Conduit Prefabrication from Revit Models: Software Solution from a Hardware Company

JARED REGAN: So good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining us on this bright and lovely morning here. My name is Jared Regan with GTP Services. And we do the development for the Greenlee Bendworks application. My background has been in electrical construction. Cut my teeth with an electrical subcontractor leading their prefabrication, their family development, their automation out of Tempe, Arizona before I joined the GTP team. And with me we also have Greg Cummins from Schuler Haas. And he'll be the co-speaker today. So as we go through-- [INAUDIBLE] clicker here. So this is our class summary, right? We're going to look at the Greenly Bendworks application.

And just by a show of hands, is everybody in here electrical contractors or engineering side? Electrical contractors? All right. And who here is currently prefabricating conduits in a shop? All right. And then is probably the easier one. Who owns a Greenlee bender in their shop? And so that's why it really makes sense to run with this application. So we'll look at how it ties into your existing benders, existing workflows, and how it can deliver solutions. And then Greg will go through a case study on a train station that they did up in New York.

And so we're going to start this one out by looking at the-- you want to set that to play. We've got a video of the 1055 bender. Clcik in there. There we go. Has everybody had a-- has everybody seen this one? The auto bender? You can throw conduits at it. It spits them out in under a few minutes here. I believe this is a 3 inch EMT. It goes through the cycles. It's got the carouseling shoe supports, stainless steel rigid, aluminum, all the parts and pieces.

It takes the outputs from Bendworks in a CSV format, knows the locations, the bend radius, all that information. It feeds it in, and it just proceeds to pull through here. And something that's not visible is there's a human user interface over on this side, where you can actually just push in offsets, things like that, for non-bin projects. It's got a lot of application. But this is where we see a lot of toolmakers going, automation. It's not that people can't bend conduits. It's just that you're going to get rotator cuff injuries.

You want to take that manual labor out of it. And even on this size of pipe, you're going to end up using a hydraulic anyways. So being able to take those workflows and be able to not only automate them, but make them a little bit safer, is a nice feature of this. As you can see, it does its axial rotations here. It's also got a little label maker down there so that you can track all the items that are coming out of this.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: Make what's it?

AUDIENCE: Mufflers.

JARED REGAN: Mufflers? I believe you can. But we'll have to see on that one. One thing that's also not visible is that it's got an electronic fence that-- so if I were to wander in here and into a position where I might be clipped by that bender, it will just shut off. And so this is a-- it's got a pretty big footprint. It's going to release the bend in a second here. And then a gentleman will come in and take that off of there. And so--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: It doesn't put the label on the pipe automatically, but it'll print it off right there on the bottom. You just throw it on there. So--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] barcoding [INAUDIBLE].

JARED REGAN: Yeah. It's a Brady labeler, I believe, or it might be a Canon. But yeah, a minute and 48 is how long it takes to put in that dual 45 offset. And it's got a pretty big footprint. And it's a reasonably expensive unit. And so a lot of people, when they see the Bendworks application, they assume that it ties only into that 1055. And that's not necessarily the case, right? You know, there is some limitation on the market for that three-- I think it's a 3/4 of a million dollar bender, give or take.

Jay would know, but. This is more common. This is what-- I assume this is what everybody's seen in their shop, the A81s, the 855s, the triple nickels, those parts and pieces. So as we go through this, I'll explain how it ties into your existing benders as well, and how it can just be integrated into your existing prefabrication workflows.

And so one of the things that we've needed to address is the complexity of actually bending conduits. A little bit unique. On the fabrication side, you [INAUDIBLE] the mechanical side, there's a lot more welding, grooved fittings, things like that. When you actually have to deform objects is when it becomes tricky.

And so different benders will have different radii on them. You've got different inside, outside diameters on it. Just the notion of placing all those couplings, right? I mean, that's a lot of clicks to be doing in there, as well as coordinating it. And then also being able to account for changes in the inside, outside diameter by material.

And one of the biggest curveballs that I've dealt with on the conduit prefabrication side has been, where do we place the marks? I mean, do people want to see back a 90? Do they want to see center to center on bends? Do they want to see just the elevation, and they'll figure out how high to kick it. There's a lot of different ways to approach this. The application also is nice because it creates a standard that's very easy to follow.

