Concrete Lift Drawings in Revit—People, Process, and Product

PRESENTER 1: Good morning. How's everyone doing?

AUDIENCE: Good. Yourself?

PRESENTER 1: Good. Erich and I were saying there's like 80 people that signed up for this. So congrats. You guys survived a night in Vegas and are able to make an 8:00 AM class. Not everybody did.

So who here works for a GC that self-performs concrete? Awesome. OK. A GC that doesn't? Concrete sub? Structural engineer? OK.

Great. So today we're going to be talking about lift drawings. And we're really going to go through the process. So the people, the process, and the product. Sorry. I'm Dan McCloskey, this is Erich Bretz. We're from MB BIM Solutions.

So a little bit about us. We're from MB BIM in Denver. We're a small eight-person firm made up of structural engineers, an architect, and a mechanical engineer.

We were recently acquired this summer by one of our clients, a GC who self-performs concrete. We work a lot with our concrete team. So Eric and I now have bosses.

So what we do. We do a lot of structural fabrication drawings, we'll say. So we live between design fabrication and construction.

We're engineers by background. So we do rebar shop drawings, precast structural steel. We take structural elements from design into fabrication and construction.

We also do a lot of typical GC BIM department type stuff. VR is a new one we've been getting into. Pretty cool stuff. If you guys haven't, there's tons of presentations this week about it.

So we do MEP coordinations. So through Navisworks, virtual mockups, that kind of thing. Your typical GC BIM stuff. Sequent simulations and animations, model based quantity take offs, scheduling, that kind of stuff. And then, of course, concrete lift drawings.

But today, we're talking just about lift drawings. So what I want to hit on first, or a big takeaway, is that don't think about lift drawings as you get a set of drawings from the design team, you create a model from that, you produce drawings, you're done. What you're trying to provide is a process. You're providing a service from start through finish.

So a big part of that is engaging people throughout the team. So first step, the design team and the GC. So the design team, it could get a little tricky sometimes because they have maybe feel like you're just tearing apart their drawings, poking holes in everything they produced, asking lots of questions.

So we like to have a kickoff meeting with the GC and the design team and get that face-to-face contact. Hey, we're all friends here, we're on the same team, that kind of stuff.

So I'd highly recommend engaging with the design team and the GC as well. So if the GC is a separate GC-- our main client, they do work for other GCs not just their own mainline. So engaging the design team and the GC.

See if you can develop that relationship where you can ask bootleg-type questions. Pick up the phone, get on and go to meeting, ask questions early so you're not having to model things wrong, annotate things wrong, and then just have them change it on you.

Of course, you have to follow that up with documentation. Always, always, always document those conversations. Send through confirming RFIs. Document. We've gotten burned on that in the past. They tell you something and then they don't back it up.

And then for the concrete team, who to engage on the concrete team? You're PE or FE, that's your main daily point of contact. So that's the guy or gal that you should be talking to regularly, knowing when he needs what information.

So that's the big thing. That's your information conduit. So all the RFIs, ASIs, PRs, that kind of thing, make sure that that's getting pushed through to you. Make sure you're pushing all of your information through to that person as well.

And schedule. That's the big thing to keep up with knowing when they're pouring what. And seeing that six week look ahead. And understanding what's coming down the pipeline.

And then the project manager on the concrete team, that's the person that we usually go to for the politics or the cost impacts. We find that it's really useful to clue that person in on what we do. Make them understand where sometimes if there's a change that doesn't affect their costs, it does affect our costs. So make sure that you're getting paid for those changes and make sure they understand that, hey, we need to put in a little $1,000 change order for this, or whatever. So that's someone that can help you out with that.

And help them out. So when they're going through and having to fight the good fight with the GC about this dimension or that, or what was in the scope, give them drawings, give them back up, give them the history. Empower that person by giving them all the information you have.

Then the concrete super. So that's the person that you should really try to befriend and gain a ton of field knowledge from. So talk to them about what they want to see on your drawings, as well. Figure out how you can set up your drawings to make his crew most effective.

