Implementation

[tmomeyer]

Well... say hi / welcome to newest company to 'jump ship' from Adt to Revit / BIM! We're a 8-10 person, 6-7 Revit's architectural company working in all areas of commercial, industrial, institutional, residential projects. I did a search on "implementation" in Revit discussion groups and was surprised that only 2 pages of discussions surfaced and none with the only lonely title "implementation!

Interested to hear if anyone is willing to share, a synopsis of their implementation experience.

Particular interest is beyond training, how much work does / did it take in 'family' creation in order to build 'your' library of building "stuff"? Did you build this on the fly, chargeable to a project or if ahead of time as overhead, how long or how much time did it take? Advice?

Thanks!

[Chad Smith]

Check out this thread (http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=63977) for a few tips. It's the only thread that I can think of at the moment that might be of use.

[tmomeyer]

Chad,

I looked at the message thread you linked to. There's not much there, it is mostly about receiving a "bad cad" drawing.


We have finally moved all our users to Revit after 3 years since our first license. It was a very slow transition so that we didn't lose a lot of production downtime.
<snip>
Just looking back on it, the amount of downtime in software upkeep we did could probably be the same amount of downtime if you moved everyone to Revit in one go. But that's just a guess.

I'm more interested in the implementation. We're making the switch 'en masse' as you noted above, we're a small enough firm to just 'do it'. Some info about how long to do the 'family creation' or how you did this, doing it ahead of time as overhead or as chargeable to a project 'on the fly' is what I'm after. I've followed messages here for a couple of months and see some where some are creating 3d content for every conceivable toilet fixture used in 'their' projects. There is some 'out of the box' content, some mfr's, revit city, bimworld, etc, .... how much time is spent beyond that creating your office content and how did you fit it in with billable work?

[twiceroadsfool]

Advice on Revit Implementation:

1. Be in it for the love of the game.

2. Get to know where Dunkin Donuts is, and how quickly you can round trip there

3. LIVE on this message board.

4. Find all the good blogs/sites out there. Ill point you to Steve's (http://revitoped.blogspot.com/) not only because its one of the best, but because it has a largely comprehensive list of others and other websites on the right side that are a WEALTH of information.

5. Be prepared to do everything twice. I dont mean this in a bad way: Be prepared to make your template the way you think is a good idea, then to realize why it isnt, and to start over. Same with families- Be prepared to get excited and try to front load every possible door combo in to one family, only to pull your hair out (see tip number 2) and start over realizing it wont be the end of the world to have more than one door family.

6. Realize you wont be faster than ADT right out of the gate. Realize this. Then realize it again. After a few months in Revit, i can now CRUSH the spead i worked in AutoCAD/ADT. Its going to take time. Be patient...

7. Realize its NOT going to look like ADT, and thats final. Realize the reasons why, and dont dwell on trying to force it. You will unravel a lot of great tools and functionality, all for the sake of a visual cue that is nothing but old hat anyway.

8. Learn to love the elevation symbol. :)

In all seriousness, if there is anything i can do to help, give me a shout out here/email/whatever. :)

[twiceroadsfool]

Chad,

I looked at the message thread you linked to. There's not much there, it is mostly about receiving a "bad cad" drawing.



I'm more interested in the implementation. We're making the switch 'en masse' as you noted above, we're a small enough firm to just 'do it'. Some info about how long to do the 'family creation' or how you did this, doing it ahead of time as overhead or as chargeable to a project 'on the fly' is what I'm after. I've followed messages here for a couple of months and see some where some are creating 3d content for every conceivable toilet fixture used in 'their' projects. There is some 'out of the box' content, some mfr's, revit city, bimworld, etc, .... how much time is spent beyond that creating your office content and how did you fit it in with billable work?


To answer these... If i need the family for one job specifically, then it is no different than me billing time while i drew it. SOME content was overhead, yes... Titleblocks, templates, symbols, markers, dim styles, etc...

Depending on what youre using the 3d model for (CD's vs. clash detection vs costing, etc) the Out of the box content may be fine for most of your needs.

We make a lot of families, but like i said... If its for the project, its for the project. If its not, then it isnt. I know that wasnt very clear, lol.

I know that once i knew what i wanted in the standard template, it still took about a week to get it all loaded/setup/ironed out. Granted, i wasnt on it FT that week... But it takes some time.