And so there are some specific goals that they're trying to achieve on this, right? Minimize cuts and scrap. If you can limit the amount of times you're running a saw, you limit your exposure on getting cut. If we can reduce the amount of scrap, it's going to save you guys materials on that. There's a lot of ROI that comes in there. The ability to place couplings and create the accurate representation of the actual insulation system is going to be important. And that's something we'll touch on a case study.

Because once you have your couplings placed now, it becomes much easier to coordinate your hangars around it and create a more holistic representation of how that system is going to go up. We also got the conduit prefabrication documentation, as well as one of the really nice upsides to it is the ability to bring in all the conduit settings. So I'll show you how you select based off the material and the bender, it sizes the radius on it. If you need to go into custom radius, it'll do the concentric bends and break that out with specific measurements.

So let's take a look at how you draw with Bendworks. So it's the same conduit command. It's all the same drawing tools. But you select based off of the material and the bender. And so that's going to be-- because your shoe's going to influence what the radius is on the actual drawing. And so one of the upsides too is that it only allows you to select the sizes that are specific to that bender. So it's not like I'm going to draw a 4 inch and say I'm going to put it on 855, where it's just not constructable. So there's a layer of QA in there that's very beneficial to ensure that you're not sending the shop anything that they wouldn't want to work with.

So this is the standard drawing that I usually do in the live demonstrations. It's just an offset into a 90. These are the general settings. And I'll dive deeper into this. But as you can see, it optimizes that segment length up here. We can push all these files out. And I'll bring that up. Comes out in the CSV, which can be fed into the 855 or the 1055 automatic benders. And there's also this text representation we'll also look at, where it's giving us our marks, label information, material information, trade size information. So that in a nutshell is the basic workflow of how you draw, split, and generate that documentation inside of Revit.

And so going through the settings here, we have a number of features on the customization. First and foremost, we have the ability to create a setup file. So if you have job-specific settings that you want to use in your prefabrication, what you can do is you can just email that to someone. They can load that in. Their settings are immediately aligned. And now you guys are-- it's easier to bring people in. Because I'm sure that everybody here, probably-- if you're working on the bend side, you're probably working on multiple projects, juggling different specs. So that's one of the easy ways we're able to make it a cleaner collaboration tool.

We've also got the ability to define the bend sections and the straight sections. So if you have the ability to get 20 foot sticks in there, and that's what you want to use, you can incorporate that. So it will recognize, all right, if this has bends in it, we're going to split it as a 10 footer so that it fits right on the bender. If we have a long run of 200 feet of straight, it will place 20 footers in there. So it does that material break out. It also chop a 20 footer to an 18 to make it fit. So it looks at how it can optimize.

We also have the default gap used by the coupling. So has anybody-- did anybody use the first release of Bendworks, out a couple of years ago? It had some problems. The conduits were touching inside of the coupling, and then you couldn't tab select the run anymore. And then you couldn't coordinate the couplings. So there were some issues in the first release there. And so that has been resolved. You can coordinate the couplings after they're placed. You can define what the gap is in there so the engagement is more accurate. So you get a more accurate prefabrication representation of it.

As well as the ability to control the display precision. Some of the feedback that was given was, a lot of the measurements were given in decimal feet. Like, that's-- your tape measure's probably not in decimal feet. And if it goes to 256, odds are it's not-- your contractual obligation's not going to be to that limit. So you have more control over the dimensional display precision and how the information arrives at the shop, as well as the number of bends on a nonstandard [INAUDIBLE]. So if you're doing like a 40 inch sweep on telecom or something like that, it will give you all the measurements, the angles, and just be able to parse that out.

One of the other items that has been incorporated in here is the ability to control graphic override. So if you're coordinating the couplings, and you get over 10 feet, you have things that are too close together. You can't get the-- it's not going to able to get the hook on it for the bender. It will notify you, and it can be color coordinated. So it's very easy to identify where you're having those issues, and be able to identify them earlier on in the process to make sure that, again, you want to have an accurate representation of that prefab unit coming out.