And then really just make sure that that person has you on speed dial. So if there's an issue in the field they can call you up and say, hey, why did you do this? You can point them to this RFI, this change, and really make sure that you're feeding them information on the fly.

And lay out, we'll talk about that a little bit later. We'll get into creating point data from our lift drawing models. But get in with those lay out guys and make sure that they're getting your lift drawings, that they have all the information that you have as well.

So then, all the other subs, the second tier subs within the concrete team and the GC's team. So the rebar detailer. I wouldn't recommend getting yourself into a situation where you're actually reviewing rebar shop drawings. Kind of opening Pandora's box there.

But we do like to review rebar shops when it's something that we know they might screw up. So something with the tricky poor break condition, some sort of a geometry that got changed, or something like that. Be a team player and look at those guys drawings. And then feed them information as well.

Same thing with formwork. When I say formwork I'm talking horizontal forms for the decks. Really with those guys, just make sure you're coordinating slopes, pitch breaks, ramps, edges, that kind of stuff. But the vertical formwork guys-- so our clients use a lot of climbing formwork systems-- and so coordinate with them to get those flipper pockets, those rollback anchors, the shear bracket anchors, and really make sure that they understand the pour break conditions when you're getting into tricky stuff.

Stair and elevator suppliers. Get their shops, help them out. I don't know how many times I've seen really bad elevator shops where they have the cores just completely wrong. So give them information.

If you see the drafts come through, hey, your concrete geometry is just wrong. Just let them know. It's really just being a team player and being the hub for the concrete geometry.

Precasts, steel fabricator, glazing, MEP subs, just get that information flowing. We'll talk a little bit later, but we link a lot of that stuff into our model and just show it on our drawings. But really be communicating with that team.

So then process. Like I said, this is the meat of it. It's the process that you're providing. It's a process that's going to provide value. It's not just the drawings.

So first off, it looks like a ton of people here work for GCs who self-perform, you're still having to submit a fee, or a budget for the job. So that's step one. So you get a set of drawings and try to figure out your fee.

We like to look at it three different ways. So we have a rule of thumb fees, where it's dollars per square foot, or pennies per square foot, I guess. But dollars per square foot or percent of the concrete fee.

And so those are really rule of thumb. They can be off by a factor of two. It really depends on what the job is. If it's foundations only, if it's a huge repetitive tower, there's a lot of variance in that.

The other big one that we use is our task-based fee development spreadsheet. So on this one, the way we do it, we break out essentially the concrete scope by element. So we've got our core walls, we've got our foundations, we've got our columns, we've got our slabs. And then something like core walls, we'll break down to this core that has an elevator bank and a stair, and so on.

And then we break it down and we go level by level. So we really try to discretize this thing. And then we have across the top, we have our modeling hours, our coordination hours, which are wishy-washy, rework. You have to factor that in. Even if you think you're getting paid for things, there's going to be some things you're not. Annotation and QC.

Something else to think about with this is you may want to assign different cost rates to these buckets. Like the QC, maybe [? somewhat ?] at a little bit higher rate depending on how you're set up internally.

So things to look for on the drawings, though. We've all seen, at least in our market, design drawings have gotten worse, and worse, and worse. Really study the drawings when you're bidding the job so you don't get yourself into a situation where you totally underestimated the thing.

So some of it's experience. If you've worked for these structural engineers and these design teams you may know, hey, they're dialed in, they're really good. You're going to get a good model from. These other ones, not so much.

So really study those drawings. Look for the complexities, look for things like podiums slabs that have courtyards and stuff that are super complicated. Look for tons of sloping, stepping, really complicated geometry, some tricky ramp conditions, and stuff like that. Really it's a level of complexity to look for.

And then level of repetition. So when you have a tower that's repeating for 20 stories, your dollars per square foot or your dollars per character is going to be quite a bit off. But look for that type of stuff.

