D Davis]

There is a conversation that started on the Autodesk Newsgroups about CAD Managers, and what requirements there might be for such a person. Here is the list:


Architectural drawing types: Plan, Section, Elevation, relationships.
Line weight, pouche, graphic hierarchy.
Design and documentation process: PD, SD, DD, CD & CA phases, relationships to each other and CAD processes, intended audience for graphics, reuse of work in later phases and building lifecycle.
Output control: CTBs/STBs, PlotStyles, pltters, color, and relationships to line weight, screen, etc.
Base files and Sheet files: what is drawn where and why.
ModelSpace and PaperSpace: : what is drawn where and why, relationship to scale.
Scale: annotation scale, unit conversion scale, plot scale, view port scale.
Units: architectural, metric, unitless AutoCAD.
Blocks: what should be made into blocks, what should be included in blocks, how blocks are built (layer 0 issues, block orientation, etc.)
Xrefs: relationship to blocks, relationship to layers, reuse of drawn information (in house reuse as well as consultant reuse, implications of forced properties)
Dimension & text styles: relationship to scale, child DimStyles.
Office standards: implications for productivity, staff sharing, new hire training. Enforcement philosophy.
Customization: implications for productivity, relationship to standards enforcement, implications and opportunities for user customization, customization location and relationship to sharing, upgrades, etc.

So what does this mean in the new Revit BIM world? According to this list, many CAD Managers are going to be out of business, because Revit takes care of almost all the things in this list for you! Looking for some thoughts about what job duties an Revit Manager or BIM Manager might have.

[mlgatzke]

Scott,

I see the job of a CAD Manager / BIM Manager evolving from a programmer/guardian to a family component creator and "filter". By filter I mean the one person in the firm that families are submitted through and evaluated as meeting company standards and being built to meet the highest, foreseen level of usability. I think they will also be the person brought in at the beginning of a project to assist in the implementation of each project and to assure that the project file is sound enough for the project before users begin to populate it. I see the new role of BIM Manager being similar to Steve Stafford's role at WATG. Perhaps Steve would like to chime in on this one?

[Chad Smith]

As the self-appointed CAD Manager of our company, my work load hasn't reduced because of the switch to Revit. I believe that the CAD Management role is slowly heading towards a full-time role, even in the smallest of work environments.

While Revit may take care of the drafting side, their is still a lot of work involved in maintaining the family library, evaluating new families from work colleagues (as MG said) and adjusting/improving them to suit the office family standards. The CAD Manager needs to be the one that colleagues can come to with Q's and problems and you need to be able fix these issues whilst they continue with their work.
Most users don't want to know how something like a family is created, just that when it's loaded, it does what it's supposed to do. You still need to technical person around.

Having no CAD Management would result in thrown together families which would have a myriad of inconsistent Object Styles and Materials, and everything just falls apart because people don't know where to find things.
I know this, because before I came to this company 8 years ago, the AutoCAD environment was an absolute mess. The only person who could work on a project was the person who started it. After 2 years of programming, block creation and the addition of a Standards manual, we now have a smooth running AutoCAD system. I'm in the process of doing the same to Revit.

Just my thoughts. :smile:

[Danny Polkinhorn]

Scott,

For items 1-3, while a Cad Manager may have input into these items, the production standards of the company are not tied to the tool used to create drawings. I think that's why you italicized them.

For 4-11, a good Cad Manager will have taken care of these things through customization, but doesn't necessarily "manage" these things on a long term basis. I wouldn't say that these are a major part of my duties as an (Auto)CAD Manager.

I would put 12 and 13 in the same category as 1-3.

I would agree with the others that Family creation could fall to the BIM manager, but more likely the BIM manager will be the person teaching others how to create families (and teaching other things). As for Steve, there's probably not a better family creator out there (the fact that he teaches a class at AU is testimony), so I wouldn't say that his family creation duties were out of necessity or because that was his job, but out of a desire to have well-built families. The rest of us are certainly capable of building families, just not as good as his.

Scott, your list is a little short-sighted and doesn't cover many of the duties of "Cad Manager". Do a search on the Cad Manager forum for "job description" or "duties" and you'll see why. Many of us don't just manage AutoCAD. So maybe the title will change, but not the need to have someone in the constantly evolving job of Cad/BIM Manager.

My 2¢,

[hand471037]

Scott, your list is a little short-sighted and doesn't cover many of the duties of "Cad Manager". Do a search on the Cad Manager forum for "job description" or "duties" and you'll see why. Many of us don't just manage AutoCAD. So maybe the title will change, but not the need to have someone in the constantly evolving job of Cad/BIM Manager.My 2¢,

yeah. I can see the title 'BIM Captain' or 'BIM Content & System Manager' being a little closer to home. For a lot of the 'CAD' management has nothing to do with 'CAD' per say, but more with training, content management, standards management, related IT issues, and the like.

Only real difference I see is that those with a stronger understanding of how a building goes together and of the overall process of the job will have more value than those with raw CAD or programming skills. For those folks that understand how to add value to the BIM system via relevant and helpful content, manipulation of IFC/ODBC exporting, or additional API-interfacing tools that DIRECTLY relate to the tasks that their office faces will be worth a lot to those firms. Revit makes everyone focus more on the Content and the Project than on the Software and it's Customization, not just us Designers ;-)

But in regards to Training, Implementation, and Content Management, I see no difference at all, other than the domain of experance is rather different. I think it would be hard for someone outside of our industry to learn Revit and then teach it to others, whereas AutoCAD's a little more universal in this way...

[knurrebusk]

"I think it would be hard for someone outside of our industry to learn Revit"

I´ll be testing that theory out in the next months he he!
On my neighbours daughter, that is on her way to study medicine.

[Scott D Davis]

The "list" I posted came from a discussion about CAD Managers in an AutoCAD NG, and is obviously slanted toward AutoCAD. I posted the list, because, in my mind, almost all of the 'management' issues in the list are non-issues in Revit, because it takes care of so much "CAD Management" for us.

I agree Danny, that the role of this 'manager' is changing rapidly with tools like Revit making headway into the market. These are the issues I was attempting to spark conversation about. No longer do we have to worry abot CTB's and STB's and plot styles. We need to refocus efforts on itmes such as "proper parametrics" in families!

[JamesVan]

Robert Green has written a number of articles outlining the multitude of tasks bestowed on a CAD Manger. Here's one example:
http://management.cadalyst.com/cadman/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=102903

It seems that focusing on clean families and accurate shared parameters is only a small piece of the puzzle for our future. Quite frankly, I am much more interested in collaboration with other disciplines, making the Revit-to-<your favorite analysis package> connection more seamless, finding out how our estimators do what they do, and infuse all this into a leaner, meaner 'Archi-Neering' machine.

Training is a big part of our responsibilities, but more important may be "change management." Proper training on Revit is fairly easy - getting team members to think in terms of objects and parametrics is quite another story.