So this is the ability to control where the export files go. And we also have the manual bender file. That's the difference betweem the text and the CSV. So if it's going to be human readable or not. And then I'll go through these settings in a second here.

And so one of the things that is important here is that when we're prefabricating, we don't want to send out incorrect information. So this is a process of unsplitting the couplings. As soon as it does it, because it knows the path of where it placed that information. It's embedded in the conduits. It immediately deletes all the files out of that, out of your computer. So if you've unsplit it, it's not just going to leave those files lingering out there for you to possibly send out incorrectly. You're not going to end up with duplicate names, things like that. So there's a layer of QA that runs in there.

Right now we have two settings running. We've got the output file synchronization, as well as the audit conduit split after change. So I run through. It will place the coupling in there. But if I were to adjust that, it will launch this window for me. And it will start carrying out warnings. So it's an automated process so that as you're coordinating, if I were to stretch that out, it notifies me. It says the conduit run length exceeds the default nominal length.

Because that 11 feet, we don't have 11 foot sticks. And so again, we're trying to figure out how we can give you all the tools to run the QA without trying to get too far ahead of it. [INAUDIBLE] go back, sorry. And so as you can see with that as well, the red outline was running on the graphic display there. So you get that visibility. You get the ability to capture all that information.

And so one of the workflows that I'm more comfortable with is, I draw it. I coordinate those couplings. I can adjust those things. And you have the option of just doing a quick QA and an export of that information. And so if you're having problems and if you're concerned about that dialog popping up every time you adjust a conduit, move a coupling, you can turn that off, turn it on. There's a lot more user-friendly capabilities that have been built into it as of recently.

And one of the nice features too is that we've incorporated the conduit run cleanup into the Bendworks application. So is everybody in here familiar with the joys of having to reinput all that information into conduits over and over again as you go through that coordination process? So what we've been able to do here is give you an interface on this top tab here where you can select those parameters. And these are all custom parameters. If you guys were to load this in on your machine, that list would look very different.

So interoperable with your existing parameters. Now, it takes a lot of the typing out of the lines. It can be set to run automatically, or we can run through it. And so a representation of that would be we have three parameters that we generate. We've got from, to, and ID in here. And so if I were to take that fitting and delete it out, and then redraw it in, it's-- this was originally a piping software. It thinks of it as a separate instance.

So it wipes out any of that instance information out of it. And so what we've been able to do is set it up so that the same thing will occur if you start adjusting it. Even if it's a 90 that's facing a different direction, it's regenerating the instance and removing a lot of that information. So what we can do is we can go through the cleanup interface. We can find our parameters.

And now it'll keep that information consistent throughout the room. So if I select-- if I click that button, it will QA the entire project for me, see if there's any gaps in the coupling, in the fittings, anywhere where I might not have updated that information, and just backfeed it so that it always stays consistent. So the information's not in there. We can run the cleanup, and it pushes it all the way through. And if we were running automatically, that would be happening in the background. It can cost some work sharing issues from time to time, just because it touches a fair amount of information. So--

So I got that one. So the other item that was kind of problematic in the application initially was that if we're selecting based off the bender and the material, if we need to switch benders, if we need to switch materials, if we need to go from rigid to PVC, anything like that, when you create a-- when you change the conduit type, it was very similar where it would wipe all that information out of it.

And it's important to make sure that you're using that conduit change type reapply type because when you do that, that's when it actually updates the bend radius. If you were to start just updating trade sizes and things like that, you're not going to see those things necessarily updating the way you'd like to see them.

And so we've been able to fix that glitch in the software as well, where you have the ability to update, change the materials, change the bender, not lose any of your information, and still have all of it live in the conduit run schedules as well. And then as you can see, we go through the change type. I can swap it from INC over to EMT.

And all of our information is retained in there. And so when we look at how conduits are split currently, they-- we have three options here. We have start, end, and optimize. And so the start, it assumes that you're clicking the start of the run on the conduit, and it tries to make that the longest leg, and then place couplings on. You can also do the opposite, which is assume that you're clicking a start, you want the last one to be the longest, and it works backwards. And then the optimization will look at both of them and take whichever one has the least amount of cuts.