Inclusions and exclusions. So we typically exclude site concrete. We exclude some sort of landscape type elements. We exclude modeling the embeds in actual structural slabs.

We include stairs but not slabs, a client preference thing. We exclude MEP sleeves. So we'll model the bigger block outs, but if you're trying to model the MEP sleeves in the slab, holy cow, man, your drawings are going to be a freaking mess. So exclude-- I guess I'm missing a couple of things there.

PRESENTER 2: Secondary pours a lot of times we'll exclude. We won't include, I don't know, concrete crashed walls or whatnot on parking ducts.

PRESENTER 1: Little curbs, things like that. So at least talk to your client, download the handout, download the presentation. The handout's got a bullet point list of items that I forgot several, but download that stuff. There's a few more in there.

PRESENTER 2: Something really quick, Dan. Something else that's not shown here is that there's a couple of lines down here that are below this. They're just adjustment factors for these things. I think Dan pointed out that the quality of design drawings is a really big deal. A lot of times we'll adjust those based on the quality design drawings, just on a percentage basis.

PRESENTER 1: The other one is the admin. So we always put another percentage, 10% to 20% of admin overhead type stuff for meetings. It depends on the client, depends on the job. But you get pulled into tons and tons of meetings that don't fall into those buckets. So we've got a 10% to 20% adjustment for that kind of stuff.

PRESENTER 2: And one other thing I wanted to mention too with regard to quality of design drawings. It can't be understated, for sure, that you really have to get into a set of drawings to get a really good feel for how well the drawings are put together, and especially how well they're coordinated. There's a lot of information that you might look at and think that, well, that it'll just be on the architectural drawings. And in the end, it doesn't appear in either set of drawings. So it's really critical to really have a really good feel for how the drawings are put together.

PRESENTER 1: So then, when we kick off the job we review the design drawings and hopefully model. Build a really basic model hopefully from the structural model. Try to divide it up into pours. And we have a kickoff meeting with usually, we have the general superintendent for the concrete team, we have the super for the job, we have the whole concrete team essentially.

And then also their formwork suppliers. One of our clients subs out the vertical, some of the vertical forms. So we just go through and spin the model, color the pours up, and just get to get them a general idea of some of the tricky stuff.

So it ends up being super valuable. We always see these sheets just plastered in their trailer. It's really a great communication tool, and it's really easy to do. So we do that early and then we early in the job we'll have every two weeks or so these recurring meetings with the team just to understand pours, help them with volumes, and quantities, and stuff like.

PRESENTER 2: One other note on this previous slide. Like Dan said, our concrete contractors actually tell us that this sheet is the most used sheet in the entire job. That the thing sits up on the job site and the labor constantly comes in and takes a look at it just to get a feel for where they're at in the project and the overall goal of finishing the job.

PRESENTER 1: So other things, like this is one on the bottom left. That was just the design team's model that we linked. This was a 19-story tower where they had column forms that they're trying to figure out. Hey, can we use these forms in the parking garage? And then once we get out of the parking at level five, can we cut them in half and then reuse them going up?

So we just took the design team's model and just at every grid line just drew some big sections. And that helped them versus them trying to pick through the drawings, see where the slab stepped, and all that. Little things like that you can really help out the team with pour planning, and sequencing, and formwork, formwork quantities, and stuff.

And then on the right, that was a core that had sloped ramps at different sides. And we just went round and round with the formworks supplier to figure out how to build that. So it's really simple stuff, in our mind, but it's really valuable for the team.

So the next step, gather info from the other subs. So we have this list of shop drawings required from all the other entities on the job. We're usually early enough on a job where we can't get hardly any of that stuff. But we get that out there and we say, here's what we're going to need, here's what we're going to need.

Resend it every few weeks, or whatever, and keep track of what's coming in and when. And again, help out that PE or that FE and say, hey, man, we need this stuff. Hey, man, we need this stuff. And just let them know what you're going to be needing.

