Success Story
Simple But Powerful - Collaboration with ABC Pro
Customer challenge
When the team in one location saved updates to a model, due to internet speeds and other logistics, the team in the other location would be locked out of that model for up to fifteen minutes. Labor is an expensive resource. Design Operations Manager Erik Renna explained, “Having people sitting and waiting on updates was wasted time.” As designers continued to be added in both locations, the company needed to establish a process that enabled the design teams to work together.
Project goals
The company wanted its design teams to be able to continuously work on project models, not sit and wait on updates to models hosted in a central file on servers. The overarching goal was better efficiency through interoffice and cross-office collaboration.
Since the company works exclusively on its own design-build projects, it was also important to be able to collaborate with project partners, bringing in other members of the overall design team and giving them access to the 3D project model.
Solution
Central partnered with Applied Software and decided to implement Autodesk BIM Collaborate (ABC) Pro to host its Autodesk Revit models in the cloud. Through the web interface and model viewer, Central could give end users the opportunity to access the Autodesk Revit model in the cloud any time they wanted to. This provided real-time access to the model as it progressed through design. Fortunately, Central had team members with experience using Autodesk Revit and ABC Pro, so the design team didn’t need to take formal training. Erik explained that ABC Pro was easy to implement, characterizing the process as simple but powerful.
Business outcome
[Erik] said the feeling in the company was that it achieved its collaboration goal within a week. It quickly became obvious to them this was what the company needed. Central now has the ability to collaborate efficiently within and across offices on Autodesk Revit. “The fact that it lets us involve people from both offices was key,” Erik said.
He added that Central benefitted from working with Applied Software because Applied has an understanding of the unique needs of subcontractors – something that is missing with other providers. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach,” he stressed. “Applied Software understands what we do and how to meet our needs – that insight is super helpful. Our workflows are very different from other contractors.”
Conclusion
For Central Plumbing, Heating, Excavation, a design coordination process was lacking. Implementing Autodesk BIM Collaborate Pro (ABC Pro) was a good way to get past the company’s collaboration issues. Now design teams from both offices can collaborate for greater efficiency. ABC Pro also enabled the company to involve other project partners in the design process for better outcomes.
Bolstered by this success, Central is moving forward with adopting and rolling out Autodesk Construction Cloud Build for project management and document control.
Project summary
- 14
- 2023-03-01
Duration & delivery
- Architecture, Engineering & Construction Collection
- BIM Collaborate
- Revit
Autodesk solutions
- BIM
- Assessment of Needs
- Implementation
- Pipeline Development
- Process Automation
- Strategy & Planning
- Workflow Optimization
- Optimize Accelerator Delivery
- Software Development & Customization
- Installation
- Configuration & Deployment
- System & Software Maintenance
- System Integration
- Updates & Upgrades
- Virtualization
Services provided
- Construction Design
- MEP Engineering
Customer industry
Productivity Tracking with Assemble
Construction is a difficult game,” Hunt said. “There are a lot of things that make our job difficult. Working with our own data shouldn’t be one of them.” Dee Cramer has become one of the largest heating, ventilating, and air conditioning companies in the country. With productivity tracking in mind, what the company really needed was a live feed from the project’s Autodesk Revit model. If a user could change the status of the model’s components to live feed, Hunt knew the company could track the workflow, including hours, margin and profitability. Hunt said another motivation for making a change came from realizing the industry is moving toward designers being more willing to share their design content in native Revit with contractors before projects are awarded – in the pre-bid stage.
Progressing Forward with Vault
The company’s owner is a proponent of using up-to-date software to keep the company progressing forward and found that the Autodesk trend toward doing that aligned better with Sigma Thermal goals, particularly in the use of Autodesk AutoCAD, Autodesk AutoCAD Electrical, AutoCAD P&ID, and Autodesk Inventor. Until 2016, Sigma Thermal was using Synergis Adept. Users found that the Autodesk Inventor integration was slow when using Adept, especially checking larger drawings in and out. Efficiency was suffering. In addition, because Sigma Thermal is ISO9000 certified, everyone in the company – not just IT personnel, designers and engineering – needed access to project files, corporate information, procedures and the employee handbook.
Revit Implementation to Stay Competitive
A few years ago, Limbach leadership began seeing an increasing demand for Revit-only projects on the East Coast of the US and the Midwest. National VDC Manager Mark Lamberson became aware of customer comments like, "Why aren’t you in Revit yet?" “We were a leading firm,” he said, “but were not the preferred company because of something as simple as that in some instances.” That spawned the decision to support the switch to Autodesk Revit and create a team to implement it. “We had to do it.” People with 30 years of AutoCAD experience had to completely change the way they did things. The company took the transition slowly, with some branches transitioning earlier than others. Lamberson monitored how groups were doing in their adoption. When Limbach began its Revit implementation, it was involved in mega-projects around the country, so the company wasn’t able to adopt Revit completely on a massive project. Implementation began in bits and pieces, and large jobs lagged behind.
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