Description
Key Learnings
- Learn how to set up services and profiles that enable model population before submittals are available.
- Learn how to organize any custom services and specifications in a profile.
- Learn how to use the parts tab and reload configuration for QA/QC.
Speakers
- Kane HobbsCADD Database Administrator McKenneys UA local 72 Atlanta,Ga.
- John WhiteI design Duct, Mechanical Pipe, and Plumbing systems in conjunction with Professional Engineers at McKenney's to LOD 400 using MEP or Fabrication content. Additionally, I create and maintain all Revit templates, standards, processes, and automation scripts for our VC and Engineering team.
KANE HOBBS: Hello and welcome to "Using Profiles and Services in Fabrication for Revit." This is going to be presented by Kane Hobbs and John White is my co-presenter. So let me introduce myself.
I've been in this industry for over 25 years. I currently serve as a Fabrication Database Administrator at McKenney's in Atlanta. I manage the fabrication database, supporting our Virtual Construction department and supporting our prefabrication shops. We have a sheet metal shop, a plumbing shop, and a piping shop.
I started in my career as a pipefitter welder in the field and moved over into being a piping designer in our Virtual Construction department. And now I've taken over Fabrication Database Administrator.
I'm skilled in fabrication scripting and Dynamo programming. I've been using fabrication in Revit since 2017 and I was one of the first people in our company to do so. And as a member of the transition team, when we transitioned to fabrication in Revit, I've been instrumental in integrating this and getting everybody up to speed.
And let me introduce my co-speaker. My co-speaker is John White. He's the Senior Mechanical Designer here at McKenney's. John White started with us 12 years ago as a sheet metal detailer with Virtual Construction and he advanced over to the role of Senior Mechanical Designer in the Engineering department. He's responsible for designing mechanical duct, pipe, and plumbing systems, as well as overseeing the production of associated construction documents.
In addition to his design work, John manages the development and maintenance of Revit content, processes, and standards that we use throughout our company. His contributions to Revit development have been instrumental in transitioning multiple departments from AutoCAD and Visio over to Revit, streamlining our workflows, and improving our overall quality. And John remains dedicated to enhancing processes, automating workflows, and driving improvements in Revit to uphold the highest standards here at McKenney's.
So in this presentation, the focus is on managing Autodesk fabrication services and profiles to leverage the content flexibility that Revit provides. This class assumes proficiency with ESTmep, Autodesk fabrication, and the setup of fabrication services. This class includes how to quickly set up a new profile with services designed to get the model started with a minimal of information. We will discuss what to include in the services, what should go onto the Parts tab as needed, how this expedites the project setup and allows for quality control checking.
We're also going to discuss what services should be in the new profile and how that allows for on the fly changing of material and connection types in the model. Additionally, we're going to talk about how to create and track our customized services and specifications within the profile. And we're going to discuss using the Reload Configuration as a quality control check. All this is going to lead to a faster, leaner, and more productive workflow.
So, our learning objectives. First off, we want to learn how to set up services and profiles that enable model population before submittals are available. We want to learn how to organize any custom services and specifications in a profile. We want to learn to use the Properties palette to quickly update generic content to job specific content. And we want to learn how to use the Parts tab and Reload Configuration for our QA and QC.
So our first objective, here. Let's look at creating services that allow for quickly starting to populate a model before approved submittals are available. Traditionally, in AutoCAD services would be set up with the specialties intended for use in a particular service. This would allow designers to have their valves and other specialties easily accessible, mitigating the need for them to search through the database repeatedly to get content.
One drawback to this workflow is when the specialties have not been chosen or approved. It's a guess as to what content we're going to put in there. Once the submittals are available, it may require editing the service with the new items. This causes a delay while the designer waits for the database manager to update the services. But alternately, in Revit the designer can add the new content to the Parts tab.
If the designer were to add items to the Parts tab without having the database administrator remove the old items from the service, that creates an issue. The issue with adding specialties to the Parts tab and having specialties in the service is that the incorrect content is now available at a button click. This can lead to incorrect content passing through to the fabrication and installation. To reduce these issues, common services and the global profile are set up without any specialties, such as specific hangers and valves.
So, setting up our services in the global profile. Valves and other specialties are not included in the service. Only include your commonly used parts-- straits, fittings, joints-- anything that's going to be needed for Autofill or Connect Between 2 Ends when you're modeling.
For our hangers-- in the global profile, I do add some hangers to the services. I have supports that we make in-house or on-site added to the services. On the left, hangers for a typical duct service, and on the right are hangers for a typical piping service.
For purchased hangers, I have created generic hangers. These generic hangers are based upon our company's most purchased hangers. They are named to indicate that they are generic and what type of piping they are to support. Generic hangers do not have order numbers and cannot be ordered in error. When these show up on a BOM, it is a big red flag.
Because there are generic hangers for the different piping materials, support rod sizing can be set per company standards. This allows for the population and coordination of hangers and embeds before approved hangers are available. As we know in the construction industry, structure is king, and concrete will not wait. If you do not get your embeds, your hangers are going to get more expensive.
