Implementing Revit in your practice

I started this post as a collection of ways to implement Revit into your practice. As I wrote, I relaised that actually these principles are fairly sound for any software implementation. If you are an IT professional – you should know all this already and I apologise, but this post is not for you. If you do not have a dedicated IT department or if you are the architect tasked (taxed) with implementing Revit (or Office 2007 etc.) – then read on.

A successful implementation will rely on a few commonsense rules and a lot of hard work. Ensure you know what Revit is, I don’t mean that to sound trite, but ensure you know what it is that you are wishing to get from the software. Have expectations, begin them fairly low, but know what it is you want and check that the software will be able to deliver. You will be sorely disappointed if after 6 weeks of work you cannot produce what you had hoped.

Choose a small, simple project to trial Revit on. Begin with simple geometry. Choose a project that is homed in one office (assuming that you may have more than one to begin with), this will make it easier to manage and also to address any issues quickly and simply. Feedback will be given and you can train, teach and mentor as needed.

Have a project champion – this person should be respected, have credibilty and gravitas within the office and should be reasonably senior. They do not have to be actively using Revit, though it would help, but should be actively championing the cause and rallying the team when the going gets tough.

There will be an element of cultural change required. Your champion should be able to help with this. But the whole team needs to know that they will be working differently. The project must be executed differently. A lot of work will be done up front before anything sensible can be delivered. I would strongly advise against changing the model close to the deadline for printing and submission. Allow a few days to “lock “the model in order to get prints out. If you don’t – you might get yourselves in a very bad mess.

Be realistic about what to model and what to draw. Some items should be modeled – some merely drawn. Take for example doors. Model them. They will be used often, they will need scheduling, they will be altered, they have common characteristics (jamb, frame and so on). I wouldn’t model them to the fine detail on the door pattern or handles for example. Draw these if you are planning to render. By not modeling every detail you will be able to save time and use your efforts better elsewhere.

For the project you are undertaking – consider the advantages of Revit for different types of work. Residential – clients understand models and visualisations, they are not so keen on floor plans. The rendered model is key here. Hospitality – changes to items within hotel rooms such as beds or baths can flow through the whole model and make large changes easier to bear. Communicate these advantages wt your team, it will help them see the bigger picture and the advantages to what you are doing.

Revit and BIM (Building Information Model click here for Wikipedia definition) can change the scope of services you offer.  These can be extended and you can work closer with other professions, structural or environmental engineers for example.  Be sensible – don’t offer your services until you have discovered what you can and cannot achieve as a team.  Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

In short, for a successful Revit implementation – begin small, plan, communicate, train and support.  These are absolutely crucial for the success of any project.  By doing these five things you will engage the practice, engage the client and be able to change your CAD strategy and ultimately deliver better value and work more effectively.

Web Meetings

The concept of a virtual conference is not a new one; its roots are firmly embedded with a history of audio and later video conferencing.  What sets it aside is the ability to interact with the other participants and to accurately and converse and discuss.  The basic tenet of screen sharing ensures that all participants are indeed looking at exactly the same file and discussing the exact same piece of information – no more checking of which page are we talking about or describing in detail the area of graphic or drawing being discussed and therefore running the time consuming risk of talking at cross-purposes.

The web meeting can be had in either an ad-hoc or more structured manner and from the pleasure of one’s desktop or laptop, no complicated nor expensive equipment is needed merely some software and a network connection.  This is leaps and bounds on from the days of sharing screens on video conferencing – there is virtually no jerkiness or stuttering of the video.

From a work process perspective the beauty comes in being able to screen share with a geographically diverse located team and quickly hammer out an issue.  Control of the mouse and application can be given to other parties to further facilitate the discussion.  There is no need for all to have theapplication software – it is being “shared” for the duration of the conference.  From a green perspective, there is no travel involved – the carbon footprint is very, very low.  From a personal perspective there is no time spent travelling – time that could be better spent in the office or at home.  Of course the cost is much, much less as well, typically a license could cost between £6 and £30 per month (though depending on the vendor there may be a minimum number to purchase).

Many of them are easily adapted to providing seminars or eLearning – training diverse teams on small subjects.  It could be updates to the intranet or new CAD standards – I would suggest no more than a lunchtimes worth of training otherwise it becomes onerous..  The software will let delegates post questions and the training session can be recorded for offline playback at alter date.  Some will let the trainer know who is focused – that is to say who is actually watching the session and who is reading their email whilst logged in to the session.

Well known vendors include Microsoft with their Live Meeting, Citrix with their GoToMeeting, Cisco with WebEx, Adobe with ConnectPro.  Lesser known, though equally good and useful include Zoho and Beam Your Screen (who are unique in being a UK based company).  Many offer different prices depending on the number of users and whether it is one-to-many or many-to-many.  In terms of choosing a vendor – I would suggest trialing a number – maybe one of the well known vendors and one of the less so for comparison.  All systems offer a try before you buy option or have free versions which typically offer 2 or 3 attendees.  Look out for latency – how long the other end has to wait before the screen changes, other features such as recording the session and if audio conferencing can be included in the cost.

So in conclusion, you should be doing this already; if you are not then you are missing a trick.  You will be saving money, saving time, saving the planet and devoting more effort to creative thinking and providing excellent service to your clients.