And so on this one, because we selected the start, it was able to optimize and get that 10 foot length on the run here. But at the same time, this one, because it knows not to place the coupling too close to the bend, it had to recess a little bit. So they're going to have to make two cuts over here.

And that's-- different people would want to bend this different ways. I know a lot of contractors would prefer to place the coupling right there, do the offset into the 90, and bend them on separate sticks. We would hope that with the use of the Greenlee application, people will get more and more comfortable putting three bends into a conduit. But that's always been an item of discussion.

And so looking at how we coordinate couplings, right? So if it's going to try and optimize this, it's going to try and do 10 feet all the way through. But the problem is, is that on that outside leg over here, we end up with a cascade of couplings. And depending upon how many offsets we're going through, how many times we're changing direction, it can start to look a little bit strange. And everybody installs couplings cascade, right?

We don't like those things lined up. We like to move the scissor lift and have to run the screwdriver, do the set screw in different locations. That's what the field wants, right? Yeah. We want to be able to move those couplings around. So the aligned couplings tool has been added there.

And so if I'm looking at how I can keep all these things within 10 feet, I'm going to snap a dimension and I can see where that's at. So I'll be able to bring this whole row up now, shift that up 1 foot 7. I'll align these couplings back. I've created some more cuts from the mathematically optimized layout. But now I'm in a position to deliver the field what they would like to see.

And so once I've got that coordinated, now I can do the conduit check and export and run through. And I can review it, make sure that I haven't gone over 10 feet. I'm not over bent. I don't have things too close to each other. I can kick the information out, and I'm ready to start bending and coordinating.

And so this is important because when we look at where the hangers land, we can start coordinating that around the coupling location and figuring out how we can get a situation where we have everything laid out. We know where all the parts and pieces are going to go. And now we can strap the conduits to the unit strut and start pre-planning that. And that's something that we'll be able to take a look at on how that's effective in the case study later on through the presentation here. [INAUDIBLE]?

Oh, there it goes. All right, yeah. So we're jumping ahead here, so. This is the file output. And so this is what gets get sent down to the shop. So it's calling out-- it'll pull the project number, project name, all that information. Right now I'm just in a generic project. We've also got the bender, the material, trade size, the pipe identification. This was the first conduit on the run.

So it doesn't have a segment before. But it does identify the segment after. So it creates a line of numbers that's very easy to follow, so that it's very easy to put those parts and pieces together. You associate that with a labeler, and it's very easy to mark that stuff out and have it organized. And so the way we would bend this is, it gives us the number of bends on this. We have the bend marks. And so these would be pulled in this fashion from the same end.

So you pull the tape once, you make your three marks. And because Greenlee owns the manufacturing side, they have a great understanding of that bender. It lines right up with the hook. It's very simple to use. You just slide it right in there, it lines up. And usually this is the one that I'll bring to a contractor if we're doing a demonstration. And I've probably bent five of these on an 855 using the manual text files, and they usually come out within about a 16th of an inch.

So it's very, very accurate and very sharp. The way the information is read is that, it's gotten an axial rotation here. And it's also positive-- it's also important to note that all these are relative to the first bend. So I would rotate it 180. I would leave it at 180, and go from there. So you're not trying to coordinate and trying to figure it out. So if you put a digital protractor on there and it starts at zero, that number will line up with wherever it's at throughout. And so it's designed in the mindset of what's the prefab shop going to be looking at, and how do we make sure we're not sending them confusing information.

So if we went through this, we'd line the hook up right here, bend the 45, rotate at 180, bend the 45 up, leave it there at that 180 point. Bend the 90 down, and we'd have our offset into the 90 there. Don't have to make any cuts to it, and it's ready to be delivered out to the field. So [INAUDIBLE]?

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah, thanks Jared.

JARED REGAN: Yeah.

GREG CUMMINS: Good morning. I'd like to just talk to you a little bit about a case study that we worked on with using Bendworks. And just some of the successes that we've seen using it. It's a software that's really bringing the field personnel and the prefabrication department and the BIMers all together. Because what we're producing in BIM is now a one-to-one ratio of what we're producing in the field. And getting the foreman and people on board with that has been a huge benefit for us.