Hangers could be treated the same as other specialties by adding them to the Parts tab. However, the reason for not doing so is to ensure that the hangers match the material and because the auto hanger placement add-in we use requires hangers to be in the service. And we'll discuss that more later.
First thing we want to do is create an empty profile. In AutoCAD, there was the ability to easily switch from the current profile to another profile, which could cause a lot of trouble. In Revit, once a fabrication content is added, the current profile is fixed. There's various tricks and workarounds that we can use to attempt to save geometry, but changing the profile really requires starting over.
To ensure designers intentionally select a profile, an empty profile named "Pick Job Profile" is created. The master template from which all Revit models start is saved with this profile active. Designers cannot populate anything until they reload the configuration and select, hopefully, the correct job profile.
So, to create a new profile from the global profile. In AutoCAD, when a designer was modeling, they had to wade through a complete list of all services in the profile every time they changed services. Therefore, profiles were set up with only the services requested for that job. If new services were required or changes were made, it would result in another delay as the profile was updated accordingly.
For example, the "Chilled Water" may be butt weld steel and soldered copper pipe. A decision could be made to change the copper over to press fittings instead of solder. This change may require adding an existing service to the profile or the creation of a new service, causing a delay in extra labor.
In Revit, if the service exists in the profile, the designer can add only the services needed. They no longer need to deal with all the services. To change services, the designer can load an alternate service without delay, then carry on converting to the new service and modeling without having to wait on anybody else.
To create a profile for Revit use, the global profile is copied and named with the job name and number. The new profile is set to share the same item files and includes almost all services. The only services not included are those set up specifically for shop and field call-in use. All of the services are available to be loaded by the designer.
So in review of this section, we do want to create an empty profile to set as new project default. We do name new profiles using the job notations you will use later on in your customized services. You do add all the services that a designer might need to pick from. Do not add any services that the designer should not have access to.
Learn how to organize any custom services and specifications in a profile. To meet project requirements, we sometimes need to customize our profiles. This is really the point of having profiles. This profile could be just a copy of the global with a new name. It could be as simple as renaming a service or editing a service abbreviation to have our tags match the contract documents, or it could involve editing specifications, service templates, support specifications, or pressure classes. It is important that we organize these. We need to know what has been edited and what has not, especially if we need to reference the profile at some future date.
Track customized services in the profiles. To help track customized services in the profiles, an abbreviation of the job name and/or number is usually added to the service name and the service is placed in a new group with an abbreviated job name number. This practice is extremely helpful when revisiting profiles in the future. You know at a glance if this service is specific to this profile or if it is an unedited service. My predecessor, Mr. Greg Mosher, had already been doing this naming convention when I took over upon his retirement.
Track customized service templates in the profiles. Sometimes we need to edit a service template. We may need to change the items in the template. Sometimes we need to change our constraints. We might want to change our copper to steel break point from 2.5 inch to 4 inch, for example.
If I know what hangers I need, I might want to add them now so the designer does not have to swap them later. Or, so I do not have to edit the service template again. I still do not add any specialties to the service. We'll cover that later. I follow the naming logic with any edited service templates.
In a group, I will edit the template with the name, job name, and number. I will also place all the edited service templates in a group with job name and number. Other than tracking, other benefits of renaming the service template is if you import to the profile later, the renamed service template is less likely to be overwritten. When we have an edited service template, we want to make sure that it is only applied to a service that has job name and number. We do not want to edit a service template and apply it to any service that has not been copied and renamed.
Adding hangers if our submittals are available. If you do know what hangers you need, now would be a good time to add them to the service. If not, you can continue with the generic hangers. You still want any of your other specialties to be added to the Parts tab either which way you go. To facilitate adding hangers to service templates, I have created service templates that are only hangers. These are divided by manufacturer and the pipe material to be supported. And each template is then divided further into tabs by hanger material or coating.
We can then copy the tabs with the hangers needed and paste them to our new service templates. With the required tabs added, the designer can better keep up with the hangers by manufacturer, material to be supported, and hanger material or coating.
Now here I'm going to contradict myself about the renaming service templates and only adding to services that were renamed. I do not consider adding hangers to a template as, quote unquote, "editing" so much as adding what was missing. What I mean by editing is changing constraints or adding anything other than hangers that are job specific.
Track customized insulation specifications in the profile. When creating insulation specifications, I usually name it something descriptive, such as "Chilled Water," "Condensate Drain," "Heating Hot Water Inside," or "Heating Hot Water Outside." I do take all the insulation specifications I create and put them in a new group with job name and number. I'll place the insulation specifications on any service that needs it. It does not need to be an edited service to get the insulation specification added to it.
Tracking our customized pressure classes in a profile. We may need to edit our pressure class for job requirements. For instance, the engineer of record may insist on a minimum gauge for duct work. This gauge may exceed SMACNA standards, but the engineer wants what he wants. And when I do this, I carry the naming convention into the edited pressure class. I will edit the class name with job name number. I will also place all the edited classes in a group with job name number and this makes it much easier to track.