Obtaining the design team's models. So you're going to have to sign an EFT agreement, usually, but we get models on probably 90% of the jobs that we work on. And we'll talk about that in a second.

But get the models. We link them in. We put them on a linked models workset. That way they don't show up in any of our drawings. Set it to not be visible by default and visible in views.

So starting the concrete model. So start with the template. How many people are doing lift drawings in Revit? All right, so most of us. So you probably have a good template.

You know what to include then. It's all of your View Templates, your View Filters, your Parameters. Really, your views, we keep a lot of views and sheets in our template and then just reuse that stuff, move things around as needed, for all your core wall views. So really start your model off really quickly by using a good template.

So copying in design team elements. Like I said, we usually get a structural model. And then you have this decision to make. Do you use it is a tracing pattern model with your own families, using the drawings to model and using theirs to check, or do you copy their stuff in?

So I guess my answer is it depends. It depends on how good their model is. But the pro to tracing it and doing it yourself is you really get into the drawings and details and really understand it. And you have control over your families. You're not using their families.

The con, obviously, is efficiency. It's much quicker to copy their stuff in, especially if it's pretty good. So we usually do copy most of it in, swap out families from theirs to ours.

And then I just use a element status parameter. And I just set it to either check copied or checked. And then I have a QC view, where if it's copied it shows up in red. If nothing's in there it shows up grey. If it's checked it shows up in green.

So it's just a quick way to make sure nobody on my team or myself didn't copy something in and then forget to see if that geometry is actually right. So that's the risk you run of copying in elements as you're modeling to a higher level of detail than the design team is. And just if you copy stuff in, don't forget to make sure it's right.

Erich will talk a little bit more later about product. But the design team's not going to model like a stem wall pour down at a door threshold, and those kind of things.

So then, QC views, I talked about. But also, we set up a lot of QC views and 3D views just have our slabs versus their slabs. And really just compare our model versus theirs.

Sometimes you find things that you have wrong. Or that something that you modeled off the design drawings but the design drawings are vague. You look at their model and you're like, oh, that's what they meant to do. OK, we'll do that and then ask for confirmation.

Support sequence parameter philosophy. So our poor parameter drives a ton of stuff in our models. Everything from schedules and quantities and that. But really it's all your visibility stuff.

So the way we show our drawings is if it's already been poured in a previous pour, it shows up as half tone and sometimes transparent. That current pore is showing up pretty solid. Any pour that's a future pour, the next poor, isn't there. So we use our pour parameters to drive that.

And I'll admit, within our office we have a couple of different philosophies. On a smaller job we may just go sequential, one through if it's 20 pours or something, you could go sequential. On a big tower or something, I like to use this over here.

This is a typo. This should be G4. Obviously, that doesn't match. So we just use a series of numbers.

And really what it comes down to is a logic that you can use once you get into your filters, where you can use greater than, equals than, contains, does not contain, begins with, ends with. See what your options are there. And then just set up a system that works for you.

So ours is the first number corresponds to the element type. So 1 is foundations. G1, that's always foundations. G2 is always columns. G3 is always walls, G4 is always slabs, five secondary pores.

And then the next one is level. So G4.2 is slab at level 2. And then the next one is the pour number. So you may have three slab pours on that level.

So that way you can use just a series of filters to turn things on and off, where you don't have to have 1,000 filters that say pour this, point this, point this, or whatever. You can just use logic to turn things on and off and to schedule things as well.

A couple of other options. CTC fab sheets. It's a tool we've tried and we've used a little bit. And phasing in Revit, as well. The things that we don't like about these tools, it could work for you, phasing probably not. But fab sheet is a good tool.

We have a certain style of our drawings and a certain look of the way previous pours are shown and just the way our drawings are set up and the way our clients are used to seeing them And it doesn't have enough flexibility to let us use that tool to show it the way we want to show it. But definitely worth looking into.