[Chad Smith]

Some info about how long to do the 'family creation' or how you did this, doing it ahead of time as overhead or as chargeable to a project 'on the fly' is what I'm after.
Ideally, the more content you can convert to Revit before starting a project the better. Realistically, you will be converting and designing new content on the fly as they arise in the projects. I would think you would have limited project specific content which you will need to create, unless of course you design intricate and specialised projects, in which case I guess you could charge it to the project.

The way I see it, it's your choice to use Revit and you have to realise that there will be times where you will need to create project specific content. The client really shouldn't be charged for the extra time you have to spend creating the content. You're already saving money by using Revit. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
If it's a custom content only to be shown in a single view then draft it in and save yourself some time. If it's going to be seen in many views then model it and it will be automatically displayed in many views, thus saving you time anyway. I don't see charging a client for something that is saving you time as very ethical.


I've followed messages here for a couple of months and see some where some are creating 3d content for every conceivable toilet fixture used in 'their' projects. There is some 'out of the box' content, some mfr's, revit city, bimworld, etc, .... how much time is spent beyond that creating your office content and how did you fit it in with billable work?
It depends on how close the OOTB components are to what you use. For us, we had to create these families to suit the products we use. Most of the family creation work is now done during the project, but in the start I put quite a number of personal hours into getting up to speed, outside of work hours.

[tmomeyer]

Ideally, the more content you can convert to Revit before starting a project the better. Realistically, you will be converting and designing new content on the fly as they arise in the projects. <snip> I don't see charging a client for something that is saving you time as very ethical.
<snip>Most of the family creation work is now done during the project, but in the start I put quite a number of personal hours into getting up to speed, outside of work hours.

Thanks! Not sure I understand your note "don't see charging a client for..." creating content. If we have a lump sum project and charge content creation to it or not, doesn't impact anything ethical; does impact bottom line profit on the project. If we have a project on hourly services and charge the content creation to the project and realize time savings for Revit / BIM inherent savings in less coordination time spent checking details or drawing separate plans/elevations, etc, I still don't see the ethical dilemma you're mentioning... unless the content creation exceeds what it would have taken to produce the project in previous 2d ACAD drafting. Even then, there is a benefit to the client in having a 3d coordinated model, so with open discussion with the client, a balance in chargeable time to the project should be able to be resolved without causing an ethical dilemma.

The personal hours outside of work can be appreciated. Is it necessary? Who does it benefit? Lots of related questions, obviously it benefits the company and you / your job skills, knowledge, marketability, you keeping current / technologically relevant, staying at the top of 'your game', etc, yada, yada, yada!.

[Chad Smith]

... unless the content creation exceeds what it would have taken to produce the project in previous 2d ACAD drafting.
Agreed. I was talking about on an hourly basis.


Even then, there is a benefit to the client in having a 3d coordinated model, so with open discussion with the client, a balance in chargeable time to the project should be able to be resolved without causing an ethical dilemma.
If it's all been discussed with the client prior to starting, then I don't see any problem.


The personal hours outside of work can be appreciated. Is it necessary? Who does it benefit? Lots of related questions, obviously it benefits the company and you / your job skills, knowledge, marketability, you keeping current / technologically relevant, staying at the top of 'your game', etc, yada, yada, yada!.
Is it necessary? Well... that all depends on how much time you want to put into it. For me, I wanted to get more productive faster, and it was my choice to do so.

The way I see it, both the company and myself benefited. The company got some free work, and I added to my skills of the software and made me a more valuable employee.
When it comes to complex software such as CAD, you are either a passive worker or not. All to often I see users just want the content and answers to be there. They see CAD software as a tool of which they learn just enough about how to use it to complete their work. To use software like Revit efficiently, you need to immerse yourself in it. That's why we (AUGI members) are on this forum.

I really can't answer this question for you. It's a personal decision.

[clog boy]

Go the Toyota-way: build, improve, learn, (re)build, improve, learn... and be very patient. You'll have to overcome your frustration many times before things finally start to 'click'.
Be prepared to do a lot of 3D-modelling and Excel-like programming.

And, as been said before, be prepared to do everything twice. When in doubt, the program is always right, hence you are always wrong. Learn to accept that. Then accept Revit isn't what you 'think it should be', and adjust to what you learn about it's nature by reading the error messages. The road to enlightment will have many pointers, you'll just need to see and read them.

Good luck, and have fun ^^