So with this particular train station, we had at least 10 different systems from speaker to cameras to power to security, lighting, all sorts of different systems in here. Everything coming out of the main electric room in the basement. We've had to jump up and over. There's a skylight here that we had to narrowly sneak by. Then we had to waterfall down, and then we're coming across this tunnel here, which has about a foot clearance space overhead. And then from there, we're coming up to the platform, and we're branching out to the west, and we're branching out to the east.

So this kind of gives you a little overview of what we were dealing with here. Two main trunk lines. First one has 16 conduits with about 3,000 feet total. Again, all starting from here, coming out, over, down, through the tunnel, and then up. And then the second rack, which we're still working on right now, has 14 conduits. Again, coming from here, out this way, over. There's a branch off here, and then it cascades down, over and up. So. There's kind of an isometric view.

JARED REGAN: And so what are those white zones that you got detailed?

GREG CUMMINS: So the white zones here are-- basically determine the segments. And what we did was, we prefabricated our own hanger system, and we incorporated them into our drawing here so that we can kind of see, this is section one, and section two, section three, section four, and so on. And we built the entire section here, racked it, screwed it down, and then set it aside and then worked on the next one. I'll show you a little bit more in a minute. This is the other rack. Again, we're dealing with offsets and kick 90s and everything here.

And these are the production drawings or the spool drawings that we've created from that, which allows the guys in the prefabrication shop-- here's kind of a key plan to show them, this is the entire run that you're focusing on. Here's a blow-up of the part that you're-- particular section that you're working on. It's a little hard to see, but with the Bendworks software, and when you split the conduit, you can label each piece sequentially.

So if I wanted to do the fire alarm, I could call it FA_0001. And then as you continue to cut it, it will continue the numbering sequence, 0002, 0003, and so on. So it really allows you to make sure that when you're assembling the rack, and if you see maybe a piece that's 009, and all the others are 003, it might throw a little flag and say, something's going on here.

JARED REGAN: And you've also got those tagged up on the upper right hand corner, right?

GREG CUMMINS: Yep. Yep. They're tagged here again. So when the guys are throwing the conduit through the bender, they know what the piece is. They can either mark it or label it, however they want to identify it. Usually just a marker right on the pipe. Here's a plan view that shows them the lengths. I've got the rack built in there as well, so they can see where to place the coupling or where to attach the rack.

This rack is unique. It kind of splits off here. And I've provided two section markers here to give the guys, again, in the shop which one maybe is on top, which one is on the bottom. Because looking at a 3D view, it might be hard to understand. But here it clearly calls out the pipe, and what's on the top, what's on the bottom.

Again, same thing here. Everything's dimensioned. Calls out. You see the gap right in here, which is the gap right in here. So try to give the people in the field or in the shop as much information as they can, and this seems to be the information that they need to get it completed. Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: Does your software automatically create the views based on what you've named your assemblies, and it splits [INAUDIBLE]?

GREG CUMMINS: I've created the own views myself.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: Yep, yep. Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: I have not looked into the Revit assemblies too much yet. I'm having too much fun with Bendworks right now, so. Let's see. This again allowed us to preplan for all the hanger locations based on the racks that we constructed. It's a little hard to see here, but it allows you to preplan for your hanger locations.

JARED REGAN: And you've got your layout points on there as well too.

GREG CUMMINS: Correct. Correct. Your layout points are also on there. So when we started, we figured-- we sat down with a foreman. We sat together. And understanding that he knew that what I was going to draw was what was going to be built. We worked through it together. We worked through the entire length of the run. And we ended up with 18 segments for the first run.

And we did about six segments, or about 1,000 feet, installed in one day, using two laborers. So in the shop, again, this is six segments, each with 16 conduits, 10 foot segments. Ship those to the site. And the guy can basically bring a duck lift down, hoist it up. And actually, for this particular case, we used aircraft cable to hang our racks, which allowed a little bit of play for the connecting of the couplings. So one guy lifts it up, screws them together. And off they go.

JARED REGAN: So 1,000 feet a day. That's pretty standard for everyone, right? That's what we're seeing in the field these days, right? No, we're trying to-- well.

