BIM Management Tool

Before we get into the post, the goal is to completely eliminate the need for this, but the main reason a lot of people read what I write is its also grounded in the midwestern roots of we still have to execute to do with projects that are active now.

As a detailer you come across a lot of information contract drawings from various disciplines (i.e. architectural, structural, mechanical, etc.), product data submittals for things like louvers, various trade shop drawings for window sizes, or exterior duct routings.

Plus you may notice things that impact your work internally, how do we plan to erect this, or are we sure we can access this back here. Another case we have is communicating issues found to our delegated design engineers (this could be eliminated if we made the engineering drawings with the fabrication drawings), but work in progress.

You, as a detailer, make a lot of decisions that can be consequential on the project.

You don't look at a certain submittal or RFI and all of a sudden those 21" wide openings are not wide enough causing re-work.

Our goal is to be perfect and no one takes mistakes harder or more personally than a detailer. Those phone calls are one of the most sickening feelings...

As such we (detailers_ start to develop checklists for as many things and mistakes we have made.

• Do life safety plans match wall types?

• Is there an access issue around this column?

• Can the crane reach this point with this load?

• Do the gridlines match between A&S?

• Do gridlines change between garage and tower?

Some items are external you need feedback from the GC, this trade, or that design firm.

When you work by yourself or on one project its a little easier to manage especially if you are the only detailer, this was my experience in 2019 when I was just figuring it out. Those first panel tickets took late nights and weekends to complete, the lack of understanding was large. The benefit was it was the only job so each day I was in the details it was just me so it was okay that the process sucked because it was still manageable to keep in my head and at the end of the day I learned, the job was built, and we still saved schedule for the GC before winter in Ohio.

A few years down the road you have created a process, "okay so first we start with grids, levels, overall floor plans... For this type of project we need to get this, this, and that information."

So now you have a check list of steps, and a list of items to make sure you coordinate with. You may now have a team with you, whether in house or not. Personally as the oversee of this group, its my take that it still needs to be managed and reviewed for correctness much like a foreman on a construction site.

***at this stage in the article its worth noting I never worked at a construction firm with a large existing BIM department everything in this article was experienced based learning***

There are multiple drawing collaboration tools Trimble Viewpoint, Autodesk Plangrid, Procore, Bluebeam etc. All basically allow you you to keep the drawings current across all parties as the main problem they have solved, hyperlinks are just a bonus.

There are also multiple BIM issue tools (not really focused on clashes, that's a GC thing). You can make issues in revizto, procore, bimtrack, ACC (although that has been buggy for me in the past).

Here is my hypothesis on an ideal solution as a a detailer submitting a model to a GC for coordination and eventually your plant for fabrication, trade agnostic.

The holy grail is a system similar to many project management software where you can:

• manage the budget,

• hours spent,

• what steps like gridlines, laying out level 1 exterior walls, splitting panels are complete or not.

There are many tools that can do this commercially. For this I use currently notion and excel.

Next is the construction piece with mainly document control and issue management. Issue management is anything that could negavtily impact the budget.

Ideally you want to be able to export reports, compile issues into agendas where you hold zoom calls and with an AI note taker solve issues in the meeting and its recorded so they are updated and closed with a recording of what was resolved b/c when you have multiple jobs going on you might forget what the hell was the solution to FRT or PT wood on this project (I personally have had to re-look up stuff like this). That can be a challenge as a detailer or reviewer is going between projects that context switching cost is very real.

As a detailer you want to be able to create these issues as fast as possible. Having to open a browser and fill out a form like title, type out a description, upload drawings, etc. kills progress.

You don't just want to make notes that say confirm this or check that on the revit sheets because those items can not be exported into a list of what is open and what is not.

They cannot be recorded against what is the actual solution or resolution inside revit, a thread if you will.

You want a good PDF tool where you can markup and highlight the plans for what has been modeled and what notes have been reviewed. Personally green notes means reviewed and impacts our scope. Yellow means reviewed, but no scope impact. Coupled with this is a good robust API so you can ensure you have latest plan and submittal files at hand.

I think bluebeam has the best markup tools, but they lack the BIM stuff to track/sync issues across plans and models.

I think procore has one of the better bim tools for a trade to just create issues, but their markup tools suck when that's what you spend a lot of time doing.

The intent is not to create a tool about work, but to help make a detailers life better and easier, that's all the matters if something above does not do that its gone. Its also important that software be workflow agnostic if sold commercially.

PS Maybe I am crazy and someone does something better.

PPS This was just a large mental list of ideas to vet out with the world.