PRESENTER 2: I think it's worth noting that fab sheets was actually created for lift drawings. It was created by CTC for Mortenson to perform Mortensen's lift drawings. So it is a good tool and it may well fit your needs in terms of doing the phasing of concrete jobs.

PRESENTER 1: So families. Honestly, it's not rocket science. If you guys are intermediate Revit users, you probably know how to create families pretty simply. So all of our embed or insert type families are just phase-based generic model elements.

One thing that I guess a couple of little tricks with that is just make sure you're starting with that family template, modeling your void, cutting it out, and then putting your plate, whatever you're putting, inside of it. And then checking in that box, cuts with voids when loaded. That way, when you slap it in, or you drop it into your model it's going to automatically cut that concrete.

So maybe you're an intermediate or lower level Revit user, and if you've got some embed or insert, and you put it on a wall or a face and it doesn't cut your concrete automatically and you're having to join or cut or whatever, you're doing something wrong. We can help you with that. Just drop me an email. But it should be cutting that automatically.

So we do things like elevator inserts. Just looking through the list here. Some JORDAHL anchors, flipper pockets, some embeds, coil loop inserts, sheer bracket anchors, just anything that's going into walls. 3D grid lines.

So we use 3D grid lines that are just a generic model element, it just has the grid number. And then we lay them out in one level, copy them all the way up, and then they show up in all our 3D views. You'll see some of that. But really useful stuff, really useful stuff for the concrete team in the field to orient themselves with 3D views.

So again, model from the drawings. You can use the design team's model but you're held to their drawings, obviously. So make sure you're going through the structural and the architectural.

I think sometimes people, especially if they're really ingrained in the concrete world, they've got their blinders on with the structural drawings sometimes. But you have to really thoroughly review the architectural drawings and get a lot of information from there.

A little tough to see on this one, but this is the architect's detail. And this is from a real job and a real condition. And they call out the brick ledge elevation, RE structural. When you go to the structural drawings they call it out, RE arch.

So that's the stuff to look for. You're always going to find all these busts between structural and architectural. And really thoroughly review the drawings.

So I always look through the architectural sections and details and just visually look for that concrete hatch, zoom in on it, and see what they're showing for concrete. So you're going to find a lot of times they don't match structural.

So common things that we see that are busts to look for, again, check out the handout bullet point list that we're probably going to forget a bunch. But brick ledges, slab soffits. A lot of times when the bottom of slab, the soffit steps, the architect doesn't account for that. And it will screw up some of their ceiling stuff, whatever. Just see if the architect's accounted for it.

Balcony conditions. At the perimeter of that balcony does it step, does it slope, how's it draining, where is it draining to? Garages, the draining scheme of where that slab's sloping. Where the drains are, where it's ramping, pitch breaks. What am I missing, Erich?

PRESENTER 2: I don't know. I'm trying to think. Those are the most common I can think of. Maybe one other thing that's worth noting here though as far as the common busts, saying RE struct and RE arch for something like a brick ledge is really only half of the problem there.

This isn't a great example, but typically, that stuff also has to be referenced back to the landscape drawings because presumably that brick ledge is there to hide the concrete piece so from the outside all you're seeing is the brick. So brick ledges are one thing that you always have to chase back around to the landscape drawings as well.

PRESENTER 1: But that's really the service you're providing. You're looking for these busts, you're looking for the missing information. You're looking for that gotcha that they're going to pour it and say, well, someone's going to come back and say well the architect showed this, why did you pour it to that?

And you saying, well, the structural showed that. That doesn't count. You've got to find that stuff early, ask those questions early.

Some modeling with an eye on constructability. So when you're doing this really detailed drawing review, think about how they're forming it. Think about how they're pouring it. Think about things like if you've got a vault slab somewhere, you got to get your formwork out.

How are you going to get your formwork out of that? Places where it's tough to get formwork in. Places where it's tough to get equipment in. Sequence issues.