Having said all this however, it cannot replace face-to-face interaction.  The key to success in using web meetings is to know the limitations.  Whilst web meetings may be quick and efficient, do not expect to generate group decisions, inspire and engender teamwork or build relationships with clients.

Finding a simpler way of sharing

The following was written for Building Design Magazine by myself and published on 20th October 2006.  Though 3 years old, the principles of collaboration remained the same for Broadway Malyan and they continue to use Buzzsaw to this day.  The use of Redsky’s software remains were it’s strengths are – that of strong financial management and analysis.  The desire to move to lower cost, secure file sharing remained, but other projects (such as the practices gloablisation into the Middle East and Asia) took the time and budget required to implement and focussed it elsewhere.

Broadway Malyan has long been a happy user of Autodesk’s Buzzsaw project collaboration tool. But now the practice is migrating to a rival product, explains the practice’s IT director Simon Johns

Our use of extranets began five years ago when the need to be able to shift large amounts of project-related data to our clients and significant others in ever shorter time frames became an absolute necessity.

Email can be a great tool, but its use today has become somewhat of chore. It is able to move files about, but there are limits. It is not secure. It is not guaranteed. It does not handle files well — especially large ones associated with cad or graphics. Email is a common vector for viruses, spam, Trojans, phishing and a host of other nasties associated with modern living. In short, it is not suited for the secure, commercial, timely transmission of data.

Project extranets offer many features that enable the movement of files around the internet. With built-in file viewers, “anytime, anyplace” access to these files is possible. While there are many, many extranets-in-a-box to choose from, we chose Buzzsaw from Autodesk. To us, this seemed the obvious choice we had an existing investment in Autodesk’s Architectural Desktop and Buzzsaw integrates into this well.

Our file transmission is secure and guaranteed. Buzzsaw uses FTP to upload and download files. It is available as an application and also as a browser-based version, enabling access from anywhere. The application is easily installed and updated without any special permissions. When files are uploaded the project team is notified, and a link in the email can take you straight to the new files, which can then be viewed or downloaded for further modification. This feature has worked to Broadway Malyan’s advantage where project teams work in offices across Europe and with associate offices internationally. All have access to the same data in the knowledge that changes can be seen quickly and cheaply.

File access is recorded, with user, time and date information. This is often useful when one party forgets that they have reviewed drawings already and have had access to the information for quite a while.

The files in Buzzsaw are stored across the globe data is mirrored between sites in the US and Europe. This feature is something most architects (and, let’s face it, the larger practices are only really small to medium enterprises) could never afford out of their IT budgets. So the ability to buy web space in a cutting-edge project extranet, and buy into all features such as these, is almost a dream come true.

Buzzsaw offers many features that are useful to the construction process — there are many project management tools which are easily customised. But we at Broadway Malyan only use it for the storage of project files and a few other choice items. These project files could be AutoCAD drawings, and Buzzsaw’s ability to link in reference files automatically is a great time-saving feature and one of the reasons why we chose it. These could be large, print-ready PDF or JPG files for transmission to the printers or a repro house, thereby saving time and effort in burning CDs and biking, and allowing for documents to be worked on right up to the wire.

Our IT team also uses Buzzsaw for the delivery of new software packages, using higher bandwidth internet lines rather than dedicated quality lines. In this way they can move gigabytes of data to other office servers for local installation. We have rolled out our main cad package, Architectural Desktop, in this manner as well as many multi-CD graphics packages.

The management of Buzzsaw is simple and this simplicity is of great benefit to architects big and small, as it speeds up the publication process — which is, after all, why we are using it. But it also allows for precise publication to the correct people. This layer of integrity is easy to set up and no real understanding of computer security is needed.

So what is the future for Buzzsaw at Broadway Malyan? We have benefited greatly from its use, but we touch only the edge of the product and have no need for its more complicated features. With this in mind, over the coming months we will be migrating our projects and data to another system which will allow greater flexibility in the way we can operate our extranet. Unlike Buzzsaw, the new licensing model will no longer limit us to the amount of gigabytes stored on a foreign server or number of users able to access the site. We will be free to publish what we want to whom without having to think about the financial implications. This is not without its issues, but they become internalised and can be dealt with far more effectively. We already have the infrastructure; as a multi-national practice we have large network connections and the necessary security.

The software we will use is a spin-off from RedSky IT project portal Informate, which was purchased to give job leaders and directors better financial information in running their jobs. By switching on extra modules, Informate will be capable of replacing Buzzsaw, making the whole exercise sterling neutral (that is, the cost of buying Informate will be cancelled out by migrating away from Buzzsaw). There are many other features of this portal we will aim to exploit in future, but this one gives us dividends that make the project pay for itself.

The future of our project extranet can now be branded exactly as we wish, and who knows where it will end — maybe it will contain streaming movies of fly-throughs and other media-rich applications.

Buzzsaw is a great product which, in our opinion, is better than many of its competitors because it is simple to use. At the end of the day, what more could we want? But that very simplicity for us is its downfall when we can use another product to achieve the same aims at no cost.

l Buzzsaw details are available at www.autodesk.com/buzzsaw

l Information on RedSky IT (formerly Ramesys Construction Services) can be found by visiting www.redskyit.com

Read more: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=528&storycode=3075722#ixzz0SHsnaudR