AUGIWorld Magazine - November/December 2008 - (Page 19) steel tonnage, concrete volumes, electrical demand, lighting loads, ventilation, and plumbing: put one seat of Revit Structure or MEP in every office if those are on your task list. Do your people print out sheet sets to count parking spaces? Shame on you— that’s a waste of smart people’s time, and other people’s money! Do your people print off sheet sets to check and coordinate wall sections with their plan tags? See the previous sentence. Raise your game Software tools are all about change, and you swim or sink according to your ability to keep moving. Start planning now for the next phase of your office system overhaul. If you don’t have Revit Architecture in sight yet, you are losing ground to those who have adopted the new standard. Those of you who do use Revit or some flavor, are you pulling out of this powerful program all that is can deliver? I was at a company on day one of its first Revit implementation when the project manager asked with a gleam in his eye how soon he could guarantee steel framing lengths on a fast-track project where the general contractor had been hired well before bid documents, and lead time on ordering was already an issue. That could be a lot of pressure on a new team, but I love the attitude! How quickly could your firm certify a materials takeoff at the start of a project? Could you stake a bonus on it? At the other end of the design cycle, Revit Architecture’s room and area tools provide possible revenue streams in facilities management services after the design has been delivered and construction completed. How open are you to thinking beyond your traditional deliverables? Sustainable design, and the regulatory framework to support it, is starting to become an important feature in the architectural landscape. Revit Architecture can couple with analysis software to provide energy consumption data for building designs. This is both a challenge and an opportunity—can your company penetrate this new frontier? to Building Information Modeling will require planning and effort, whether you constitute a single-person office or work for a global corporation. Do not think that you will abandon the methods that have worked for years, but you will have to learn new ones and integrate them. Designers will move from drafting everything to modeling most things and drafting only when 2D is appropriate. Detailers and drafters will work in live views of a model some of the time and in dedicated drafting views some of the time. This will save time, enhance accuracy, and give better drawings. Managers and principals will need to prepare the ground carefully so that initial project teams have clear goals and review processes. Don’t expect people using new systems and technology to work in a vacuum and solve every problem by themselves. Once initial teams have met predefined targets and shown proficiency, they can mix with less experienced users to provide momentum and share expertise. Not all PDF and DWF Files are Created Equal Wilhome.dwg converted to PDF at 300 DPI For full test results visit: http://www.cadzation.com AutoCAD 2008 (412 kb) Acrobat 8.1 (151 kb) AcroPlot Pro (138 kb) TM ® ® Trail blazer or highway hauler? higher quality and smaller size PDF files. Input Formats AcroPlot Pro consistently creates TM If you’re the first firm in your market area to make serious use of Revit Architecture, you can turn this to your advantage. Small firms that make the effort to be nimble in embracing parametric 3D design will see marked improvement in production within a year. Larger firms will naturally take longer to percolate Revit experience through design teams in different offices, and corporate culture will affect the speed and depth of any transition as much as executive will. Whether big or small, high-end or volume, you need to move with the market. Keep your software up to date, and today that means Revit. Don’t take this as a threat so much as a friendly warning—if you snooze, you will lose. Chris Fox is the Revit editor for AUGIWorld, and has written numerous articles on Revit Architecture, Revit Structure and Revit MEP. He has written Autodesk Official Training Courseware for Revit Architecture and Revit Structure and Introducing and Implementing Revit Architecture 2009, published by Autodesk Press. Chris recently moved from the US to Australia, and leads training classes in Revit through corporate, university, and technical school contacts there. You can reach him at chris.fox@archimagecad.com AutoCAD 2000 - 2008 Compatible Batch Creation of PDF, DWF, or Images Automatic Bookmark Creation Custom File Naming Options Create a PDF from any Windows Application Support your people Try it free for 30 days. Whatever your firm’s position in the design marketplace, your best asset is your people, not their tools. Equipping the troops with first-quality gear, training them fully, and providing clear, appropriate challenges puts them and you in the best position to succeed. Implementing a new work system takes care even when changes are small and incremental. Switching from 2D drafting Nov/Dec 2008 Output Formats Corporate Headquarters USA 518 South Route 31 Suite 200 McHenry, IL 60050 847.973.9460 Main 866.845.6881 US Toll Free AcroPlot Pro is a trademark of CADzation. All other band names, product names, or trademarks are property of their respective owners. Copyright © 2007 CADzation. All rights reserved. r rv http://www.cadzation.com
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