This one here, the engineer detailed. They've got this pool slab with a little upturned beam, and then a one-inch gap for deflection purposes between them. And then another pour for the main podium slab.

How do you form that gap? What do you put in there? You can't put a steel plate in there, you're not going to get it out.

But just flag that to your team so they know to put in some sort void form because they may miss things like that until they're about to pour it. And then they're going, oh, crap, and scrambling.

Over here, a ramp scissor condition. When you've got a wall that's straddling a scissor ramp they really don't want to pour these pie-shaped pieces of walls. The structural detail showed all those slabs pouring over the wall. There all Pt slabs.

So look for that and flag that early. And say, hey, are you really going to have nine pie-shaped pours? No, they obviously don't want to do that.

So get that RFI in on that. When we did, the engineer let us key in one side and then pour over on the other side. So just think about how they're pouring it, what's going to be out in the field when they're pouring that pour. Look for constructability stuff because you've got a really good visual into it with the model.

Tips, tricks, techniques. So parts. Parts is a really powerful tool, especially for slabs. We don't really use them for walls a lot just because you can break a wall. Right-click on the blue thing, disallow join if you want to.

But parts, of a lot of times we've got a parking garage slab that's sloping to drain. And obviously, your pour break doesn't just happen to go across the high point. So if you want to model that slab in different pours we use parts to do that. So break it up.

When you do that, if you're looking at concrete volumes-- so we put the pour parameter within that part itself. Make sure you don't have that pour parameter in the original slab and the part because then you'll be double counting the volumes. So just keep an eye on that. But parts is a really, really useful for slabs.

COINS, auto section box, anyone you use that? All right. For the rest of you, download it, get it, super cool, easy, free add-in that lets you just grab some things and it automatically creates a 3D view with the section box of right where you're looking at.

3D grids talked about earlier. Stacked walls. So if we're looking at something like stem walls, where you have a brick ledge going throughout and you're modeling all the different stem wall heights, we'd like to use stacked walls to model that. So it's a good tool for modeling.

But the problem is, stacked walls are a system family that does not allow you to assign your pour parameter to it for whatever reason. So the way we get around that, or fix that is we use stacked walls to model.

And then if you right-click on a stacked wall, there's a break wall command. I think it's break wall, but it'll break that stacked wall into two basic walls. So it's a good way to model it from the get go, then break it, and then when you get into a annotation phase.

Join orders. So if you've got something like-- if you don't know the switch join order tool, look into that. If you've got something like a slab on grade where obviously it's pouring around your cast in place columns, just model that slab on grade all the way through them, join them, and then switch the join order so that the slab cuts out at the columns. So switching join order is a powerful tool.

And then data. So what I'm showing here-- unfortunately, there's still some data within Revit that you can't get out the way you want, to be able to tag it and schedule it. But there's other ways to access that data.

So we use CTC's spreadsheet link for this. So for column heights ad individual column volumes we'll put in our own parameter that can be tagged. And then we'll go send all those columns to spreadsheet link, filter it out by our pour, so we're only dealing with one level of columns, copy that column length data. Because once you get into spreadsheet link you can access all that data. Copy it to our parameter and then we can tag it and schedule it.

Modeling sequence. I touched on this earlier, but when you model, start with basic blobs. So don't try to go up the building and model everything to the nitty-gritty. Start early, get something in their modelled.

Just make sure you have a way to remind yourself that it's not quite right. And just start getting content in there so you can help your team with things like volumes and pour breaks.

And like Erich said, this cover sheet, this is so useful for the team, where we've got volumes broken up by pour. And just get this going early. It doesn't have to be totally right but just give them these views and these kind of tools. And it's super helpful. Go ahead.

AUDIENCE: Are you [INAUDIBLE] formation yet? Because that's what I did [INAUDIBLE]

PRESENTER 1: So we do. We do it all the time. And again, it goes back to that communication. I just let them know, hey, man, this stuff is not good here.