AUDIENCE: You mentioned that [INAUDIBLE] tell you where you need a junction box [INAUDIBLE] I was looking in your isometric views. Looked like you had a little bit of [INAUDIBLE] 360 in those bends [INAUDIBLE]. Is that a different add-in, or is that included [INAUDIBLE] where it will tell you [INAUDIBLE] 360 [INAUDIBLE] here?

JARED REGAN: If it's on a run. So there is some QA inside of Bendworks, but I think you're thinking of a separate application.

AUDIENCE: OK.

JARED REGAN: Yeah.

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah. So.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] you guys joining the segments, are you having trouble making them, when they're all lined up, [INAUDIBLE] instead of maybe staggering them a little bit [INAUDIBLE]?

GREG CUMMINS: Since it was all built in the shop, we knew--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: Well, we built it in the shop, and then we disassembled it and created it up here and sent it out. So we knew that it was going to go together perfectly.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] I don't have any doubts that it would match [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: For the coupling? The setscrew?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah, they're just--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] setscrew.

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah, they're all--

JARED REGAN: Yeah, it's not threaded. Having to wheel that thing in. This is all EMT, so.

GREG CUMMINS: Yes, sir. Yes. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] for your [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: Yes. Yep. We included the cabling, the racking. You can see here. Everything was there. All the foreman needed was basically a screw gun. So. Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] manage all your [INAUDIBLE].

GREG CUMMINS: Probably hard to quantify. But it was understanding the process and sitting down with a foreman, working out the entire run, and then hitting the Split button and just kind of massaging the couplings here and there. Whatever time it was, it was time that was very well spent from the foreman's perspective and from my perspective. So I don't have any hard numbers to say, but the time that was spent was very well spent. So.

And this is the scrap after the first 1,000 feet. Maybe 2 feet, I'm not sure. But.

JARED REGAN: Didn't bother measuring it, right?

GREG CUMMINS: Didn't bother measuring it. Just put it in a little shoe box and set it aside there. So you can imagine after-- I think we have about 5,500 feet all together. This is 2 feet. So maybe we'll end up with 10 feet scrap for 5,500 feet of conduit.

JARED REGAN: Looks like there's some [INAUDIBLE] in there too.

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah. There's a little bit of our racking in there too, so. Again, some of the benefits. The one-to-one relationship is huge, from a BIMer's perspective and from the field perspective. To really get those guys to understand that what I'm drawing is what you're going to be installing. That's a huge, huge benefit. Creating layout points ahead of time is also a big time saver.

Just in time delivery. You can build 10 segments a day, set them off to the side, and then when they're ready for them in the field, ship what they're ready for. Reduction in job site waste cleanup. Labor reduction, material handling. That's the big item. Huge reduction of material handling. And being able to massage those couplings and figure out where you want to place them instead of, oh, I've got an offset and then a 90. I'll just cut that offset in half and put a coupling in there. You don't have to do that anymore. So. Yes.

AUDIENCE: A couple things. [INAUDIBLE] essentially [INAUDIBLE]. We did modify that time, and for about 260 man hours [INAUDIBLE]. It was done in under 36 hours. Basically [INAUDIBLE] process. My next question [INAUDIBLE] is, are you including on your [INAUDIBLE] drawings the build materials so that you can further reduce the waste [INAUDIBLE] foreman in the shop can essentially [INAUDIBLE] materials [INAUDIBLE].

GREG CUMMINS: Not too much at this point. We're not including build material for those items. But [INAUDIBLE].

JARED REGAN: With the system too, as you split conduits, it'll create individual conduit runs inside the system. So you can easily quantify the number of sticks you're going to need for that kind of material take off. And then the conduit run clean up also pushes that information into the conduit run schedule, so you have better access to it from that perspective as well.

GREG CUMMINS: Or by using filters or the tagging of the conduits. You can break out your fire alarm or your cameras, and you can quantify how much conduit. And again, you can include a wire fill spec to the conduit now. And you can get a wire estimate as well from the conduit length. So.

JARED REGAN: And then with that as well, one of the things that was a nice convenience that came from splitting all those couplings, is that it associates those conduit runs to that specific level. So if you need to break it out by floor, or if you need to break it out in any manner that the foreman wants to order it by, it's a lot easier to capture that instead of having a 100 foot riser that's associated with a basement that you're just trying to keep track of where you're splitting and things like that.

