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Setting Up Standards – The Coveted Clean Slate
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Setting Up Standards – The Coveted Clean Slate
I apologize for the novel, but IM EXCITED ABOUT THIS.
I work for a small commercial design-build developer as a construction manager. We deliver spaces to tenants from cradle to grave – from initial space plan concepts to managing designers to procurement to managing subs to permitting and eventually to property management once the space is turned over. The whole deal.
I have a professional degree in architecture and planning and was always interested in BIM and using technology and logic to make my life easier. I would spend many sleepless nights in the studio figuring out how to streamline my presentation drawings in Revit. BIM is just so powerful and extraordinary to me.
I recently stumbled across some bluebeam tutorials on youtube and was blown away by the capabilities I never knew existed. I am the youngest of our 4 person construction team, with the others technologically capable, but not like my director of construction. He is pretty savvy despite his age, and I’ve scheduled a meeting to set our bluebeam standards and methodology.
I was happy to stumble into this amazing and helpful community and I guess I just wanted to pose this question:
If you had an opportunity to create your company’s standards using what you know now,
What mistakes would you avoid?
What toolchest items would you allot more time to?
How in depth would you go?
Can you create a standardized template with everything loaded? Much like loading rvt families?
Any other tips or suggestions?
What is the most important logic / philosophy / approach / whatever you want to call it way to handle this?
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7 Replies
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Points: 12,699Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt II
Welcome Anthony.
The answers to your questions are going to highly depend on your workflows.
I can really only answer one of them, and that’s to the standardized template…. Yes. Profiles can be shared.
The rest are all going to depend on just how far you want to take it.If I had a tip… Learn.
When you start with a problem, you want to figure out where you want to go – your target condition. Then you want to see where you are now – your current condition. Then you just have to figure out how to get there and what obstacles do you need to overcome.
You also should base everything on need. Ask yourself, “What problem am I trying to solve.”Once you’re there, you can work the problem one step at a time to achieve your goals.
If you like, search out the Morning Coffee Revu at ATG and join us Tuesday mornings at 9:30 EDT for a great webinar and chat.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. That’s what we’re here for.
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Points: 177Rank: UC2 Brainery Newbie
Doug! Thank you for the wisdom. Yea, that’s where I was leaning to. Gotta get your knuckles dirty and get down with the nitty gritty. It is how I’ve learned everything else. I guess my questions were too broad. How about this, I’ll dig in to it and ask for criticism? Is it proper to upload and share files here? Maybe I can do my best and post it for people to comment?
Anyway, thanks for the insight and I’ll definitely be seeing you around DOUG!
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Points: 6,258Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt I
Yeah sharing files here is fine. =)
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Points: 6,258Rank: UC2 Brainery Purple Belt I
Definitely agree with Doug, your process will evolve over time as you integrate each capability, and there will be a learning curve for new users that you will have to adjust to. Target those tech savvy users, get them a standardized profile and toolset, give them a few training sessions on your most used tools, and allow that knowledge to trickle down to the older crew that take a little more time to be comfortable in new software.
Keep in mind that there are a couple of different ways to distribute profiles, you can distribute a copy for everyone to modify with customizations of their own, or place it on the network for people to collaborate using the same updated toolset. That would probably be priority to figure out, much of the rest will probably come with experimentation, i.e. getting someone else in the loop with the software so you can see how things like studio collaboration will work for you.
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Points: 11,999Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt I
As Doug says – ask questions and lots of them.
You’ll find that we all use Revu is slightly different ways for our workflows and many of the techniques are not something that are taken directly from the Bluebeam ‘handbook’.
There may also be several different ways in which you can achieve your goals so be prepared to continually update what you create in Revu.
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Points: 12,699Rank: UC2 Brainery Blue Belt II
If I had to learn one thing over again, it would be how important custom tools and custom columns really are. Learn how to create them and how the data that comes from them can be worked.
Data, and how we work that data, is becoming increasingly important in today’s construction environment. We need to harness it. -
Points: 20,929Rank: UC2 Brainery Brown Belt
All great answers, as always. my approach is always, what makes us successful, what obstacles have we eliminated in the past, and what can I mimic in Bluebeam. For instance, a yellow highlighter has always been for “Material X”, when I make a tool to measure “Material X” it will be yellow. Reduce the learning curve as much as possible by keeping things the same. Bake in the wisdom of your senior employees. Build the tools and profile so users trip into doing everything correctly, and make it so they have to go out of their way to do it wrong.
As far as sharing files on this site, all I ask is that the material drives people TO my site and not away from it. Thanks for all you guys do!
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