Here's where we are with our model. The stuff up above here, I'm not guaranteeing it or whatever. You can go ahead and coordinate your MEP.

But just that constant communication. So we are always uploading our model. They do use our model in lieu of the structural model for MEP coordination.

AUDIENCE: Yeah. I [INAUDIBLE] that too. [INAUDIBLE]

PRESENTER 1: Just let them know it's not. that's how we do it.

And then, modeling sequence. Floors first. So make sure when you're getting to that point where you're modeling to the level of detail that you want, get your floor slopes, and ramps, and all that stuff right before you bother with your columns and your walls, anything vertical because you're just going to attach the tops and the bottoms anyway.

So don't annotate that stuff before you've gotten your floors right because you don't want to have to redo that. So get your floors right before you go with the vertical stuff.

And then QC schedules. So things like, again, the pour. So we've got a schedule that just shows all of our concrete and the pour that's assigned to it to make sure that you're assigning the right pour parameter to stuff, and to make sure you're not double counting volumes, or have something wrong with your volumes.

Views. So we use QC views to litter it with questions. So we use red for questions to the design team or GC, blue to the concrete team, black if it's been resolved. But use a lot of views, and colors, and dimensions strings that have different colors as well.

And then annotation. Again, just set up some views that are your working views, your check views, where you have all of your questions documented.

So then communicating questions, conflicts, and missing information. So I guess the main thing I want you to take away from this one is get your questions out there early and do a thorough drawing review. And don't use your model and your lift drawings when you have got a ton of red and a ton of questions. Don't use your model and your drawings to ask those questions. Use their drawings, you screenshots from your model.

So in this one, it was just a mess, a nightmare. But it was just drawings were issued early. Foundation permit, but they're building.

So we're taking little screenshots from our model, from maybe the design team's model, from the architectural drawings and just asking all those questions via the design drawings instead of our model and our submittal. So you're going to save yourself a lot of work doing it that way instead of trying to figure out and making all these guesses and these assumptions. You can use your model to figure that stuff out. But don't go through and try to get your submittal done because you're just going to blow your budget that way. So just use their drawings to create RFIs before you model.

This is another philosophy. We're just using a running Word document on a job that wasn't a mess. Just itemize the questions and cross them off as they get answered. But don't use your model and your submittal to ask all those questions is what I'm getting at.

PRESENTER 2: Basically, don't wait until the middle to ask all those questions.

PRESENTER 1: Yeah, definitely. And a big part of that is avoiding rework too. You don't want to annotate all this stuff and model all this stuff and have to do it again.

So use your lift drawings as a valuable submittal. What I mean by that is, like I said, get all the main questions and the main coordination done early. And then just use your lift drawings to ask for confirmation for things that maybe were done verbally or not cleaned up in the design drawings.

Don't put too much red on your lift drawings. If you have too many questions in red or dimensions in red you're just going to get crappy answers from the design team. They're going to just blow a lot of stuff off. So we'd like to get most of that figured out and then have in red confirming information essentially.

And then use the model as a communication tool. So set up views in your model. And when you go to have a meeting with the design team, have views set up that have the information shown that you want to get confirmed or verified.

If you use the model and set up your views right you can run that meaning and own that meeting through your model. And then run efficient meetings, and then people are more likely to want to meet with you and get issues resolved, essentially.

So QC other trades. So I touched on this on the people section. Be a good team member. Look at all the shop drawings that are coming in. Not all of them, but look at the things that you think might be wrong and just throw up a flag when you're not seeing concrete geometry line up.

So bring in their DWGs too. If you're bringing in an IFC from the steel fabricator, DWGs. Link it in and take a look. And see if they're embeds or outside of your slab, hey, you've got a problem. Just let people know.

And then for some subs that aren't using models, offer to export to DWG. Give them the information they need. So when we issue submittals we always are copying the rebar detailer. And we're copying the formwork guys as well to make sure they're always getting the most current concrete information.