So it helps with the material take off, the couplings, the number of runs, the number of sticks. You can start looking at-- you can get the number of cuts straight off the machine. As it outputs, it will also output a cut list. So you can quantify that, start looking at what your material and your labor is going to be going into that as well.

GREG CUMMINS: Yep. Yep. And then again, the last and probably most important part is safety. To be able to produce this in a controlled environment is huge. I mean, we all know the cost of injuries out in the field. It can be multimillion dollar instances. So I think that's--

JARED REGAN: So yeah, just to recap, where you would draw through it, and select based off the bender and the material, places the couplings, creates the documentation, identifies the cuts, enables these downstream prefabrication opportunities as well. So at this point, any other questions, or-- yes.

AUDIENCE: How are you guys conveying the overall map of where your assemblies are at? I know in that example, you [INAUDIBLE] 18 segments, which probably wouldn't be that big of a deal to talk to the foreman [INAUDIBLE] even if you're labeling them, if it's-- what if it's more than that? What if it's, say, 218 assemblies? Are you expecting the foreman to go through and look at each one of those individual spool sheets to figure out which one of his segments gets installed where? Is there any kind of [INAUDIBLE]?

GREG CUMMINS: We try to-- we look at the big picture, and then we ask the foreman, what can you handle this week? And maybe he'll say, I can do 40 segments this week. I've got enough labor for 40 segments. So if we jump back to the-- where was it-- here. These are all labeled and ready to go. So this top one is going to be segment 1.

Next one is going to be segment 2. So the way that it's sent out to the field is ready for install. You're not digging through and looking for which piece to install next. We're sending it out the way that it's going to be installed. So does that make sense a little bit? You've got segment one, segment two, three, four, five, six, so that you're taking them off, installing them. So. Yes.

AUDIENCE: To help with that, you can actually view our code on your spool drawings. Each assembly, and then [INAUDIBLE] label on your conduits in the prefab shop so that when you get out in the field, [INAUDIBLE].

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah. It's a great idea. Yeah. Yes.

AUDIENCE: Are you using a software [INAUDIBLE] out in the field? Are you seeing any other solutions [INAUDIBLE]?

GREG CUMMINS: Are we seeing any other software. [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: Like a cloud-based prefab [INAUDIBLE] question.

GREG CUMMINS: I see some potential for a cloud-based software that can kind of track everything and make sure that the foreman in the field is in constant communication with what's going out there. So I think there's something that could be coming. Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] actually [INAUDIBLE] be able to track essentially every [INAUDIBLE] model throughout the entire prefab process, all the way up until [INAUDIBLE] installed [INAUDIBLE].

GREG CUMMINS: OK, yeah.

JARED REGAN: So yeah. Is everybody in here looking at how they're doing the material tracking on their prefab currently, getting into those lean time studies, trying to figure out where you've got gaps in the lines? So that's one of the things that this really does enable, is you can start associating it directly to the material, start breaking it out into the units. And just like Kennison said, there's different platforms out there.

We've got a cloud-based application that's going to be coming out where you'll be able to track that through all the stages of the field, and then start to look at how much time did it spend in design, in fabrication. How much time did it take to get it delivered, stage it, install it, and then start looking at that, and break that time stamp out so that you can figure out, where does it make most sense to start figuring out how to fix problems. So you can start triaging and making sure that you're getting the most bang for the efforts you're putting in.

GREG CUMMINS: Any other questions?

AUDIENCE: Yeah, for tracking, [INAUDIBLE].

GREG CUMMINS: Yes.

AUDIENCE: All the guys [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: That's something that's going to be coming to market through GTP directly, and then--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: We can discuss that later. These aren't supposed to be too sales oriented.

GREG CUMMINS: I wasn't sure where to go with that conversation.

JARED REGAN: Yeah. So we can definitely discuss that conversation later, but something that we're looking at is also being able to engage the field and letting them select what gets kitted and how it comes together. So.

GREG CUMMINS: There's a solution out there, that's-- like you said, it's--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: Yeah. No, yeah. It's already in the works there, so.

GREG CUMMINS: So.