If you import anything later on, the renamed class is less likely to be accidentally overwritten. I will not apply the edited specification to any service that is not tagged with job name number. I will not apply it to any of the existing services without a copy and rename of them.
An exception-- support specifications in the profiles. Maybe it's just me being lazy, but support specifications are not renamed if they require editing, as editing would mean going to each hanger individually and changing the support spec to the new one. I found it's better to edit the current support specification for that profile. This way, it will apply to all the hangers in the database that are associated with that support specification.
In review, for services, do include all your standard fittings and materials. Do copy any services to be edited to a job named group. Do edit the service name to indicate if it is project specific. In our specifications, we do want to copy any specifications to be edited to a job named group. We do want to edit the specification name to indicate it is job specific. We do want to apply insulation specifications to regular and to edited services. We do not want to apply any other edited specification to non-job specific services.
Specialties. We do want to add our specialties to the Parts tab, and we do want to add placeholders for things to the Parts tab. And we do want to swap for approved specialties when they become available.
Learn to use the Properties palette to quickly update generic content to job-specific content. We have our profile set up. We've edited everything that needs editing until we get further information. How do we get started while we're waiting? We're going to start modeling with generic content.
For example, let's start by adding a commonly used valve to begin modeling. In this case, I'm going to grab a NIBCO solder valve, put it in my parts as a placeholder, and once I have all my placeholders added to the Parts tab, I can start populating.
And here I can populate, add my content-- including generic hangers, if we went with generic hangers. If we already have our regular hangers available, we could do our regular hangers. In this case, a Revit add-in is used to automatically populate the hangers. In this model, I have some plumbing, mech pipe, and duct.
And at this stage, coordination and even point generation for hanger embed layout can be performed. All before we decide for sure what hangers and what valves we need. Of course, we always need to be aware. Not all valves have the same takeout, so we want to be careful with that before we start prefabbing stuff.
Updating our generic content. Once hangers, valves, and other specialties have been decided upon, it's necessary to change out some of the content. Start by loading the items to be finalized into the Parts tab. For instance, anvil clevis hangers can be added. Copper loop hanger can be added. And we've decided to use Apollo valves. So I'm going to add my Apollo solder ball valve into my Parts tab.
Now the content can be changed. I'm going to start by selecting my valves. I select all the NIBCO valves that need to be changed out. Using my Properties palette, I change over to my Apollos. And if we use generic hangers, we can swap them out now. Select the copper loop and change them, and then select the clevis hangers and change those over. And you can see here where we have them all changed out.
One thing to be careful of-- if your pipe is insulated when you swap a hanger, the rod size may be incorrect. The hanger may assume the insulation OD is the pipe OD during the swap, throwing off your support rod size. The fix for this is to change insulation specification to anything else. Then change it back, and the hanger will refresh rod size per your support specifications. Unless you've manually set a rod kit, then it will not change. It'll stay whatever the rod kit is.
Updating services. Sometimes a customized services might be needed in a profile. Maybe it was not set up originally as we were waiting for information, or a change was made later. So to change from a standard service to another standard service, or one we customize later, the new service can be loaded. In this case, we're going to be changing from a service that has copper up to 2 inch and stainless steel grooved pipe 2.5 inch and larger.
The new service is going to be solder copper up to 2.5 inch and grooved copper 3 inch and larger. So we will add the new service in the configuration window and we're going to change to our new service. We select the parts in the old service, use the Change Service tool to transfer to the new service, and fix what's broke because one or two things usually disconnect or break.
Be aware to not have your hanger selected when you try to change service. The hangers will not change service with this tool. And even after the pipe or duct changes service, the hangers will still remain with the old service. So we need to keep an eye out for that.
Learning how to use the Parts tab and Reload Configuration together for QA/QC. Now we got the content changed out for the approved content, it's important to ensure that no parts have been missed. A lot of different ways we can check with schedules, view filters, other things. Let's use the Configuration Reload to check.
We want to be sure we got all our NIBCO valves changed over to Apollo. On the left, we can see the NIBCO valve is grayed out and cannot be unloaded in configuration. This tells us there is still at least one valve in the model. We need to go back and fix that. On the right, you can see that the valve is no longer gray and needs to be removed. And that ensures that all our valves are now the correct valve.
Checking for the correct service using Reload Configuration. Earlier, we added a service to the profile with the intent to change over the content to the new service. To verify that all the parts have been successfully changed, the Reload Configuration can be used to unload the old service. On the left, the service is gray. On the right, it's not gray. If the original service is still grayed out, it indicates that there are parts still assigned to that service. As mentioned earlier, it might be hangers stuck in the old service that did not change. You need to hunt down whatever's still in the old service and either remove it or change it over to the new service. Then we'll be able to remove the service completely from configuration. And we know everything's been changed over and there's no error.
So in review, do not keep unused services loaded in the project. For specialties, do not keep unused items in the Parts tab after we've swapped them.
Thank you for coming to my presentation.