And then if you can, get the team to use Navisworks, Navisworks Freedom. If you can get them to use that's it's going to save you a ton of questions on the phone. A little hard to do sometimes. But if you can do that kudos to you.

So drawing tips and tricks, or annotation. It's about efficiency. So try to copy as much annotation and views as you can. We've got really efficient with our annotation process, especially with core walls, copying model elements, plus views, plus annotation up as you go, and using as much as you can.

PDF overlays. This one here, sometimes, especially when you're using parts, if you adjust a drain elevation, or slope, or whatever it blows up your spot elevations. You get some error that you're losing 34 spot elevations, and 60 dimensions lost the reference. Sometimes that happens.

I just suggest PDF overlays and blue beam to really make sure you're always overlaying, especially when you take your for review drawings. When you're about to issue for construction drawings, always overlay them with the for review, and make sure you didn't somehow or someone on your team didn't lose a bunch of annotation.

And then document control and change tracking. Again, this goes back to communication and process. You see so many times just in the construction world in general, that mistakes happen when people don't have the right information and they're not communicating. People are using old drawings, or didn't know about this RFI.

So what we do is we just have this spreadsheet. It goes out in the email every time we issue drawings that shows each drawing by sheet number, by name. And then we have the date on the most current drawings, and the date submitted, and then resubmitted, and resubmitted, and resubmitted for whatever RFI changes. And then what's in the title block.

And then we put a link to a box.com folder, where they always have only the most current information. So that PE, or that super, whoever, they can always go to box and always have the most current information. So that's there's no excuse for them to have old information, essentially.

They look at the drawings that they have printed out. What's the title box say? Does it match this? Oh, no, it doesn't. Hash go download new drawings.

All right. We're at 37.

PRESENTER 2: I'm going talk about product. Two main things that I'm going to talk about here are style and content. In terms of style, the most important thing to think about as you're creating your lift drawings is that you really need to put yourself--

[CLEARING THROAT]

--pardon me-- in the shoes of the guy that's actually out there doing the work. Think about, if you were the guy that's out there laying out the formwork, what dimensions am I going to need to be able to effectively lay this out?

So in this case, things like the overall out to out of a wall is a really critical dimension, if you're the guy that's laying out the formwork. On the other hand, the dimension from grid to out and grid degrade is going to be important for the guy that's out there checking where the formwork's laid out. So it's always a good idea to present both of those pieces of information.

Dan and I came from the design world. And the philosophy there with drawings in the design world is to never represent the same piece of information in more than one place because it's somewhat likely that they're going to be a little bit different. In this case, the exact opposite is true. We're trying to provide as much information as possible.

Also in terms of style, just the general nature of how it is that you're dimensioning these things in terms of the hierarchy of dimensions. So across the board for all of our lift drawing jobs, we're going with the overall out to out first. And then you tie the edges of formwork from the grid to where the formwork is. And then you provide any internal dimensions from there.

These little things actually go a really, really long way towards enhancing the field productivity of the guys that are out there actually working on it. Other little things that help a ton, that just give the drawings a harmonious feel to them and they also reduce the amount of time that the guys in the field are searching around in drawings. Some of the things that we consider there is just text lining up across an entire drawing, views lining up.

If you have a couple of wall elevations, that the datum elevation lines up as you go across the drawing. Just little things like that actually goes a really long way towards enhancing field productivity.

And also very, very important in terms of how the drawings come out is it's just that the drawings are presented in a logical manner. That you don't have jumbled information floating all over the place. Helps the guys in the field when they're looking at the drawings know where they're going to get the information that they need. Prevents them from shuffling through a series of drawings.

That same philosophy actually also applies to just the general schematic of the drawing package. Dan talked earlier about using the dot system to let everybody know that each drawing corresponds to a certain type of element, and then a level as well. So just this overall general organization goes a long way towards helping out the crews in the field.

In a way, it's also critical to consider that you're teaching those guys how to read your drawings and how to think in the field. So keep all these little things in mind.