JARED REGAN: All right then. I know that we're a little bit early on the wrap up, about 10, 15 minutes here. So. It's an elegant product. It doesn't take more than 40 minutes to explain and go through the case study. That's just how well put together it is. So--

GREG CUMMINS: And from the second release of Bendworks, you're up and running in five minutes. It doesn't take you very long to get trained on it and understand the workflow of Bendworks. It's super intuitive, and you can just start cutting right away. Yeah, minimally invasive. And with the ability to use that conduit change type, you can jump straight into an existing project, switch the types over to your Greenlee association. It's going to update all those bend radii. And you're not going to lose any of your information. So we've seen people integrating this on existing projects, fresh projects. What's up, Kennison?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] discussions with the initial [INAUDIBLE] on your conduits. [INAUDIBLE].

JARED REGAN: Yeah, that's a separate application though. So we will be doing a presentation on that one at 1 o'clock. So. But that exists on the ability to import information directly and from the Excel spreadsheets. Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: I mean, you've seen your guys's install times go down.

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] they have a standard that they go by. One guy [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: It does. Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] have you seen people change their [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah. We have not had enough influence into the estimation department.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

GREG CUMMINS: But we definitely have enough information to bring back to the estimation department and say, hey, it's time to change the way we estimate. Because this is what we're seeing. This is how we're modeling now.

JARED REGAN: And if you win the job on your old numbers, you're going to have quite a big profit margin on that one coming through. So.

GREG CUMMINS: [INAUDIBLE] take that 5% up to 6%.

JARED REGAN: Yeah, win-win scenario, so. [INAUDIBLE].

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] project management software [INAUDIBLE] we're not quite there yet [INAUDIBLE].

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] what he said basically the same thing [INAUDIBLE]. Once you get so many projects [INAUDIBLE] for that process, then [INAUDIBLE].

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

AUDIENCE: We changed our entire process in less than six months for prefab. [INAUDIBLE]. We changed the whole situation [INAUDIBLE] six months [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: Yeah. I mean, after you get through that learning curve, it definitely becomes a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And there's some pushback from time to time. People like to do the math in the shop, and it does kind of take some of the logic out of the work. But that's just the nature of the industry at this point.

People-- it's not-- if you have it all in the software, it's not necessarily going to make sense to take that time to double check all those things. But initially, I always recommend pulling the tape. Like that-- it works. It's important for the prefab shop to feel comfortable with what they're producing, just as much as it is for that install time. It's a big component to buy in. So six months is a pretty rapid timeline. That's very well done. But--

GREG CUMMINS: It's impressive.

JARED REGAN: Yeah, it's impressive. But usually, we see a little bit slower adoption. People want to be comfortable. People have been doing this for a long time, and this is kind of a new way to approach it.

GREG CUMMINS: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: Yeah, you can do that through the schedule, through the standard scheduling interface.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: So it's supporting EMT, IMC, rigid. I believe that there's PVC coded rigid in there and then aluminum rigid, but there's definitely room to add a coupling there, but it doesn't support it at this point, I don't believe.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: Not for PVC. Not a specific PVC coupling, yeah. But it could still do the split. You could update the split gaps, go through that, that same kind of workflow, and just kind of-- move the work around to get all your couplings laid in there, and be able to lay that out. And then--

GREG CUMMINS: Quantify.

JARED REGAN: Underground's a great place to use a 20 foot stick. Right? You don't have to get that thing through any of the doors. So I would definitely recommend looking into that one and then figuring out how you can get your duct banks working in just as smooth.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JARED REGAN: And that's something that we're seeing a lot of, is that as we get better representations of the actual installation, it opens the door to identify new opportunities for prefabrication and opportunities for contractors to innovate and figure out how they're going to get the leg up on the competition. And that's something that's really nice about this application, is that it's using the Revit conduit.

It's using the existing tools that you're familiar with. It integrates with your parameters. And now it opens that door to be able to identify, all right, if my couplings are here, if this is where I'm making my turn up, how do I make my little strut rack to get those stub ups in place? If we've got it all laid out there, now we can start looking at how we do those prefab duct banks banks with the HTTP where they just punch the holes in, drop them in the trench. So.